
Unions - fogus
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/unions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FihdT+%28The+Dilbert+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
======
sph
The difference is that striking soldiers can cause irreparable harm while the
damage done by teachers can be easily repaired.

Let's say some soldiers start striking during a war for better pay. That puts
the country in an immediate danger as the enemy advances and potentially
causes irreparable harm (a change that cannot be undone). Even if one can
retake the positions given up during the strike, many will die doing so.
Clearly, there's a problem there.

Now let's say some teachers start striking in September. Accepting Adams'
premise that an uneducated populace is a threat to national security, what
affect do striking teachers have on national security? Well, maybe those
students have class from October through July that year or they loose a few
weeks of schooling. The difference is that the harm is _not_ irreparable. The
harm is merely a delay or, at absolute worse, a very marginal harm. In fact,
any harm is probably about the same as moving from one school district to
another. Different schools teach in slightly different orders and in a
slightly different way and so when moving schools, a student might loose out
on a small portion of learning just as they would during a strike.

Others can argue whether unions are good or bad, but I think there's a clear
difference between the irreparable harm that can be caused by a military
strike when compared with the reparable harm caused by a teacher strike. So,
rather than September to June, students have an October to July school year
one year. There's a distinct difference there.

Now, before one says, "well, what about strikes during peacetime", the
military operates under a readiness principle. While I don't believe that
countries aren't lining up to attack the US, the whole point of a military is
to be ready for that possibility. So, it's peacetime, the army is on strike
and then someone attacks. By the time you order the strike to stop (due to it
no longer being peacetime), irreparable harm could already be done. Striking
soldiers wouldn't be on bases doing drill exercises. They might be at home
thousands of miles away from. In fact, Israel fought a war somewhat like this.
During Yom Kippur, religious Jews don't eat, don't use electricity, and don't
work. That's the perfect time to attack - most of the military was home and
wouldn't get fast word that an attack had occurred and some wouldn't do
anything about it even if they heard for religious reasons. Suffice it to say,
a union on strike could provide an attacker with a similar advantage. Soldiers
aren't on base, some might not come back if ordered to end the strike, some
might not hear about it immediately, etc.

The difference is irreparable vs reparable harm. A strike by a teachers' union
can be repaired by teaching a bit into the summer and the harm caused by that
lack of teaching already happens to students when they move schools and have a
small mismatch in the curricula. I really love the premise that education is
essential to national security because I agree that trade and education create
stability that means war is very unlikely. I just don't see the harm caused by
a teacher strike to be the same as the harm caused by a military strike.

~~~
vilya
I think it's probably got more to do with an (understandable!) nervousness by
policymakers about what would amount to a second semi-official chain of
command inside such an organisation. The union leaders would have an awful lot
of leverage over the government and I can't see any politician giving that
away willingly.

~~~
cabalamat
Indeed. If an army stops obeying its government's orders, it's not a
government any more!

------
ZeroGravitas
This unions vs. education meme seems to mostly a US phenomenon as far as I can
tell. As a non-USian I read a great comment here the last time it came up,
pointing out that teaching unions gained strength in the US because teachers
used to get fired for such crimes as interracial dating, being seen in town
after dark and basically anything else that offended the puritanical. I found
that an eye-opening insight.

~~~
mmt
I'm not sure that arbitrary firings for political reasons is relevant, either
to the original article or the issue at large.

What's striking to me is the unions of _government_ employees is legal in any
way, shape, or dorm.

I'm pretty sure that private schools here in the US remain non-unionized.

~~~
krschultz
In 2006 my AP government teacher was the subject of about a half dozen
articles in the local paper and a school board meeting where about 500 angry
parents came and tried to get him fired for being too liberal. It is
definitely relevant.

~~~
hugh3
For being too liberal, or for bringing his private political beliefs into the
classroom?

~~~
krschultz
His crime was to allow the students to have a debate on the merits of two US
policies - the use of torture and the use of depleted uranium.

The key point was that this wasn't his idea. He solicited topics for debate
from the students in the class, those two were chosen as the topics.

This got misconstrued by some parents who were offended as he pushed us to
consider these questions becuase he was liberal, and thus was bringing his
political beliefs into the classroom.

I ended up being the lead on the team that defended torture and depleted
uranium (and we won), and somehow the more difficult debate actually ended up
being the one I had at the school board meeting defending him.

~~~
duncanj
How was the decision made on your torture/DU debates?

