9 ms·

Unions

29 points by fogus 16y ago

ajscherer 16y ago
The reason we don't allow soldiers to strike isn't because giving them better working conditions, benefits or compensation would threaten national security (it would merely be more expensive), but because not having soldiers available 100% of the time would be a threat to national security. We don't need the same availability from teachers. Mr. Spock would've immediately made this distinction. He also would've objected to the whole "teachers union -> bad education -> bad economy -> bad military" handwave. I like Dilbert, but as I've said before this is why Scott is writing cartoons and not proofs.
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
This unions vs. education meme seems to mostly a US phenomenon as far as I can tell. As a non-USian I read a great comment here the last time it came up, pointing out that teaching unions gained strength in the US because teachers used to get fired for such crimes as interracial dating, being seen in town after dark and basically anything else that offended the puritanical. I found that an eye-opening insight.
- mmt 16y ago
  I'm not sure that arbitrary firings for political reasons is relevant, either to the original article or the issue at large. What's striking to me is the unions of government employees is legal in any way, shape, or dorm. I'm pretty sure that private schools here in the US remain non-unionized.
  - igrekel 16y ago
    I've been to a private school where the teachers were unionized. They were with a different union association than the public school teachers. This was in Canada, not in the US but I don't see why it would be different.
    - mmt 16y ago
      I don't see why it would be different, either. I'm just unaware of it being a common phenomenon here in the US. Perhaps I'm mistaken. My main point is that there are cases where the private sector can do without unions, whereas the public sector schools cannot[1]. [1] At least in California I haven't heard of a single non-unionized public school.
      - igrekel 16y ago
        I believe it is just a question of the number of employees and of when the organization started. Want it or not, the state is a large and visible employer.
  - krakensden 16y ago
    No, the arbitrary firings for political reasons /is/ relevant, it's why we have teachers unions and tenure.
    - mmt 16y ago
      This is merely a reiteration of the original point. I have yet to see anything persuasive as to relevance. That is, why is it any different from any other public employment? My understanding is that civil service jobs have specific legal (aka politically-sourced) protections without resorting to techniques from the private sector. ETA: Moreover, politically-motivated firings aren't necessarily arbitrary, though they're obviously not based on merit. The unionized system doesn't appear to be merit-based, either.
  - krschultz 16y ago
    In 2006 my AP government teacher was the subject of about a half dozen articles in the local paper and a school board meeting where about 500 angry parents came and tried to get him fired for being too liberal. It is definitely relevant.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      For being too liberal, or for bringing his private political beliefs into the classroom?
      - krschultz 16y ago
        His crime was to allow the students to have a debate on the merits of two US policies - the use of torture and the use of depleted uranium. The key point was that this wasn't his idea. He solicited topics for debate from the students in the class, those two were chosen as the topics. This got misconstrued by some parents who were offended as he pushed us to consider these questions becuase he was liberal, and thus was bringing his political beliefs into the classroom. I ended up being the lead on the team that defended torture and depleted uranium (and we won), and somehow the more difficult debate actually ended up being the one I had at the school board meeting defending him.
        duncanj 16y ago
        How was the decision made on your torture/DU debates?
        krschultz 16y ago
        Not sure if you mean how was it decided that was going to be our topic or how it was decided who won the debate. The topic was proposed by a student in the class who had actually thought about it beforehand, no one else had any good ideas. The "winner" of the debate was determined by a panel of other teachers (part of the reason he got in trouble the teachers were "ruling" on gov't policy). Nobody seems to understand that the people (me and a few others) defending the US's policys could actually win. Everyone assumed that it was biased by his politics such that obviously the result would be anti-American. It was actually quite fun. Though I'd say that the reason my group won was largely becuase in 2006 a lot less was known about Gitmo. We could do a lot of "you can't prove that X Y or Z is happening, that is just conjecture", that we wouldn't be able to do today. As a side note, I'm firmly in the anti-toture and anti-DU camp, but I always find it more interesting in debate to side with the group you disagree with.
- hugh3 16y ago
  If the US did ban teachers and other vital public employees from unionization, there would in fairness need to be corresponding changes on the employer side. Among these could be a law to prohibit firing of these employees except under conditions A, B and C.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Why? The purpose of public sector employees is to benefit the public. The government should endeavor to provide as little benefit to it's employees as possible - just enough to retain the necessary workforce. Anything else is a waste of our money. A regulation of the nature you describe would potentially harm the public - an employee might be harming the public under conditions D, but would be unable to be fired.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      Look, the A B and C bit shouldn't be taken too seriously, just some kind of law against firing 'em for random, arbitrary and capricious reasons while still making it easy for them to be fired for doing a bad job.
      - anamax 16y ago
        > Look, the A B and C bit shouldn't be taken too seriously, just some kind of law against firing 'em for random, arbitrary and capricious reasons while still making it easy for them to be fired for doing a bad job. Why? If you're being paid by tax dollars, taxpayers should be able to fire you for any reason that they please. If you don't like those conditions, work for someone else who offers the conditions that you'd like. Yes, your fellow tax payers may well disagree with you about how to spend tax money. That's how democracy works. If you don't want "those people" to decide how to spend "your" money, perhaps you should carefully consider when you pay directly vs via govt.
