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politicsIn honor of the protests against Union busting and the propaganda surrounding the issue, this is a basic informational post on how teacher's unions actually work.
"The Teachers Union" is really a loosely aligned hierarchy of separate unions (well, it really is a semi-fictional creation, but we'll get to that).
The union structure in education is a district level organization. Each school district has it's own separate, unique, independent union, so a teacher's union usually consist of the educators from maybe 2-4 high schools, their feeder middle schools/ Jr. Highs and maybe the elementary schools (the elementary schools may or may not have their own union, depending). There are representatives from each school (union reps) who are generally teachers or counselors who bring information back and forth from their individual schools. The president of the union is usually a teacher as well and most of the union members either know the president of their union or know of him/her. The local union does all the bargaining with the local district. Union local, district local, bargaining local and, if necessary, striking local. There is basically no state or national level union participation in this process.
The teaching contracts are all local as well and almost all issues are negotiated locally. Individual districts negotiate with individual local unions on things like salary scale, hiring ratio (how many students per teacher for hiring purposes, which isn't the actual class size), maximum student contacts (how many students will a teacher be teaching over the course of a day), calendar year, sick days, health benefits, duty day (the hours a teacher is on campus, does not count the hours of work at home), disciplinary process, lay-off process, transfer process, tenure, number of admin at the district office (the state requires a superintendent, all the rest of the people at the district office are admin the superintendent has chosen to spend district money on, they are not union members) basically almost everything that the teachers deal with on a day to day basis (other than the teaching standards). Again, there is no state or national level union participation in this process. Local unions may consult with one another or with the state level organization, but everything really is between the local people.
The state level of the union (in my case the CTA) is concerned with more over-arching issues. Each local union sends reps to meet with the state people (this may be the local union president or other representative depending on the local union's choice) so we all generally know or know of the people who meet with the state level organization. We may or may not know the members of the executive board of the state level. The state level union does not generally deal with contract specifics. Occasionally they give legal advice, but mostly the state level organization talks about things like the state testing standards, school funding, and the retirement fund. Very occasionally they discuss class sizes for the state as a whole (for example k-3 classes being better at around 20 students or less), but mostly that is still a local issue. These are very very rarely contract issues.
The national level union (the NEA) mostly does advertising and lobbying and information dispersal and sometimes campaigning or donations. The national level of the teachers union is concerned with national level issues and national level people. They talk about things like national standards laws, IDEA, vouchers for charter schools, national level school funding, things like that. The NEA has essentially nothing to do with contracts. They talk to the state and local unions about what the state and local unions think are needs that they have that can be affected by the federal government, then they talk to the government people about what the state and local unions need and support candidates that they think might be helpful in meeting those needs.
You will notice that I have not made mention of "union bosses". The reason that I have not made mention of "union bosses" is that there aren't really any. The only top down things that happen are that teachers are sometimes asked to volunteer (if they feel like it) to man phone banks to support candidates or again sometimes they may notify the local union members that an issue is coming up for a vote and that emailing a congressperson or two might be a good idea. Very very occasionally they may notify the local union members that an issue is coming up to vote and suggest that they may, if they are willing and interested, want to show up to protest someplace. No one ever says "YOU MUST COME!" It's more, "So there's this thing? it might affect you in this way? here's where we're all meeting up if you want to come with us?"
The state and national leaders aren't involved in contract negotiations or strikes. The people who are asking for a living wage and some job assurance are the local people and they are negotiating with the local school district. The state basically sends (not very much) money to the district and the district decides how to allocate it. Contracts are generally negotiated every year or every few years. There is no "all teacher's contracts say this or that". Each one is negotiated on its own. There is no "union leadership" separate from teachers that is somehow imposing outside will on the teachers and their contracts. The union contract negotiators in your district are teachers from your district. The teacher's union(s), executive board and all, really is your neighbor or your sister or your brother-in-law or your cousin. It isn't some faceless out of state entity controlling the lives of the people in your school district. The organization that is imagined to do that doesn't exist because that isn't how the system works.