~~~
krschultz
Not sure if you mean how was it decided that was going to be our topic or how
it was decided who won the debate.

The topic was proposed by a student in the class who had actually thought
about it beforehand, no one else had any good ideas.

The "winner" of the debate was determined by a panel of other teachers (part
of the reason he got in trouble the teachers were "ruling" on gov't policy).
Nobody seems to understand that the people (me and a few others) defending the
US's policys could actually win. Everyone assumed that it was biased by his
politics such that obviously the result would be anti-American. It was
actually quite fun. Though I'd say that the reason my group won was largely
becuase in 2006 a lot less was known about Gitmo. We could do a lot of "you
can't prove that X Y or Z is happening, that is just conjecture", that we
wouldn't be able to do today.

As a side note, I'm firmly in the anti-toture and anti-DU camp, but I always
find it more interesting in debate to side with the group you disagree with.

~~~
duncanj
It's definitely true that to understand your own position you need to come up
with the best arguments for the opposing position. It disappoints me when I
read lousy arguments made by those who do not share my viewpoint, and even
more when an entire position shared by many people is based on emotional
reasoning.

Torture is a topic that lends itself to emotional reasoning. How can you be
such a meanie? How can _you_ put children at risk while terrorists are running
free?

DU also lends itself to sloppy reasoning. People take for granted that it is a
radioactivity problem when it's actually a heavy-metal toxicity problem.
Radioactivity is more emotional.

------
tptacek
It's definitely true that labor relations gets simpler when you can conscript
your employees and place them under an entirely different code of law than US
citizens. Maybe we should try that with developers, too. They're getting
awfully expensive.

~~~
krschultz
Thankfully we don't conscript in the US anymore. We've been at war for the
last 10 years and we've drafted exactly 0 people.

~~~
yardie
Who needs conscription when you've got 10% (and by some accounts 17%)
unemployment. A pool of people desperate to take any job no matter how
dangerous it is.

~~~
krschultz
What a terrible smear on everyone actually in the military for reasons other
than the money. 4 people in my extended family are in the military and 1 was
turned down becuase he has a titanium screw from a sports injury. All of them
make less money than they would have if they didn't join the military, but all
joined anyway.

On the other hand, I've never actually met anyone who was in the military for
money except for those in the ROTC - i.e. those capable of getting a college
education that would put them in the segment of the population with lower
unemployment than average.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are several reasons to join the military?
You don't think money for college, or job prospects factor into anyone's
decision?

Edit: And again, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure there are
lots of different kinds of people in the military. Your family has a culture
of serving, and lots of outside opportunities it sounds like, and that's
great. But there are lots of people who join up who didn't have the same
opportunities they had.

Do you think it's dishonorable for them to serve in part because they didn't
have access to money for college, or a good job?

~~~
krschultz
Well my family members joined for reasons in this order

1) I live in New York, our house overlooks what was the smoldering ruins of
the WTC. That was about 4 of them right there

2) Our family has been in the military for generations

3) One wanted to be a medic, not sure why but it was his calling? I guess he
can be an EMT after but he has been in for 10 years so I don't think he is
leaving the military until they kick him out.

Money was never really an issue for any of them. They make the least by far of
anyone in the family, they certainly would have made more if they did like the
rest of us and didn't go.

Although I might be biased because I heavily considered the military and
decided not to _specifically because it didn't pay well enough_.

I'm sure some do for money, but I think that is overblown by people who simply
don't understand why someone _would want_ to serve. I can also tell you that
most of the people in it for money are in and out, but the people who stay
long term have reasons other than money.

------
ajscherer
The reason we don't allow soldiers to strike isn't because giving them better
working conditions, benefits or compensation would threaten national security
(it would merely be more expensive), but because not having soldiers available
100% of the time would be a threat to national security. We don't need the
same availability from teachers.

Mr. Spock would've immediately made this distinction. He also would've
objected to the whole "teachers union -> bad education -> bad economy -> bad
military" handwave. I like Dilbert, but as I've said before this is why Scott
is writing cartoons and not proofs.

------
webXL
Government Employee Unions should be outlawed, plain and simple. Even FDR
thought they were a terrible idea
(<http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15445>). You're basically
using collective bargaining against the taxpayer at various levels of
government, i.e. the the higher up you go, the less taxpayers are affected
(city ~500k vs federal ~150m taxpayers) and the less they care about
bargaining. Besides, when a bureaucrat or politician is the taxpayer's
representative at the bargaining table, and unions use their clout to get
those people appointed/elected, there's an inherent conflict of interest.

If government employees believe they're getting the shaft, they can form PACs
to get their champion into power. That puts the issue in front of the
voter/taxpayer more clearly.

Here's a great free market perspective from Prof. Charles W. Baird:
<http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2009/Bairdlabor.html>