        mmt 16y ago
        If you're being paid by tax dollars, taxpayers should be able to fire you for any reason that they please. I agree. The rub is that it's not usually the taxpayers making that decision, but their elected representatives. I believe there's already a commonly applied differentiation between appointed and civil service[1] positions. [1] I don't know if these are the actual terms, so corrections are welcome.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  It wasn't just teachers, it was more or less any respectable profession. Rules that programmers were subject to: "When I started at IBM there was a dress code, that was an informal oral code of white shirts. You couldn't wear anything but a white shirt, generally with a starched collar. I remember attending my first class, and a gentleman said to me as we were entering the building, are you an IBMer, and I said yes. He had a three piece suit on, vests were of the vogue, and he said could you just lift your pants leg please. I said what, and before I knew it he had lifted my pants leg and he said you're not wearing any garters. I said what?! He said your socks, they're not pulled tight to the top, you need garters. And sure enough I had to go get garters." http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html It wasn't just the US, the UK was also very puritanical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Conviction_for_indecency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Conviction_for_inde... Claiming that these things were restricted to teachers, or have changed because of teachers unions is nothing but the post-hoc fallacy.
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    "Claiming that these things were restricted to teachers, or have changed because of teachers unions is nothing but the post-hoc fallacy." The difference is that you don't have the entire town calling the CEO of IBM to get an employee fired for explaining what a condom is. While the same social norms were behind both corporate rules and also rules for school teachers, the rules for school teachers were many times stricter because of much greater pressure from the community. And if you look at the union rules for firing teachers, it's pretty clear that they were crafted in part to make it more difficult for a teacher to get fired due to a few parents putting pressure on the principal. Because if these rules didn't exist, then most principals would take the easy out and fire that teacher every time regardless of whether or not they actually did anything wrong. Because unlike at IBM, the principal doesn't lose any money for firing a good teacher; all that happens is they get rid of a headache, so the incentives are aligned to reward principals for harming students. That's why the protections currently offered by the unions are needed.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      Activists often call for corporate employees to be fired. Regardless, my point is that the highly inflammatory examples (interracial dating) cited by zerogravitas applied to all respectable professions historically, and no professions today. In the same era he is discussing (most likely < 1967 [1]), no one would tolerate interracial dating from a newspaper columnist, homosexuality from a money manager or non-whiteness from the CEO of the #3 Bank in the US. In the present era, Paul Krugman, Peter Thiel and Vikram Pandit all have jobs. Can we attribute that to teachers unions as well? As for firing the occasional good teacher, it's true that schools currently have no incentive to do a good job teaching students. This is a much bigger problem than firing unpopular teachers. Guess which organizations are the biggest proponents of keeping things that way? [1] Pre 1967, interracial marriage was illegal in some states (Virginia, at least). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
- Alex3917 16y ago
  I'm the one who posted the comment you're referring to. I remember seeing the primary document with the complete list of rules for schoolteachers in my history of education class, but I have no idea how I'd even find it right now. If you look back through the primary documents relating to education though it's pretty crazy how much of a role religion plays. For example, the first compulsory education law in the United States was the Ye Old Deluder Satan Act, the first half of which I'll paste below: "It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with love and false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors. It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major part of those that order the prudentials of the town shall appoint; provided those that send their children be not oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in other towns." Essentially the reason why it started becoming compulsory for town to build schools is that the government thought that children, if left to their own devices, would be corrupted by satan. And these same beliefs are also the basis of how we treat not only our children, but also our school teachers right up to this day. Hardly a week goes by in the US where there isn't a story about a teacher being fired for having a picture of themselves drinking on Facebook, breaking up an assault on a gay student, assigning a book that mentions sex, etc. Of course this mostly happens in small towns in the south; the more 'enlightened' areas of the country have already mostly switched to having their teachers teach f om entirely pre-made curricula geared toward passing standardized tests, a system which was implemented partly to prevent these 'problems' from occurring. Also, if I remember correctly even pg once commented that the reason he wasn't allowed to give his high school graduation speech is that the principal wouldn't have been able to get him fired if the parents complained.
- roc 16y ago
  > "This unions vs. education meme seems to mostly a US phenomenon as far as I can tell." Further, we've had teachers' unions for generations. (AFT was founded in 1916) But every now and again, there's a flurry of stories about how education is 'broken', and teachers' unions are the problem. This is all followed and subsumed by the stories about how we all know schools are broken and teachers unions are the problem (begging two questions in the classical sense), but charter schools (specifically) are the solution. (Despite studies having shown since the last round of this meme, that while some charter schools are superior most are inferior, and overall their average performance is notably lower than the public schools they're supposed to 'fix'.) It's enough to make you wonder where it all comes from.
