This Week's (Oxy)morons: Republicans in the NEA

A lot has happened since my last essay, but I’ll do what I can to catch up. First on the list is a fairly recent story: yesterday’s piece by Josh Lederman on HuffPo about Republican teachers’ discontent at what the headline describes as an “Obama-Centric Union Conference” of the National Education Association.

It strikes me that three points need to be made.

#1: No union conference ought to have the feel of a political rally. It’s reasonable, I suppose, to endorse a candidate, but it’s another matter altogether to boo or shout down someone with opposing political views at an event which at least ostensibly is not primarily political in nature. Encouraging delegates to hold “house parties” to “educate their friends about why Obama… deserves a second term” and presenting conference attendees with t-shirts inscribed with Obama’s name: a bit much, to say the least. More to the point, if the NEA wants to endorse Obama based on his education policies, that is certainly their right… but singing the praises of the ACA strikes me as being more than a little outside the reasonable parameters of relevance.

#2. Buried in Lederman’s article is a revealing mention of something called the NEA Republican Leaders Conference, an attempt by the national organization to be more inclusive of a wider range of political views. This is apparently not a mere bone tossed to GOP teachers, as it is treated with no little respect by the Republican NEA members themselves. Anne Loeffler of Pennsylvania, for instance,

… reported that the Republican conferences occur because the annual NEA Representative Assembly voted to fund this effort in an attempt to reach out and give a voice to… Republican members. “So often, we hear that NEA and PSEA [Pennsylvania State Education Association] only support Democratic Party candidates. These efforts demonstrate that our union believes in supporting candidates who work to improve our public schools and the lives of the children we educate regardless of party affiliation.”

And, indeed, whereas the NEA has never endorsed a Republican for President, they have done so at many other levels of political office.

#3. While I have some sympathy for the GOP members of the NEA, I confess I’m not all that concerned. Davina Keiser, the head of the Republican caucus in the NEA, whines that “For Republican teachers, it's almost like we're stepchildren in NEA, and then in the Republican Party we're also stepchildren, because we're public schoolteachers, and that's not part of their focus.” She’s kidding, right? “Not part of their focus”?

We’re not talking about just teachers here; we’re talking about members of a teachers union. As such, Keiser and her colleagues are very much “part of [the] focus” of the GOP: as targets, as scapegoats, as cover for failed and often corrupt policies. True, education is not at the center of Governor Romney’s campaign. True, too, that the Obama administration has had what I’d call a spotty record on education issues. But it surpasses credulity that a member of the NEA doesn’t understand that her profession and especially her union affiliation within that profession have been not de-emphasized, but actively demonized, by Rick Snyder, Rick Perry, Rick Scott (why do so many idiot governors have to be named Rick?), Scott Walker, Mitch Daniels, John Kasich... need I continue?

There is a spiral effect here, of course, and I’m not going to attempt to place blame. It’s certainly true that the NEA and the other big public-school union, the American Federation of Teachers, have leaned well to the left for as long as I can remember. And, increasingly of late, the GOP has pushed back with a series of policy initiatives that appear to be based at least as much on pique as on philosophy. All of which means the NEA becomes more skeptical of Republicans—any Republicans, including potential allies—which in turn… well, Gentle Reader, you get the picture.

I am, as I’ve said before, no huge fan of unions, especially in professions. I’ve twice voted against organizing a union, twice passed on the opportunity to join an existing union, and never even joined the “union light” American Association of University Professors. This doesn’t mean, however, that I am unappreciative of the motives or efforts of those who see unionization as the most viable means by which to improve the conditions of employment. Faced with the political climate that exists now, I might have taken a different position with respect to unionization when those decisions were made years ago.

Of course, teachers unions have become a handy whipping-boy for unbalanced budgets actually created by Republican governors and state legislatures granting tax breaks to fat-cats and corporate cronies. Still, some of this derision is in fact deserved: sort of. As I’ve said here repeatedly in the past, anything that is negotiated can’t be blamed on one side alone. If, not-so-hypothetically, the NEA has pushed for policies that have the de facto effect of making it harder to get rid of bad teachers, those initiatives wouldn’t mean anything unless someone on the other side of the negotiating table agreed to them, in exchange for lower pay or larger class sizes or whatever. So don’t give me any “it’s all because of the unions” crap. It isn’t so, and any honest person will admit that.

