Public Subsidizes Teacher Unions – Longstanding & TOO LONG
Who knows when the exact moment happened — when the first teacher union contract achieved the twist to get the taxpayer help fund their muscle to squeeze the taxpayer dry. (Why does this image keep popping up of feeding the pet python that eventually chokes you to death?)
Apparently getting school boards to subsidize teacher unions has a long history and embedded in many world locations. Please read the following from this book —
Understanding The Teacher Union Contract, Myron Lieberman, 2000, pg 105
“Released-Time Subsidies
In many school districts, school boards subsidize union operations in the following ways:
• Granting union members released time and/or leaves of absence with pay (often including fringe benefits) in order to conduct union business
• Performing the payroll deduction of union dues, agency fees, and PAC contributions at no cost to the union
• Giving the union free use of district facilities and services, including the use of space for union meetings, use of the district mail system, and the right to address faculty meetings
• Giving union employees advancement on the teacher salary schedule for time spent working for the union
• Payment by the school district of contributions of union officers and staff
• Reimbursing union members for travel expenses for union events
Most school board members are not aware of the magnitude of these subsidies. In school district budgets, the subsidies are never grouped together under the heading “Subsidies to the Union.”” [By Googling —subsidies to teacher unions — you should see this reference — Understanding the teacher union contract: a Citizen’s Handbook. You should be able to read about 7 pages of details.
Dr. Lieberman died in 2013 but amongst his most notable books about American education was — THE TEACHERS' UNIONS: How the NEA and the AFT Sabotage Reform and Hold Students, Parents, Teachers and Taxpayers Hostage to Bureaucracy, 1997. From an obituary we read: “He reserved particular ire for the nation's more than 14,000 local schools boards, writing in a 2007Education Week Commentary essay that such board members' private interests and lack of expertise in labor relations gave unions an advantage in collective bargaining.”
Though the amount of money is small, this one item has stalled contract talks between TDSB and OSSTF. It obviously is a significant, high-stakes issue — not small bananas. It would be enlightening to know the debate about this issue and why it is so critical that taxpayers be seen to fatten the union’s bargaining powers.
[ Posted as comment on SQE, 2016 03 20 http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/a-horse-that-never-dies ]