tptacek 16y ago
It's definitely true that labor relations gets simpler when you can conscript your employees and place them under an entirely different code of law than US citizens. Maybe we should try that with developers, too. They're getting awfully expensive.
- krschultz 16y ago
  Thankfully we don't conscript in the US anymore. We've been at war for the last 10 years and we've drafted exactly 0 people.
  - yardie 16y ago
    Who needs conscription when you've got 10% (and by some accounts 17%) unemployment. A pool of people desperate to take any job no matter how dangerous it is.
    - krschultz 16y ago
      What a terrible smear on everyone actually in the military for reasons other than the money. 4 people in my extended family are in the military and 1 was turned down becuase he has a titanium screw from a sports injury. All of them make less money than they would have if they didn't join the military, but all joined anyway. On the other hand, I've never actually met anyone who was in the military for money except for those in the ROTC - i.e. those capable of getting a college education that would put them in the segment of the population with lower unemployment than average.
      - erikpukinskis 16y ago
        Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are several reasons to join the military? You don't think money for college, or job prospects factor into anyone's decision? Edit: And again, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure there are lots of different kinds of people in the military. Your family has a culture of serving, and lots of outside opportunities it sounds like, and that's great. But there are lots of people who join up who didn't have the same opportunities they had. Do you think it's dishonorable for them to serve in part because they didn't have access to money for college, or a good job?
iwr 16y ago
The education problem is compounded by a lack of competition between schools themselves. Children are assigned to one public school, based on residence. In order to switch schools, you have to switch residence. This, along with unions, have entrenched a mediocre education system.
- loumf 16y ago
  In Massachusetts, we have school choice. You can choose another public school to send your children to. There are availability limitations, but since the chosen school gets more public money, they accept as many as they can. The schools that are not getting chosen do try to improve (at least the ones near me do), and this statistic is one that talked about at election time. Of course, parents choose schools that they can get their children to, so it will probably be nearby. Not sure what other states do.
- blangblang 16y ago
  Agreed. In the US today, we essentially have a single payer, single provider education system. There's simply no motivation for improvement on either side, leaving the kids to pay the price.
- zdw 16y ago
  Charter schools have ended this to some degree - in places that have them you can enroll your kids (often for free) in a school of your choice. That said, they aren't a magical panacea by any means - I've worked with a few of them professionally and haven't seen any amazing benefit over public or private schools.
  - LargeWu 16y ago
    I suspect there's a high degree of self-selection bias involved in the success or failure of a charter school. That is, charter schools that do well do so because they are full of motivated students. It would be interesting to see any research that examines this aspect. Personal anecdote: I grew up in a small town in ND where there are not a lot of socioeconomic disparities. Almost everybody was lower-middle class, with a few very poor. Everybody went to the same school and had the same teachers. It should not come as a shock that those who did well in school also had parents that were supportive and themselves educated. Those who did poorly were generally children of uneducated blue collar and farm workers. While poor teacher quality may have some effect on student achievement, I suspect factors outside of schools' control play a much larger role.
jharsman 16y ago
This seems very US-centric. In Sweden there is a union for military officers for example. And there are plenty of civilian employees working for the armed forces that can join unions as much as they like and presumably cause quite a bit of chaos if they go on strike. Is the argument that teacher unions should be illegal because they somehow stifle education? That seems insane, isn't it a fundamental right to join whatever organisation you wish, not just the ones the government likes? And there are lots and lots of countries with teachers unions that outrank the US in various quality of education rankings (e.g. Finland), so it doesn't seem like teachers unions are a big barrier to higher quality education. But you do have the right to select any school you like here, which is considered some sort of extreme right wing thing in the states as far as I can tell. Although free choice of schools has it's own share of problems...
- aero142 16y ago
  "isn't it a fundamental right to join whatever organisation you wish, not just the ones the government likes?" I agree with you on this, but unions gain power from pro-union laws that enforce things like not allowing hiring non-union workers among other things, so it isn't as simple as you state. Without the legal backing, just joining an organization doesn't have much effect. This changes it from a freedom issue to legal policy issue.
sph 16y ago
