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Teachers are the most powerful public sector union in the US. New teacher pay sucks because the unions designed it that way.
by debacle 4y ago
Teachers are the most powerful public sector union in the US. New teacher pay sucks because the unions designed it that way.
- syzarian 4y agoI’m a college teacher in a union. I don’t know much about what happens in k-12 but I do know my union is not responsible for our low pay in my system. What evidence do you have for your claim? Police unions are far more powerful that public k-12 teacher unions.
- G_z9 4y agoIn Washington the teachers union is the most powerful special interest group bar none
- MikeTheGreat 4y agoCitation?
- WalterBright 4y agoDon't know anyone elected in WA state without the teachers' union endorsement. The police, on the other hand, got drastically defunded.
- WalterBright 4y agoIn Washington, it is illegal for public school teachers to strike: https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/public-employee-strikes-illegal-in-washington https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/public-employee-stri... Yet they strike regularly with complete impunity. That's power.
- syzarian 4y agoIn my system what happens is a contract is negotiated for a period of time. During this period of time we agree to not strike. Once the contract ends we can strike. In 20 years in my system I have never experienced a situation in which a new contract was negotiated before the old contract ended. While we negotiate for a new contract, and after the old contract has expired, we can strike. Don’t know if things are different in Washington but I doubt there is a blanket ban, in all possible circumstances, on striking.
- Jensson 4y ago> Police unions are far more powerful that public k-12 teacher unions. There are about 5 teachers per police officer, so teachers unions should typically be much stronger than police unions.
- EngManagerIsMe 4y agoSure, but a police officer has much (much) more power than 5 teachers. I can't remember the last time teachers benefited from qualified immunity or civil forfeiture.
- Jensson 4y agoI have never heard people chant "Defund the schools" though, so it seems like teachers has much more political support and power overall. Qualified immunity isn't thanks to police unions, the supreme court decided that because they thought that policemen shouldn't risk go to jail just for doing their job, the police union didn't seem to have much involvement.
- syzarian 4y agoThey don’t chant “defund schools”. Instead the slogan is “school choice”. There has been a campaign for the last 50 years to erode public education.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
- Ferret7446 4y agoI do not know what the other poster is referring to, but things like this are often indirect consequences. The unions may not be literally, directly suppressing wages, but their other policies may be strongly causing it. Across history, trying to "do good" by force/law/policy has caused a lot of negative side effects.
- Waterluvian 4y agoHow would you measure “power” in this case if teachers are famously underpaid by such a terrible amount?
- renewiltord 4y agoThat's exactly how you measure the power: that everyone believes they're underpaid despite their being paid market clearing rate.
- EngManagerIsMe 4y agoYour comment is misleading. Yes, the union has the ability to decide how the pie is allocated within teachers, but if the teachers are underfunded there's a systemic problem about making sure the teachers get a big enough pie.
- YPCrumble 4y agoI’m inclined to agree, especially because teachers also receive pensions for the rest of their lives after retiring, in average before the age of 60 according to a quick google search. Young teachers make less to support these pensions. I would be interested to hear an argument that refutes your claim.
- syzarian 4y agoAnyone can retire at any age. Those in a defined benefit pension typically get around 2% per year worked of the average of the highest 5 years of pay. This benefit has penalties for retiring before the standard Social Security retirement age. I could collect my pension right now but it would be around $1,000 dollars a month. If I start collecting at 65 it will be much higher.
- YPCrumble 4y agoAren’t you supporting my point? Your current salary is lower because you are also earning a 1,000/month income in perpetuity for the rest of your life. And people who teach for longer, like you said, will get more. Teacher salaries are low because unions have negotiated them to support pensions, especially pensions of teachers that last long enough to get a “much higher” pension.
- syzarian 4y agoI think you might not understand the situation. A person can’t realistically live for 30+ years at $1,000 per month. So while it is true that I can retire right now it wouldn’t be efficacious to do so. You mentioned retiring at 60. I’m pointing out that this is a meaningless fact. What matters is at what age one can realistically retire. EDIT: My pay might be lower due to the pension but it isn’t much lower as a result. The pension is not good in my system. I’d have been better off with the defined contribution plan.
- WalterBright 4y agoTeachers also have solid gold health insurance.
- paxys 4y ago[flagged]
- SoftTalker 4y agoOf course that’s not true.
- ikiris 4y ago"they're so powerful, they refuse to be paid more" what? Have you heard yourself?
- Rebelgecko 4y agoIf that was the case wouldn't we expect private/nonunion schools to pay better?