Teachers deserve labor union rights

by Rob Howard
Political Columnist

Every September we celebrate Labor Day, even though most of us don’t know that the holiday was established as a celebration of the contributions of labor to our nation’s society and economy. And every year, Republican governors like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Ohio’s John Kasich, and New Jersey’s Chris Christie seek to weaken teachers’ unions by eliminating collective bargaining, cutting education budgets, and failing to pay teachers a living wage.

Teachers have what is arguably the most important job in our society – equipping our youth with the tools that they need to succeed in life. They are dedicated to that task. But it looks like politicians are dedicated to ruining public education. Since 2008, Oklahoma education funding has been cut by 24 percent. In Kansas, the schools are so underfunded that the funding level violates the state’s Constitution.

The problem is particularly severe in The Gayly’s area. Looking at Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, the average teacher pay including benefits in these five states is $46,770, $9,613 dollars less than the national average. Texas prohibits public employees such as teachers from engaging in collective bargaining, and prohibits strikes; the other four allow collective bargaining, but not the right for teachers to strike. All but Missouri are so-called “Right to Work” states, meaning employees have the right not to join a union, and can’t be required to do so.

Even though the five states are in the lowest quadrant in teachers’ pay, the situation is most dire in Oklahoma. Oklahoma teachers, make $3,562 less than the average of the other four states, $12,255 less than the national average. Oklahoma teachers have not had a pay raise in at least eight years. Although they can negotiate for wages, most districts adhere to the state minimum pay table. Fewer than half of teachers are members of a union. To add insult to injury, Gov. Mary Fallin proposed, and the GOP controlled legislature passed, a law forbidding school districts from withholding union members’ dues from their paychecks, a move that further weakens teacher unions.

In Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback has cut taxes and underfunded education to the point that the state Supreme Court ordered the state to better fund the schools. A three-judge panel in 2014 proposed as much as a $550 million dollar increase in state funding for schools, no small task when the state was facing a $700 million dollar shortfall. The Brownback administration’s response was to gut the school funding formulas, and go to a block grant system, that will cost many school districts millions.

Employees have two basic tools to gain favorable working conditions and fair wages. One is the right to organize and bargain with employers collectively, and the other is the right to strike when a fair contract can’t be obtained. But teachers in only 12 states have the right to strike. When you take away that tool, you take away the leverage that collective bargaining has.

In state after state teachers have come under Republican attack, with efforts to stop funding teacher pensions, taking away teachers’ tenure protection, cutting their pay, and underfunding schools which causes increased class size. Another approach is to try to tie teacher evaluations, pay, and retention to student scores on standardized tests.

The last is a kick in the teeth to educators who face limited resources, poor pay, and deteriorating working conditions. After doing everything politicians can do to make teachers’ jobs harder, and make learning more difficult for students, they then want to base their livelihood on declining student scores. The result is that thousands of teachers leave the profession every year.

In Oklahoma, the drain is so severe that last year, when school started in August, there were nearly 1,500 unfilled teacher positions in the state.

In Chicago, in 2012, teachers went on strike rather than accept a seven percent reduction in pay. The old unionist in me thinks it would be great, and justified, if every teacher in Oklahoma decided not to come to work. That would be a huge wakeup call to Gov. Fallin. And teachers in Kansas should do the same to protest the anti-teacher/anti-union policies of Gov. Brownback.

Of course, knowing Brownback and Fallin, they would probably try to fire every teacher who refused to come to work. After all, it worked for Ronald Reagan when air traffic controllers went on strike. So, faced with that, a strike in either state might have unintended consequences. But to me, the first step would be to give teachers in all five states the right to strike. Teachers need all the tools that union membership brings, and they need them NOW!

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Published - 5:20am CST 9/7/2015