The difference is that striking soldiers can cause irreparable harm while the damage done by teachers can be easily repaired. Let's say some soldiers start striking during a war for better pay. That puts the country in an immediate danger as the enemy advances and potentially causes irreparable harm (a change that cannot be undone). Even if one can retake the positions given up during the strike, many will die doing so. Clearly, there's a problem there. Now let's say some teachers start striking in September. Accepting Adams' premise that an uneducated populace is a threat to national security, what affect do striking teachers have on national security? Well, maybe those students have class from October through July that year or they loose a few weeks of schooling. The difference is that the harm is not irreparable. The harm is merely a delay or, at absolute worse, a very marginal harm. In fact, any harm is probably about the same as moving from one school district to another. Different schools teach in slightly different orders and in a slightly different way and so when moving schools, a student might loose out on a small portion of learning just as they would during a strike. Others can argue whether unions are good or bad, but I think there's a clear difference between the irreparable harm that can be caused by a military strike when compared with the reparable harm caused by a teacher strike. So, rather than September to June, students have an October to July school year one year. There's a distinct difference there. Now, before one says, "well, what about strikes during peacetime", the military operates under a readiness principle. While I don't believe that countries aren't lining up to attack the US, the whole point of a military is to be ready for that possibility. So, it's peacetime, the army is on strike and then someone attacks. By the time you order the strike to stop (due to it no longer being peacetime), irreparable harm could already be done. Striking soldiers wouldn't be on bases doing drill exercises. They might be at home thousands of miles away from. In fact, Israel fought a war somewhat like this. During Yom Kippur, religious Jews don't eat, don't use electricity, and don't work. That's the perfect time to attack - most of the military was home and wouldn't get fast word that an attack had occurred and some wouldn't do anything about it even if they heard for religious reasons. Suffice it to say, a union on strike could provide an attacker with a similar advantage. Soldiers aren't on base, some might not come back if ordered to end the strike, some might not hear about it immediately, etc. The difference is irreparable vs reparable harm. A strike by a teachers' union can be repaired by teaching a bit into the summer and the harm caused by that lack of teaching already happens to students when they move schools and have a small mismatch in the curricula. I really love the premise that education is essential to national security because I agree that trade and education create stability that means war is very unlikely. I just don't see the harm caused by a teacher strike to be the same as the harm caused by a military strike.
loumf 16y ago
In the US, police and firefighters are usually unionized. There are limits on their ability to strike. I believe that those limits might be in place for teachers as well. The military has incredibly strict rules for advancement and compensation that are very union-like. They have defined ways to make a grievance. They get pretty good benefits and pension. I'm not sure that they'd choose to unionize or what exactly it would get them. There is, of course, the job itself, which they have zero control over, and would probably not be able to negotiate even if they had a union.
yardie 16y ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you want the best and brightest to be teachers then you have to recruit where the best and brightest are....and PAY what the best and brightest can get in the private industry. What's Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook paying? That's the competition. South Korea, Singapore, and many other countries don't have this problem. Why? Because being a teacher there is a good job with good benefits. Benefits the private sector can barely touch. Instead we are left with the PE teacher teaching maths because all the good math teachers are working for Google.
michaelchisari 16y ago
Whenever teachers unions come up, I like to throw this out there. According to those who target unions and suggest "school choice" as a remedy for education problems, Finland should be a cesspool of failure and illiteracy. What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120425355065601997.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120425355065601997.html
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  According to a quick google search, Finland has both school choice and merit pay (a policy strongly opposed by unions in the US). This suggests that school choice might be a good idea, and that Finland's unions might be very different from our unions.
  - michaelchisari 16y ago
    School choice, with equalized funding. I'm all for that. When a public school in Baltimore gets the same funding as a school in a posh upper-middle class suburb, then school choice works. And saying that unions need to be reformed in different directions is very different from saying that unions need to be done away with.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      Interesting. So cutting the funding of Baltimore public schools by $3-5k will make school choice effective? http://www.somdnews.com/stories/03032010/entetop162900_32193.shtml http://www.somdnews.com/stories/03032010/entetop162900_32193... (The richer suburbs, e.g. Charles and St. Marys spend $3-5k/student less than Baltimore schools.)
      - michaelchisari 16y ago
        Are those numbers balanced for special needs and other per-student costs? Does it take into account various other cost requirements? If you compare teacher salaries, are they equivalent? There's a considerable amount of research done on the effects and nature of funding disparities, if you haven't looked into it, I'd recommend it.
webXL 16y ago
Government Employee Unions should be outlawed, plain and simple. Even FDR thought they were a terrible idea (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15445 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15445). You're basically using collective bargaining against the taxpayer at various levels of government, i.e. the the higher up you go, the less taxpayers are affected (city ~500k vs federal ~150m taxpayers) and the less they care about bargaining. Besides, when a bureaucrat or politician is the taxpayer's representative at the bargaining table, and unions use their clout to get those people appointed/elected, there's an inherent conflict of interest. If government employees believe they're getting the shaft, they can form PACs to get their champion into power. That puts the issue in front of the voter/taxpayer more clearly. Here's a great free market perspective from Prof. Charles W. Baird: http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2009/Bairdlabor.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2009/Bairdlabor.html
- mmt 16y ago
  Government Employee Unions should be outlawed, plain and simple. Indeed. I can't imagine a credible excuse for "bargaining" with your fellow taxpaying citizens, except through the electrocal process.