~~~
mmt
_Government Employee Unions should be outlawed, plain and simple._

Indeed.

I can't imagine a credible excuse for "bargaining" with your fellow taxpaying
citizens, except through the electrocal process.

------
jharsman
This seems very US-centric. In Sweden there is a union for military officers
for example.

And there are plenty of civilian employees working for the armed forces that
can join unions as much as they like and presumably cause quite a bit of chaos
if they go on strike.

Is the argument that teacher unions should be illegal because they somehow
stifle education? That seems insane, isn't it a fundamental right to join
whatever organisation you wish, not just the ones the government likes?

And there are lots and lots of countries with teachers unions that outrank the
US in various quality of education rankings (e.g. Finland), so it doesn't seem
like teachers unions are a big barrier to higher quality education.

But you do have the right to select any school you like here, which is
considered some sort of extreme right wing thing in the states as far as I can
tell. Although free choice of schools has it's own share of problems...

~~~
aero142
"isn't it a fundamental right to join whatever organisation you wish, not just
the ones the government likes?"

I agree with you on this, but unions gain power from pro-union laws that
enforce things like not allowing hiring non-union workers among other things,
so it isn't as simple as you state. Without the legal backing, just joining an
organization doesn't have much effect. This changes it from a freedom issue to
legal policy issue.

------
iwr
The education problem is compounded by a lack of competition between schools
themselves. Children are assigned to one public school, based on residence. In
order to switch schools, you have to switch residence. This, along with
unions, have entrenched a mediocre education system.

~~~
roc
I've come to the conclusion that the only real nationwide problem in American
education is one of expectation.

Simply: we don't demand the best from our kids anymore.

Studies have shown that good schools and good educators do matter, but what
they all highlight, bold and underscore, is that parents and culture matter
so, so much more. 'Good homes' and 'good parents' absolutely dwarf the effect
that 'good schools' and 'good teachers' have.

And we're just running out of 'good homes' and 'good parents' that care about
the results. We've retained a ritual of schooling, but increasingly we just
don't give a shit about the outcome. And we're just reaping what we've sown.

~~~
jerf
And I submit that that is actually an effect of what iwr suggested, not a root
cause. Why modify your expectations when there isn't much you can do about it?
Higher expectations are only useful when they can manifest as action, but
there's an incredibly high bar for pulling your kid out of a school and
sending them to another, or going to home schooling, or anything else.
Expectations are fading because we are internalizing the idea that they don't
matter; no matter what you put in, you get the same output.

I think we can fiddle around with the details but until we actually open up
some sort of market and competition the problem will simply never be fixed.
Centralized management doesn't work; schools aren't an exception.

Doesn't mean that I want everyone to have to pay for schools. Vouchers are at
least a decent idea, even if they still distort the market and raise prices.
But without some ability for parents to use the tools of the market to beat
low performing schools, possibly unto them going out of business and letting
other schools start, we're not going to see improvement. All incentives right
now are aligned towards _looking_ like they are improving, not _actually_
improving, and that is the only possible result you're going to get from
mandates from above.

~~~
roc
> _"Why modify your expectations when there isn't much you can do about it?"_

That's precisely backwards. Parents expectations are the only thing you _can_
'do'. And it's the one thing that studies consistently re-affirm as the _most
important_ component. Demand more. Help more. Impart a love for learning and
exploring. An appreciate for work.

Yes, if the school sucks, maybe you have to work harder with your kid. And if
the community sucks, maybe you have to work even _harder_ still. But that work
_will_ bear fruit.

As opposed to signing your kid up at the school across town and staying just
as disinterested as before. Thinking that 'shopping' schools is helping is
precisely the wrong approach.

