The Teachers Union’s Fumbled Play By Clarice Feldman for American Thinker
I believe it was Gaylord Nelson, then governor of Wisconsin, who first recognized the right of public employees to collectively bargain, and it was another governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, who decades later under state law virtually eliminated it with wonderful results for teachers, local governments, and pupils.
Our reforms in Wisconsin — known as Act 10 — changed that by all but eliminating collective bargaining for government employees. This puts the taxpayers and the officials they elect back in charge of their state and local governments, instead of unelected union bureaucrats.
I have no doubt that local, state, and federal governments, including school boards, are under the control of teachers unions which contribute significant amounts of time, campaign workers, and money to left-wing politicians.
Teachers unions have steadily amped up their political involvement: From 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million — an all-time high. Even more than most labor unions, they have little use for Republicans, giving Democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties since as far back as 1990, where our data begins.
Two organizations account for practically all of the contributions made by teachers unions: The National Education Association (about $20 million in 2016) and the American Federation of Teachers (almost $12 million). Both groups — which compete for members, but also collaborate with each other through the NEA-AFT Partnership — are consistently among the organizations that contribute the most money to candidates and political groups.
In turn, collective bargaining with the unions is carried out by persons selected by those same politicians whom the unions support to give the unions what they ask for. The true employers — the parents and taxpayers — are not at the table. This has allowed these unions extraordinary power to be free of any meaningful parental control of teaching materials and school operational policies. Any school board member who dares to disagree can expect a well-funded targeting by the unions in an atmosphere where too many parents lack enough interest to defend the member’s actions and work to retain him.
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