29 points by fogus 16y ago

The reason we don't allow soldiers to strike isn't because giving them better working conditions, benefits or compensation would threaten national security (it would merely be more expensive), but because not having soldiers available 100% of the time would be a threat to national security. We don't need the same availability from teachers. Mr. Spock would've immediately made this distinction. He also would've objected to the whole "teachers union -> bad education -> bad economy -> bad military" handwave. I like Dilbert, but as I've said before this is why Scott is writing cartoons and not proofs.

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

This unions vs. education meme seems to mostly a US phenomenon as far as I can tell. As a non-USian I read a great comment here the last time it came up, pointing out that teaching unions gained strength in the US because teachers used to get fired for such crimes as interracial dating, being seen in town after dark and basically anything else that offended the puritanical. I found that an eye-opening insight.

mmt 16y ago
I'm not sure that arbitrary firings for political reasons is relevant, either to the original article or the issue at large. What's striking to me is the unions of government employees is legal in any way, shape, or dorm. I'm pretty sure that private schools here in the US remain non-unionized.
- igrekel 16y ago
  I've been to a private school where the teachers were unionized. They were with a different union association than the public school teachers. This was in Canada, not in the US but I don't see why it would be different.
  - mmt 16y ago
    I don't see why it would be different, either. I'm just unaware of it being a common phenomenon here in the US. Perhaps I'm mistaken. My main point is that there are cases where the private sector can do without unions, whereas the public sector schools cannot[1]. [1] At least in California I haven't heard of a single non-unionized public school.
    - igrekel 16y ago
      I believe it is just a question of the number of employees and of when the organization started. Want it or not, the state is a large and visible employer.
- krakensden 16y ago
  No, the arbitrary firings for political reasons /is/ relevant, it's why we have teachers unions and tenure.
  - mmt 16y ago
    This is merely a reiteration of the original point. I have yet to see anything persuasive as to relevance. That is, why is it any different from any other public employment? My understanding is that civil service jobs have specific legal (aka politically-sourced) protections without resorting to techniques from the private sector. ETA: Moreover, politically-motivated firings aren't necessarily arbitrary, though they're obviously not based on merit. The unionized system doesn't appear to be merit-based, either.
- krschultz 16y ago
  In 2006 my AP government teacher was the subject of about a half dozen articles in the local paper and a school board meeting where about 500 angry parents came and tried to get him fired for being too liberal. It is definitely relevant.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    For being too liberal, or for bringing his private political beliefs into the classroom?
    - krschultz 16y ago
      His crime was to allow the students to have a debate on the merits of two US policies - the use of torture and the use of depleted uranium. The key point was that this wasn't his idea. He solicited topics for debate from the students in the class, those two were chosen as the topics. This got misconstrued by some parents who were offended as he pushed us to consider these questions becuase he was liberal, and thus was bringing his political beliefs into the classroom. I ended up being the lead on the team that defended torture and depleted uranium (and we won), and somehow the more difficult debate actually ended up being the one I had at the school board meeting defending him.
      - duncanj 16y ago
        How was the decision made on your torture/DU debates?
        krschultz 16y ago
        Not sure if you mean how was it decided that was going to be our topic or how it was decided who won the debate. The topic was proposed by a student in the class who had actually thought about it beforehand, no one else had any good ideas. The "winner" of the debate was determined by a panel of other teachers (part of the reason he got in trouble the teachers were "ruling" on gov't policy). Nobody seems to understand that the people (me and a few others) defending the US's policys could actually win. Everyone assumed that it was biased by his politics such that obviously the result would be anti-American. It was actually quite fun. Though I'd say that the reason my group won was largely becuase in 2006 a lot less was known about Gitmo. We could do a lot of "you can't prove that X Y or Z is happening, that is just conjecture", that we wouldn't be able to do today. As a side note, I'm firmly in the anti-toture and anti-DU camp, but I always find it more interesting in debate to side with the group you disagree with.
hugh3 16y ago
If the US did ban teachers and other vital public employees from unionization, there would in fairness need to be corresponding changes on the employer side. Among these could be a law to prohibit firing of these employees except under conditions A, B and C.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Why? The purpose of public sector employees is to benefit the public. The government should endeavor to provide as little benefit to it's employees as possible - just enough to retain the necessary workforce. Anything else is a waste of our money. A regulation of the nature you describe would potentially harm the public - an employee might be harming the public under conditions D, but would be unable to be fired.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    Look, the A B and C bit shouldn't be taken too seriously, just some kind of law against firing 'em for random, arbitrary and capricious reasons while still making it easy for them to be fired for doing a bad job.
    - anamax 16y ago
      > Look, the A B and C bit shouldn't be taken too seriously, just some kind of law against firing 'em for random, arbitrary and capricious reasons while still making it easy for them to be fired for doing a bad job. Why? If you're being paid by tax dollars, taxpayers should be able to fire you for any reason that they please. If you don't like those conditions, work for someone else who offers the conditions that you'd like. Yes, your fellow tax payers may well disagree with you about how to spend tax money. That's how democracy works. If you don't want "those people" to decide how to spend "your" money, perhaps you should carefully consider when you pay directly vs via govt.