> _"no matter what you put in, you get the same output."_

And that's demonstrably false. The families that put in more, get more. The
students that put in more, get more. Parent interest and effort and child
interest and effort are _the_ most important factors; more important than
economic stability, more important than school quality or teacher quality.

~~~
jerf
You're talking about out-of-school. I agree with that part. I'm talking about
_in_ the school. No matter how hard you encourage your child, the math
curriculum comes at the same pace. No matter how much you encourage your child
to love reading, they get the same crappy history lessons. There's no benefit
to "expecting" more from the school. Nothing happens when you do. There's no
meaningful way to "expect" more from your school.

The question of why we're getting a certain class of person when they hit 18
is a different question from what the schools are doing and how well they are
doing it, and if you want to actually _improve schools_ it's important to stay
focused on that task. If the only solution to "improving schools" is to
improve parental involvement then I for one seriously question what the
schools are bringing to that process at all, and if they are to be intended
for merely augmenting a parent-directed education they are grotesquely ill-
suited for that right now.

(I say this as someone actually planning very seriously on home schooling my
kids, so that's how I look at schools. In fact they can provide a couple of
services and as I understand it they are legally obligated to do so, but if
you actually want a parent-directed education they are still _almost_
useless.)

Based on your message I don't think you understand the theory behind school
choice, either (and I'm explicitly labeling it a "theory", though at this
point I think it's a pretty safe one). The important thing about shopping
schools, and indeed the important thing about capitalism in general, is the
_second_ -order effects of the policy. (This is why so many people have such a
fundamentally hard time wrapping their head around the concept of a free
market. The far more viscerally appealing but fatally flawed first-order
theories would be dead by now if it weren't for this, instead of hanging
around wrecking up the global economy as they do now.) The point is not that
you can move your child from one crappy school of today to another crappy
school of today. The point is that you can actually drive crappy schools _out
of business_ , while meanwhile another good school can actually start up and
succeed if they are good. It's a second-order effect of creating a highly
competitive selection process that produces a pool of schools that are better
in general, not merely the right to send your kid to a slightly-better school.

~~~
roc
> _"You're talking about out-of-school. I agree with that part."_

Yeah, and my argument is _that_ is the part that has really changed in the
last few generations. _In_ the school, at least in my area, is all but frozen
in time since I went through the public schools. Yet the test scores are
dropping. I guess it's possible the teachers have all gotten worse, but what
sticks out to me is the attitudes of students and parents.

> _"Based on your message I don't think you understand the theory behind
> school choice"_

No, I get it. But what I also understand is how _little_ the school and the
teacher matter, comparatively.

Put it this way: say we're updating a house to use less energy during the
winter months. You're saying we could hang better insulation all around the
house and goose up efficiency 8-10%. I don't disagree at all.

I'm saying maybe we should focus on the windows, since they're the biggest
problem areas. And with a lot less money, effort and potential for collateral
problems, we could boost efficiency around 40+%. You don't say you disagree
either.

But where we're not seeing eye to eye, is where you want to start taking down
the siding first.

