It really depends on the district in the case of teachers' unions. My former district's local union was actually very good at collaborative bargaining with the district. Their goal was to avoid strong-arm tactics and adversarial attitudes. It was very effective.
I do not agree with the unions' penchant for take no prisoners and get all we can -- however I DO understand why they do this. Because there are employers ( school districts and whole states in the case of teachers) who won't pay a competitive wage and benefits. I think we've seen what the system is capable of when left unchecked.. Just look at Wall Street. Unfortunately, greed is seductive and not everyone will do the right thing by taking care of their workers.
I also know that there are corporations out there, such as Target for example, that make sure they pay fairly and offer competitive compensation simply because they know the retail unions are itching to grab their employees. If there were no unions, would they feel this way? Or would profit be their priority? Ironically, it's the way they do business by treating people fairly and offering good value that has kept them in the good graces of the profit gods and their shareholders. Not all companies see it this way. And even the best companies can change leadership and go from being a great company to a greedy one.
Teachers have a union because historically they weren't paid commensurate with their education, experience or expertise. Unions come into play because there was gross inequity. If there hadn't been -- no one would have moved to organize workers in the first place -- teachers included.
Because so many people devalue teachers and don't prioritize education over defense or some other issue, yes -- I do believe teachers would be making even less then they do with union advocacy. Minimum wage? maybe. That's already nearly true in other states.
Pari.
QUOTE(Orangetj @ Oct 29 2008, 05:23 PM)
QUOTE(Parizienne @ Oct 18 2008, 11:20 AM)
But our local union does advocate for my pay and benefits. If they didn't, I'd likely be making minimum wage.
Do you really believe this or were you just exaggerating to make a point? It seems that unions often do a very good job of convincing workers that all manner of terrible things will happen without the beneficent union there to "fight the good fight". Having been closely involved with pay/benefit decisions throughout my career and having seen how things work out with both union and non-union people in a number of professions, the differences are often immaterial. In fact, in some cases the union makes things worse for their membership overall by taking such an adversarial stance and forcing extreme positions on both sides.
Pari