      - mmt 16y ago
        If you're being paid by tax dollars, taxpayers should be able to fire you for any reason that they please. I agree. The rub is that it's not usually the taxpayers making that decision, but their elected representatives. I believe there's already a commonly applied differentiation between appointed and civil service[1] positions. [1] I don't know if these are the actual terms, so corrections are welcome.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
It wasn't just teachers, it was more or less any respectable profession. Rules that programmers were subject to: "When I started at IBM there was a dress code, that was an informal oral code of white shirts. You couldn't wear anything but a white shirt, generally with a starched collar. I remember attending my first class, and a gentleman said to me as we were entering the building, are you an IBMer, and I said yes. He had a three piece suit on, vests were of the vogue, and he said could you just lift your pants leg please. I said what, and before I knew it he had lifted my pants leg and he said you're not wearing any garters. I said what?! He said your socks, they're not pulled tight to the top, you need garters. And sure enough I had to go get garters." http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html It wasn't just the US, the UK was also very puritanical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Conviction_for_indecency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Conviction_for_inde... Claiming that these things were restricted to teachers, or have changed because of teachers unions is nothing but the post-hoc fallacy.
- Alex3917 16y ago
  "Claiming that these things were restricted to teachers, or have changed because of teachers unions is nothing but the post-hoc fallacy." The difference is that you don't have the entire town calling the CEO of IBM to get an employee fired for explaining what a condom is. While the same social norms were behind both corporate rules and also rules for school teachers, the rules for school teachers were many times stricter because of much greater pressure from the community. And if you look at the union rules for firing teachers, it's pretty clear that they were crafted in part to make it more difficult for a teacher to get fired due to a few parents putting pressure on the principal. Because if these rules didn't exist, then most principals would take the easy out and fire that teacher every time regardless of whether or not they actually did anything wrong. Because unlike at IBM, the principal doesn't lose any money for firing a good teacher; all that happens is they get rid of a headache, so the incentives are aligned to reward principals for harming students. That's why the protections currently offered by the unions are needed.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Activists often call for corporate employees to be fired. Regardless, my point is that the highly inflammatory examples (interracial dating) cited by zerogravitas applied to all respectable professions historically, and no professions today. In the same era he is discussing (most likely < 1967 [1]), no one would tolerate interracial dating from a newspaper columnist, homosexuality from a money manager or non-whiteness from the CEO of the #3 Bank in the US. In the present era, Paul Krugman, Peter Thiel and Vikram Pandit all have jobs. Can we attribute that to teachers unions as well? As for firing the occasional good teacher, it's true that schools currently have no incentive to do a good job teaching students. This is a much bigger problem than firing unpopular teachers. Guess which organizations are the biggest proponents of keeping things that way? [1] Pre 1967, interracial marriage was illegal in some states (Virginia, at least). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
Alex3917 16y ago
I'm the one who posted the comment you're referring to. I remember seeing the primary document with the complete list of rules for schoolteachers in my history of education class, but I have no idea how I'd even find it right now. If you look back through the primary documents relating to education though it's pretty crazy how much of a role religion plays. For example, the first compulsory education law in the United States was the Ye Old Deluder Satan Act, the first half of which I'll paste below: "It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with love and false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors. It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major part of those that order the prudentials of the town shall appoint; provided those that send their children be not oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in other towns." Essentially the reason why it started becoming compulsory for town to build schools is that the government thought that children, if left to their own devices, would be corrupted by satan. And these same beliefs are also the basis of how we treat not only our children, but also our school teachers right up to this day. Hardly a week goes by in the US where there isn't a story about a teacher being fired for having a picture of themselves drinking on Facebook, breaking up an assault on a gay student, assigning a book that mentions sex, etc. Of course this mostly happens in small towns in the south; the more 'enlightened' areas of the country have already mostly switched to having their teachers teach f om entirely pre-made curricula geared toward passing standardized tests, a system which was implemented partly to prevent these 'problems' from occurring. Also, if I remember correctly even pg once commented that the reason he wasn't allowed to give his high school graduation speech is that the principal wouldn't have been able to get him fired if the parents complained.
roc 16y ago
> "This unions vs. education meme seems to mostly a US phenomenon as far as I can tell." Further, we've had teachers' unions for generations. (AFT was founded in 1916) But every now and again, there's a flurry of stories about how education is 'broken', and teachers' unions are the problem. This is all followed and subsumed by the stories about how we all know schools are broken and teachers unions are the problem (begging two questions in the classical sense), but charter schools (specifically) are the solution. (Despite studies having shown since the last round of this meme, that while some charter schools are superior most are inferior, and overall their average performance is notably lower than the public schools they're supposed to 'fix'.) It's enough to make you wonder where it all comes from.