The bottom line here is that an NEA delegate—not merely a member, a delegate—who actively identifies as a Republican is probably an idiot, just as a member of the #Occupy movement who buys a single share of Bank of America and expects to be granted a platform at a stockholders meeting is an idiot. Being an active Republican and being an NEA delegate are indeed in opposition, far more so now than was the case only a couple of years ago, before the recent flurry of GOP rhetoric blaming teachers in general, unions in general, and teachers unions in particular for everything from budget deficits to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby.

So Ms. Keiser and her compatriots really do have to choose between their politics and their profession (or at least their union engagement). They can have either, or neither, but they can’t have both. And being butt-hurt in the first degree doesn’t change that.

Teachers Unions and the Flight from Ambivalence

Teachers unions are much in the news of late. I confess to a profound initial ambivalence. On the one hand, the anecdotal evidence of incompetent teachers being retained largely due to union agitation is both compelling and troubling. I’d have to agree that in that particular area, the unions are more part of the problem than of the solution. But the problems faced by the American education system are hardly attributable to a single cause, and the situation is at least as bad, if not worse, in states and municipalities with no unionization at all.

First off, just as the Koch brothers may exercise far too much influence on elections in this country, they do so because the rest of us let them. We elected Ronald Reagan and the Bushes, who in turn nominated to the Supreme Court such corrupt idiots as Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, who gave virtually unfettered power to their cronies in the Citizens United case. The Kochs and their ilk can now pour millions of dollars into the political process, and to do so anonymously! So can I, by the way; it’s just that $1 million checks from me aren’t likely to be honored.

And when the Democrats, hitherto champions of the little guy and transparency (in their rhetoric, at least, if not in their actions) had a chance to make a major campaign issue out of the situation, they punted. One speech by the President, and then back to cowering in the corner when the lazy and compliant corporate media—who, after all, were making mountains of money on those anonymously-funded and seldom honest campaign ads—didn’t immediately grant “traction” to the story. (Hey, the check cleared, why should they care about anything else, right?)

Similarly, it wouldn’t matter what outrageous things the unions demanded if the folks on the other side of the negotiating table—school boards, city councils, state legislatures—would show the ability draw themselves up on their hind legs and utter that most damning of indictments: “No.”

It is reasonable that teachers be paid better than soda jerks. (My first teaching job, at the college level, when I had an MA and an honors undergrad degree from an Ivy League school, worked out to less than minimum wage once you counted up all the time spent in prep, grading, advising, committee work, rehearsal, etc.) It is reasonable that teachers have protection against being fired by a principal who didn’t like the fact that the bumper sticker on their car supported the “wrong” candidate. (This actually happened, by the way, in a right-to-work state a couple of years ago. The courts upheld the dismissal and, legally, were right to do so.) It is reasonable for teachers to have a brief respite sometime during the school day when they’re not surrounded by 30 or 40 (or more) of somebody else’s misbehaving children. It is reasonable for a benefits package—insurance, a retirement plan, etc.—to be part of a teacher’s contract. All of these things are the product of negotiation, whether it is an individual or a union who is doing the negotiating.

So are things like sabbatical leaves, tenure procedures, and sick leave guidelines. And so are standards for dismissing “bad” teachers. If a school board or whoever is on that side of the negotiating table doesn’t like some provision in a union contract, negotiate a better deal. If the union threatens some sort of job action, let ‘em. If what you’re fighting for is the right to dismiss an incompetent teacher, you’ll win the rhetorical battle in the minds of the public, and the situation will be resolved fairly quickly.

