Teachers Unions: Protecting the
Bosses at Teachers’ Expense
A common
misperception is that unions exist to protect the interests of workers. If this
were true, if unions really fought vigorously for the interests of workers,
they would not be tolerated at all. The fact that they are legal, and that a
large body of laws has been written to regulate their activities, is evidence
of their acceptance by the employing class. Indeed, they serve the interests of
the employing class by acting as intermediaries that help maintain the peace
between employers and workers, keeping them on the job and working efficiently.
When looked
at from this perspective, it should come as no surprise that the California Teachers
Association (CTA is the state’s largest teachers union) is giving its
unconditional support to new legislation that would make it easier to fire
teachers. Assembly Bill 375, written by Democrat Joan Buchanan, has already
received unanimous approval by the Assembly’s Education Committee and overwhelming
support by both parties. It has also been praised by the CTA:
“We support AB 375 and AB 1338 because the bills reflect CTA’s goals
to keep students safe, safeguard the integrity of the profession, and protect
the rights of educators. CTA supports these bills because they provide
immediate protections for students and streamline and shorten the dismissal
process to ensure charges are handled fairly and in a timely manner. We commend
Assembly Education Committee Chair Joan Buchanan for her hard work in
developing the legislation and Senator Alex Padilla for signing on as
co-author. We look forward to working with lawmakers as these bills make their
way through the legislative process.”
As tragic (and
frightening for parents) as these cases are, there is no evidence that
molestation in the schools is any worse now than in the past or that the unions
bear any culpability. However, there is ample evidence in both these cases (and
in many other school molestation cases) that the perpetrators were either
protected by their school districts or that credible accusations and evidence
against them were ignored, covered up or lost by their districts. Legislation
that streamlines the firing of teachers does nothing to mitigate these problems
or make children any safer, nor does it eliminate districts’ incentive to
protect their reputations at the expense of children’s safety.
Weakening Due Process for Teachers Contributes
to Declining Union Membership
In addition
to doing nothing to protect children, these bills significantly weaken
teachers’ due process rights, thus increasing the chances that innocent and
excellent teachers will be dismissed. The bills allow the use of evidence older
than four years if a judge deems it “relevant”—a nebulous term that leaves open
the possibility that a teacher will be punished a second time for small
infractions or oversights (e.g., using district websites to check personal
email) that have no effect on their skill as teachers. The new rules would also
weaken the discovery process and
pretrial evidence-gathering proceedings, further eroding teachers’ due process protections and chances
of beating a spurious accusation.
Furthermore,
the legislation is not limited to violations of the law or accusations of abuse
and molestation. The new rules also streamline and speed up the dismissal
process for teachers deemed “unsatisfactory.” As districts increasingly adopt
evaluation systems that assess teachers based on their students’ test scores (using
methods
that are notoriously unreliable), districts could soon have skyrocketing
numbers of “unsatisfactory” teachers to dismiss, thus making a quicker
dismissal process all the more urgent.
The wording of AB 375 explicitly states that the number of
teacher dismissal proceedings will increase under the new rules: “these
revisions would increase the number of employees subject to immediate placement on
compulsory leave of absence. . .” This could lead to declining union
membership if an equal number of unionized teachers are not rehired to replace
them. With the Parent Trigger law and No Child Left Behind rules requiring
failing schools to adopt “reforms” that include charter school conversion, it
is entirely feasible that schools with large numbers of dismissed teachers
could be converted into nonunionized charter schools.
Making Public Education More
Profitable to Capital
Buchanan
supported her bill by saying that districts don’t issue more dismissal notices
because they don’t want to spend the money. Thus, one goal of the new
legislation is to reduce education expenditures, something that allows the
state to reduce overall education spending and maintain record low tax rates
for businesses and the wealthy.
However,
implicit in Buchanan’s statement is the assumption that there are hordes of
rotten apples hidden in classrooms throughout the state—bad apples who, more
often than not, are only guilty of being outspoken advocates for children,
critics of idiotic “reforms,” union organizers, or veterans at the higher end
of the pay scale. An unspoken (and likely the most urgent) goal of the
legislation is to make it easier to get rid of the teachers who cost their
districts the most in salaries, time or trouble.
Some other
troubling aspects of the legislation include the sweeping, overly broad and
moralistic definitions of misconduct that could result in a teacher’s firing.
Under the law, teachers can still be dismissed for “immoral” conduct—another
nebulous term that could include polyamory, drunkenness, or other behaviors
that occur outside of school or that do not affect performance in the classroom.
While the
new legislation would eliminate prohibitions on membership in the Communist
Party (which apparently is still an offense for which teachers in California
can be fired), it will maintain the antiquated and anti-union prohibition against
committing or advocating “criminal syndicalism.” Curiously, while California’s
1919 Criminal Syndicalism Act was repealed in 1991, its prohibitions are
maintained for teachers under AB 375. Under this rule, teachers would continue
to be prohibited from being members of the Industrial Workers of the World.