tptacek 16y ago

It's definitely true that labor relations gets simpler when you can conscript your employees and place them under an entirely different code of law than US citizens. Maybe we should try that with developers, too. They're getting awfully expensive.

krschultz 16y ago
Thankfully we don't conscript in the US anymore. We've been at war for the last 10 years and we've drafted exactly 0 people.
- yardie 16y ago
  Who needs conscription when you've got 10% (and by some accounts 17%) unemployment. A pool of people desperate to take any job no matter how dangerous it is.
  - krschultz 16y ago
    What a terrible smear on everyone actually in the military for reasons other than the money. 4 people in my extended family are in the military and 1 was turned down becuase he has a titanium screw from a sports injury. All of them make less money than they would have if they didn't join the military, but all joined anyway. On the other hand, I've never actually met anyone who was in the military for money except for those in the ROTC - i.e. those capable of getting a college education that would put them in the segment of the population with lower unemployment than average.
    - erikpukinskis 16y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are several reasons to join the military? You don't think money for college, or job prospects factor into anyone's decision? Edit: And again, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure there are lots of different kinds of people in the military. Your family has a culture of serving, and lots of outside opportunities it sounds like, and that's great. But there are lots of people who join up who didn't have the same opportunities they had. Do you think it's dishonorable for them to serve in part because they didn't have access to money for college, or a good job?

iwr 16y ago

The education problem is compounded by a lack of competition between schools themselves. Children are assigned to one public school, based on residence. In order to switch schools, you have to switch residence. This, along with unions, have entrenched a mediocre education system.

loumf 16y ago
In Massachusetts, we have school choice. You can choose another public school to send your children to. There are availability limitations, but since the chosen school gets more public money, they accept as many as they can. The schools that are not getting chosen do try to improve (at least the ones near me do), and this statistic is one that talked about at election time. Of course, parents choose schools that they can get their children to, so it will probably be nearby. Not sure what other states do.
blangblang 16y ago
Agreed. In the US today, we essentially have a single payer, single provider education system. There's simply no motivation for improvement on either side, leaving the kids to pay the price.
zdw 16y ago
Charter schools have ended this to some degree - in places that have them you can enroll your kids (often for free) in a school of your choice. That said, they aren't a magical panacea by any means - I've worked with a few of them professionally and haven't seen any amazing benefit over public or private schools.
- LargeWu 16y ago
  I suspect there's a high degree of self-selection bias involved in the success or failure of a charter school. That is, charter schools that do well do so because they are full of motivated students. It would be interesting to see any research that examines this aspect. Personal anecdote: I grew up in a small town in ND where there are not a lot of socioeconomic disparities. Almost everybody was lower-middle class, with a few very poor. Everybody went to the same school and had the same teachers. It should not come as a shock that those who did well in school also had parents that were supportive and themselves educated. Those who did poorly were generally children of uneducated blue collar and farm workers. While poor teacher quality may have some effect on student achievement, I suspect factors outside of schools' control play a much larger role.

jharsman 16y ago

This seems very US-centric. In Sweden there is a union for military officers for example. And there are plenty of civilian employees working for the armed forces that can join unions as much as they like and presumably cause quite a bit of chaos if they go on strike. Is the argument that teacher unions should be illegal because they somehow stifle education? That seems insane, isn't it a fundamental right to join whatever organisation you wish, not just the ones the government likes? And there are lots and lots of countries with teachers unions that outrank the US in various quality of education rankings (e.g. Finland), so it doesn't seem like teachers unions are a big barrier to higher quality education. But you do have the right to select any school you like here, which is considered some sort of extreme right wing thing in the states as far as I can tell. Although free choice of schools has it's own share of problems...

aero142 16y ago
"isn't it a fundamental right to join whatever organisation you wish, not just the ones the government likes?" I agree with you on this, but unions gain power from pro-union laws that enforce things like not allowing hiring non-union workers among other things, so it isn't as simple as you state. Without the legal backing, just joining an organization doesn't have much effect. This changes it from a freedom issue to legal policy issue.