But because the negotiators on the other side failed to do their jobs, unions have been demonized. Don’t get me wrong: there are a lot of procedures in place right now, procedures wanted by unions, that work against the common weal, both in the classroom and on the bottom line. It’s difficult to blame a union, however, for seeking to provide the best possible deal for its members. And the current furor about teachers' not paying into their own retirement systems is just silly, even on the rare chance that it’s technically true. What’s the practical difference between a). a salary of $40,000 a year with $4000 going into a retirement fund, $2000 paid by the state and $2000 by the worker, and b). a salary of $38,000 with a $4000 retirement contribution all paid by the state? Both cost the state $42,000; both give the employee $38K in pre-tax income. (I suppose there might be a small but extant difference in states with income taxes if salaries are taxed and benefits not, but surely this isn’t a significant issue, right?)

I have never been a member of a union; I’ve turned down the opportunity twice, and I’ve also resisted (but been tempted by) the Union-Lite American Association of University Professors. Because I perhaps arrogantly believe that I’m at least average at my job, I’d like to think that I might make out better with merit pay increases than with something across the board. But I also realize two things: merit pay can very easily go to those who are the most compliant to the administration (or who are good friends with someone on the Board of Regents, or who teach the “right” subject, or who go to the “right” church, or…), not necessarily the best people; and, especially in a field like theatre, merit pay militates against the cooperation and teamwork that ultimately make the whole operation run—the lighting designer should be my colleague, not my competitor for a couple hundred bucks in merit money.

But what is happening to union workers across the country right now is scary. In Wisconsin, the budget problems are real, but just as the recently-instituted corporate tax breaks are irrelevant to the current crisis (they don’t kick in until next year), so, too, the savings generated by cutting into the de facto wages of thousands of state employees won’t solve the problem, for precisely the same reason. The goal is—must be—just as the union leaders are telling us: to break the unions, who have, after all, long since agreed to wage and benefits concessions. The current battle is all about collective bargaining rights: nothing more, nothing less.

Cue the Ronald Reagan quotation about Solidarity: “one of the most elemental human rights—the right to belong to a free trade union.” Or cue the Ronald Reagan quotation about PATCO, declaring that union’s strike “a peril to national safety,” and then proceeding to have under-trained air traffic controllers installed at many of the country’s largest airports. That he got away with it doesn’t change the cold-blooded disregard for… erm… national safety just so he could earn some machismo points. Good thing about ol’ Ron, he could be pretty much counted on to have no core values that required any intellectual consistency: he could wrap himself in the flag as well as any man who ever lived, but the 21st-century conservatives who kneel at his graven image would be sore disappointed if they really had any sense of history.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, unions tend to endorse (and write checks to) Democrats, whereas business groups and corporations tend to back Republicans. Note: I know this is an over-simplification, but it is only that, as opposed to an untruth. And while if I were a union member I wouldn’t be thrilled that some of my dues were going to candidates I wouldn’t necessarily support, I can’t say that I’m jumping for joy that my cell phone company is supporting Rand Paul, either.

Of course, in states where there are no teachers unions, teachers are still the enemy, both underpaid and essentially despised. How dare that mere teacher give my little cherub a richly deserved failing grade that might keep him out of the big game? I’d better call the principal to get that bitch fired. [I am, by the way, becoming increasingly convinced that principals are, as a group, the single most craven and stupid group of people this side of the demolition derby.]

And no, we can’t possibly expect Billy Bob the oil trust baby to pay a few extra bucks in taxes. It’s those damned teachers (and cops, and nurses, and similar blights on society) who are destroying the state’s budget balance. Well, that and the fact that the federal stimulus money I screamed about (but took, in abundance) ran out. It’s all Obama’s fault. Well, his and the teachers’ who voted for him. They only work, like, 30 hours a week for 30 weeks, right? [For the record, because some people are stupider than skunk shit irony-challenged, I am fully aware of the absurdity of the foregoing.] The one thing everyone agrees on is that there are too few good teachers at every level. Gee, I wonder why…

I have a friend, also an educator, who is convinced that the real goal of Scott Walker and his ideological brethren isn’t to destroy teachers unions, but to destroy public education altogether. I really wish I could argue with him.