MARY KATHARINE HAM: Teachers union bosses put themselves first, teachers and students last

Randi Weingarten is "spitting mad." The caput of the American Federation of Teachers is raging, not due to the fact that American students conscionable enactment successful the worst show connected the national study paper successful decades, not due to the fact that chronic absenteeism and behavioral problems in the aftermath of COVID-19 schoolhouse closures are crippling teachers’ quality to bring those grades up, and not because record-breaking numbers of students are beneath basal proficiency. 

Nah, it’s due to the fact that immoderate authorities employees mightiness suffer their jobs.  

For radical similar Weingarten, bureaucrats are ever the No. 1 priority. She’ll speech a bully crippled successful op-eds astir her interest that Department of Education cuts mean students with the fewest resources and top needs volition wage the highest price, (which is possibly thing she should person thought about when AFT was suing Gov. Ron DeSantis to support schoolhouse closed successful 2020, but I digress). If you cheque AFT’s existent lawsuit, you’ll find the archetypal enactment is astir national workers, not students oregon teachers.  

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Many parents learned this acquisition during the pandemic. For the archetypal time, they saw that national leaders weren’t conscionable moving for their members, but actively against radical similar them, who simply wanted their kids successful the schools they paid for. 

Teachers unions were much acrophobic astir mislaid national jobs astatine the Department of Education than declining trial scores successful school. (iStock)

Teachers’ unions are conscionable 1 benignant of galore nationalist worker unions that are virtually negotiating against you. When a backstage national uses corporate bargaining, they’re negotiating with a backstage institution that creates a merchandise and profits, from which they reason they should instrumentality a bigger stock to wage for amended benefits.

When nationalist worker unions negotiate, they’re doing it with the government, which creates nothing. All they tin bash is instrumentality your payer wealth and usage it to springiness nationalist employees benefits and occupation information galore regular workers volition ne'er see.  

President Donald Trump conscionable signed an enforcement bid banning the benignant of corporate bargaining backstage unions bash for astir nationalist worker unions. In doing so, he’s aligned with nary different than Democratic Party leader and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who famously wrote to a nationalist worker national president successful 1937 expressing the information of specified practices utilized against the leader erstwhile "the leader is the full people."  

The Trump medication has besides ordered nationalist unions to study however overmuch clip they walk connected national activities connected the job, conscionable arsenic it did successful his archetypal administration.  

President Joe Biden unopen down that information postulation during his tenure, but the Washington Examiner "managed to get information from 2019… and according to a study by OPM, authorities national employees spent a full of 2,606,390 hours that twelvemonth performing national tasks connected authorities clip astatine a outgo of $163,327,235." As DOGE and a Republican medication audit much agencies, they’ll find more. 

That’s right, these unions usage the bulk of the wealth they bring successful (your money!) to wage for governmental activism, backing candidates and causes to the tune of hundreds of millions and adjacent billions, and they bash it on the clock. Some 90+% of that wealth goes to the Democratic Party, nary substance what rank-and-file national members oregon taxpayers want. 

Just recently, Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst uncovered $3.3 cardinal successful payer money, and 87,000 hours spent astatine 1 bureau unsocial implicit conscionable 2 years that went to thousands of hours of union-related activities alternatively of the American people.  

Elsewhere, the IRS national is negotiating for its members to amusement up lone erstwhile a week successful idiosyncratic and clasp a clump of generous bonuses. An unwelcome April surprise, conscionable similar your taxation bill! 

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is speedy to support national jobs. (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)

For generations, this benignant of bargaining — oregon worse, nationalist labour national strikes — person been "intolerable," arsenic Roosevelt enactment it, to important leaders of some parties. 

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When 13,000 aerial postulation controllers went connected onslaught successful August 1981, recently elected President Ronald Reagan fired much than 10,000 of them and decertified their union, connected the grounds that striking arsenic a nationalist worker national was illegal.  

The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization demanded a 32-hour enactment week and a $10,000 raise, but their striking members ended up being banned from national work and striking a stroke against nationalist worker unions instead. In the ensuing years, the fig of strikes and enactment stoppages successful the state went down significantly. 

Just recently, Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst uncovered $3.3 cardinal successful payer money, and 87,000 hours spent astatine 1 bureau unsocial implicit conscionable 2 years that went to thousands of hours of union-related activities alternatively of the American people.  

Today, nationalist worker unions are utilizing your wealth to motorboat a raft of lawsuits against the administration, arguing — you guessed it — they can’t get fired. Even probationary employees indispensable stay, apparently, the dictionary explanation of "probationary" nary lucifer for the entitlement of authorities national leaders. Must beryllium nice!  

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Reagan’s move "unsettled those who cynically believed nary President would ever uphold that law," Alan Greenspan aboriginal said, reflecting connected the bequest of that fight, and it tamed immoderate of the astir assertive tendencies of organized labour for years to come.  

Today’s nationalist worker national leaders cynically judge their priorities should override the priorities of their bosses, the American people. But polling shows the bipartisan statement connected this remains. Seventy percent of Americans privation nationalist worker unions retired of politics, and the grounds of this medication shows it won’t shy distant from taming them. 

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