sph 16y ago

The difference is that striking soldiers can cause irreparable harm while the damage done by teachers can be easily repaired. Let's say some soldiers start striking during a war for better pay. That puts the country in an immediate danger as the enemy advances and potentially causes irreparable harm (a change that cannot be undone). Even if one can retake the positions given up during the strike, many will die doing so. Clearly, there's a problem there. Now let's say some teachers start striking in September. Accepting Adams' premise that an uneducated populace is a threat to national security, what affect do striking teachers have on national security? Well, maybe those students have class from October through July that year or they loose a few weeks of schooling. The difference is that the harm is not irreparable. The harm is merely a delay or, at absolute worse, a very marginal harm. In fact, any harm is probably about the same as moving from one school district to another. Different schools teach in slightly different orders and in a slightly different way and so when moving schools, a student might loose out on a small portion of learning just as they would during a strike. Others can argue whether unions are good or bad, but I think there's a clear difference between the irreparable harm that can be caused by a military strike when compared with the reparable harm caused by a teacher strike. So, rather than September to June, students have an October to July school year one year. There's a distinct difference there. Now, before one says, "well, what about strikes during peacetime", the military operates under a readiness principle. While I don't believe that countries aren't lining up to attack the US, the whole point of a military is to be ready for that possibility. So, it's peacetime, the army is on strike and then someone attacks. By the time you order the strike to stop (due to it no longer being peacetime), irreparable harm could already be done. Striking soldiers wouldn't be on bases doing drill exercises. They might be at home thousands of miles away from. In fact, Israel fought a war somewhat like this. During Yom Kippur, religious Jews don't eat, don't use electricity, and don't work. That's the perfect time to attack - most of the military was home and wouldn't get fast word that an attack had occurred and some wouldn't do anything about it even if they heard for religious reasons. Suffice it to say, a union on strike could provide an attacker with a similar advantage. Soldiers aren't on base, some might not come back if ordered to end the strike, some might not hear about it immediately, etc. The difference is irreparable vs reparable harm. A strike by a teachers' union can be repaired by teaching a bit into the summer and the harm caused by that lack of teaching already happens to students when they move schools and have a small mismatch in the curricula. I really love the premise that education is essential to national security because I agree that trade and education create stability that means war is very unlikely. I just don't see the harm caused by a teacher strike to be the same as the harm caused by a military strike.

loumf 16y ago

In the US, police and firefighters are usually unionized. There are limits on their ability to strike. I believe that those limits might be in place for teachers as well. The military has incredibly strict rules for advancement and compensation that are very union-like. They have defined ways to make a grievance. They get pretty good benefits and pension. I'm not sure that they'd choose to unionize or what exactly it would get them. There is, of course, the job itself, which they have zero control over, and would probably not be able to negotiate even if they had a union.

yardie 16y ago

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you want the best and brightest to be teachers then you have to recruit where the best and brightest are....and PAY what the best and brightest can get in the private industry. What's Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook paying? That's the competition. South Korea, Singapore, and many other countries don't have this problem. Why? Because being a teacher there is a good job with good benefits. Benefits the private sector can barely touch. Instead we are left with the PE teacher teaching maths because all the good math teachers are working for Google.

michaelchisari 16y ago

Whenever teachers unions come up, I like to throw this out there. According to those who target unions and suggest "school choice" as a remedy for education problems, Finland should be a cesspool of failure and illiteracy. What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120425355065601997.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120425355065601997.html

yummyfajitas 16y ago
According to a quick google search, Finland has both school choice and merit pay (a policy strongly opposed by unions in the US). This suggests that school choice might be a good idea, and that Finland's unions might be very different from our unions.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  School choice, with equalized funding. I'm all for that. When a public school in Baltimore gets the same funding as a school in a posh upper-middle class suburb, then school choice works. And saying that unions need to be reformed in different directions is very different from saying that unions need to be done away with.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Interesting. So cutting the funding of Baltimore public schools by $3-5k will make school choice effective? http://www.somdnews.com/stories/03032010/entetop162900_32193.shtml http://www.somdnews.com/stories/03032010/entetop162900_32193... (The richer suburbs, e.g. Charles and St. Marys spend $3-5k/student less than Baltimore schools.)
    - michaelchisari 16y ago
      Are those numbers balanced for special needs and other per-student costs? Does it take into account various other cost requirements? If you compare teacher salaries, are they equivalent? There's a considerable amount of research done on the effects and nature of funding disparities, if you haven't looked into it, I'd recommend it.

webXL 16y ago

Government Employee Unions should be outlawed, plain and simple. Even FDR thought they were a terrible idea (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15445 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15445). You're basically using collective bargaining against the taxpayer at various levels of government, i.e. the the higher up you go, the less taxpayers are affected (city ~500k vs federal ~150m taxpayers) and the less they care about bargaining. Besides, when a bureaucrat or politician is the taxpayer's representative at the bargaining table, and unions use their clout to get those people appointed/elected, there's an inherent conflict of interest. If government employees believe they're getting the shaft, they can form PACs to get their champion into power. That puts the issue in front of the voter/taxpayer more clearly. Here's a great free market perspective from Prof. Charles W. Baird: http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2009/Bairdlabor.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2009/Bairdlabor.html

mmt 16y ago
Government Employee Unions should be outlawed, plain and simple. Indeed. I can't imagine a credible excuse for "bargaining" with your fellow taxpaying citizens, except through the electrocal process.