"The Teachers Union" is really a loosely aligned hierarchy of separate unions (well, it really is a semi-fictional creation, but we'll get to that).
The union structure in education is a district level organization. Each school district has it's own separate, unique, independent union, so a teacher's union usually consist of the educators from maybe 2-4 high schools, their feeder middle schools/ Jr. Highs and maybe the elementary schools (the elementary schools may or may not have their own union, depending). There are representatives from each school (union reps) who are generally teachers or counselors who bring information back and forth from their individual schools. The president of the union is usually a teacher as well and most of the union members either know the president of their union or know of him/her. The local union does all the bargaining with the local district. Union local, district local, bargaining local and, if necessary, striking local. There is basically no state or national level union participation in this process.
The teaching contracts are all local as well and almost all issues are negotiated locally. Individual districts negotiate with individual local unions on things like salary scale, hiring ratio (how many students per teacher for hiring purposes, which isn't the actual class size), maximum student contacts (how many students will a teacher be teaching over the course of a day), calendar year, sick days, health benefits, duty day (the hours a teacher is on campus, does not count the hours of work at home), disciplinary process, lay-off process, transfer process, tenure, number of admin at the district office (the state requires a superintendent, all the rest of the people at the district office are admin the superintendent has chosen to spend district money on, they are not union members) basically almost everything that the teachers deal with on a day to day basis (other than the teaching standards). Again, there is no state or national level union participation in this process. Local unions may consult with one another or with the state level organization, but everything really is between the local people.
The state level of the union (in my case the CTA) is concerned with more over-arching issues. Each local union sends reps to meet with the state people (this may be the local union president or other representative depending on the local union's choice) so we all generally know or know of the people who meet with the state level organization. We may or may not know the members of the executive board of the state level. The state level union does not generally deal with contract specifics. Occasionally they give legal advice, but mostly the state level organization talks about things like the state testing standards, school funding, and the retirement fund. Very occasionally they discuss class sizes for the state as a whole (for example k-3 classes being better at around 20 students or less), but mostly that is still a local issue. These are very very rarely contract issues.
The national level union (the NEA) mostly does advertising and lobbying and information dispersal and sometimes campaigning or donations. The national level of the teachers union is concerned with national level issues and national level people. They talk about things like national standards laws, IDEA, vouchers for charter schools, national level school funding, things like that. The NEA has essentially nothing to do with contracts. They talk to the state and local unions about what the state and local unions think are needs that they have that can be affected by the federal government, then they talk to the government people about what the state and local unions need and support candidates that they think might be helpful in meeting those needs.
You will notice that I have not made mention of "union bosses". The reason that I have not made mention of "union bosses" is that there aren't really any. The only top down things that happen are that teachers are sometimes asked to volunteer (if they feel like it) to man phone banks to support candidates or again sometimes they may notify the local union members that an issue is coming up for a vote and that emailing a congressperson or two might be a good idea. Very very occasionally they may notify the local union members that an issue is coming up to vote and suggest that they may, if they are willing and interested, want to show up to protest someplace. No one ever says "YOU MUST COME!" It's more, "So there's this thing? it might affect you in this way? here's where we're all meeting up if you want to come with us?"
The state and national leaders aren't involved in contract negotiations or strikes. The people who are asking for a living wage and some job assurance are the local people and they are negotiating with the local school district. The state basically sends (not very much) money to the district and the district decides how to allocate it. Contracts are generally negotiated every year or every few years. There is no "all teacher's contracts say this or that". Each one is negotiated on its own. There is no "union leadership" separate from teachers that is somehow imposing outside will on the teachers and their contracts. The union contract negotiators in your district are teachers from your district. The teacher's union(s), executive board and all, really is your neighbor or your sister or your brother-in-law or your cousin. It isn't some faceless out of state entity controlling the lives of the people in your school district. The organization that is imagined to do that doesn't exist because that isn't how the system works.