Addressing the cultural problem is lower risk, lower cost and higher return.
And if we _don't_ do it, we're still going to have an educational problem when
we're done rolling out school choice.

~~~
jerf
Allowing school choice is the single largest thing we could do to address the
culture problem. That's my point. You're just handwaving on the culture
problem, I'm giving you a step you can actually take to get there.

Second-order effects, second-order effects, second-order effects. When schools
actually respond to more effort and it has some sort of visible effect on a
child's education, more people will care. Incentives matter. The current
system absorbs all of a parent's care and hammers it flat into the same basic
mediocre product, suppressing it instead of amplifying it. A caring parent may
do better than an uncaring one, but nowhere near _enough_ better.
Unfortunately, not investing a lot into the system at that point is perfectly
locally rational.

How do you propose to fix the culture problem? The same-old, same-old first
order solution where you appropriate some money and run some ads exhorting
people to care more about schooling? New programs with the sweet, sweet
intentions and nobody even examining the question of whether do anything
because everybody's too busy feeling good about themselves? Paying people to
care more, perhaps by incentivizing good grades? We've tried all those and
more. It's not like "it's a culture problem" is exactly a new idea, and it's
an easy one for "the system" to deal with because it does involve just what I
said (money and government programs, for better and for worse not hard to push
through), a solution very easy for the system to deploy. It won't work until
schools actually magnify efforts instead of squashing them, and no amount of
central mandating is going to get us there.

Cultural issues like schools aren't houses. That's first-order thinking.
They're _life forms_ , second order and so on. They react to your decisions,
they do not passively consume them. With those sorts of systems it's actually
quite common for the straightest path from here to there to be anything _but_
simply striking out in what is most obviously the direction of the goal and
pushing as hard as you can. If it were that easy, we wouldn't have a problem
in the first place!

------
loumf
In the US, police and firefighters are usually unionized. There are limits on
their ability to strike. I believe that those limits might be in place for
teachers as well.

The military has incredibly strict rules for advancement and compensation that
are very union-like. They have defined ways to make a grievance. They get
pretty good benefits and pension. I'm not sure that they'd choose to unionize
or what exactly it would get them.

There is, of course, the job itself, which they have zero control over, and
would probably not be able to negotiate even if they had a union.

------
yardie
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you want the best and brightest
to be teachers then you have to recruit where the best and brightest
are....and PAY what the best and brightest can get in the private industry.
What's Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook paying? That's the competition.

South Korea, Singapore, and many other countries don't have this problem. Why?
Because being a teacher there is a good job with good benefits. Benefits the
private sector can barely touch. Instead we are left with the PE teacher
teaching maths because all the good math teachers are working for Google.

------
michaelchisari
Whenever teachers unions come up, I like to throw this out there. According to
those who target unions and suggest "school choice" as a remedy for education
problems, Finland should be a cesspool of failure and illiteracy.

What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120425355065601997.html>

~~~
yummyfajitas
According to a quick google search, Finland has both school choice and merit
pay (a policy strongly opposed by unions in the US).

This suggests that school choice might be a good idea, and that Finland's
unions might be very different from our unions.

~~~
michaelchisari
School choice, with equalized funding. I'm all for that. When a public school
in Baltimore gets the same funding as a school in a posh upper-middle class
suburb, then school choice works.

And saying that unions need to be reformed in different directions is very
different from saying that unions need to be done away with.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Interesting. So cutting the funding of Baltimore public schools by $3-5k will
make school choice effective?

[http://www.somdnews.com/stories/03032010/entetop162900_32193...](http://www.somdnews.com/stories/03032010/entetop162900_32193.shtml)

(The richer suburbs, e.g. Charles and St. Marys spend $3-5k/student less than
Baltimore schools.)

~~~
michaelchisari
Are those numbers balanced for special needs and other per-student costs? Does
it take into account various other cost requirements? If you compare teacher
salaries, are they equivalent?

There's a considerable amount of research done on the effects and nature of
funding disparities, if you haven't looked into it, I'd recommend it.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Teacher salaries appear to be considerably lower in St Marys and Charles
county than in Baltimore. I'm too lazy to do a county by county comparison for
all of Maryland (a state I've never even visited).

[http://www.bcps.org/offices/PAYROLL/pdf/scales/TABCO-12-Mont...](http://www.bcps.org/offices/PAYROLL/pdf/scales/TABCO-12-Month-
Payscale.pdf&pli=1)

[http://www2.ccboe.com/employment/Teacher-
SalaryScale-1011.pd...](http://www2.ccboe.com/employment/Teacher-
SalaryScale-1011.pdf)

[http://divisions.smcps.org/hr/sites/divisions.smcps.org.hr/f...](http://divisions.smcps.org/hr/sites/divisions.smcps.org.hr/files/file/2011_Salary_Scales.pdf)

I've heard many assertions that inner city and other underperforming schools
are underfunded. But whenever I go to look them up, and compare them to the
rich suburbs, they seem to be wildly overfunded. Baltimore seems to be better
funded than the rest of Maryland. Newark and Trenton public schools are funded
better than most of NJ, and perform terribly.

But hey, you've got vague allusions to a "considerable amount of research".
That's more useful than hard numbers.

~~~
michaelchisari
Just so you know, the first link is for Baltimore County, not Baltimore City.
They're separate entities, and Baltimore County is considerably wealthier than
Baltimore City, having gone to such great lengths to separate themselves as a
tax base, that you even have Towson listed as Baltimore County, despite being
within Baltimore City.

There's also the issue, unaddressed, of extra per-student costs. For instance,
special needs students can be very expensive, often requiring one-on-one
instruction, which can greatly skew the per-student costs.

