
How “illegal” teacher strikes rescued the American labor movement - howard941
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/mbzza3/how-illegal-teacher-strikes-rescued-the-american-labor-movement
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whb07
The fundamental problem with public school teachers are that the “customer” in
the relationship isn’t the parent or the child, but the gov bureaucrat. So
while the results of a teacher might hurt the child or the parent, who cares
as it’s not them to who they cater to.

The incentives aren’t aligned properly and there is no negative incentive when
a school fails a generation of children. The teacher and admins will just
carry on business as usual(rather monopoly) charge a higher fee and deliver a
worse product.

~~~
wnevets
>The fundamental problem with public school teachers are that the “customer”
in the relationship isn’t the parent or the child, but the gov bureaucrat. So
while the results of a teacher might hurt the child or the parent, who cares
as it’s not them to who they cater to.

Thanks no child left behind! Tying school funding and teacher pay to child
test schools is one of the largest blunders this country has made.

~~~
nichos
Thanks to government in general. America's students are much worse since the
inception of the DOE.

~~~
wnevets
Citation needed

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duxup
Teachers are still poorly paid, they aren't really changing any of the
problems teachers face, and a great deal of opportunity and advancement is
determined purely by seniority....

They may win some battles but I would argue they aren't winning the war, and
their emphasis on seinority above all isn't very appealing.

I still see young teachers with new ideas held back by a union that caters to
luddite established teachers who are effectively untouchable, don't want to
change and enjoy most of the benefits.

American unions focus on seinority > all is the reason I would never want to
be a part of them.

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verisimilidude
The article addresses this, pointing out that many of these teacher strikes
are led by the workers themselves, rather than union leadership (which often
tries to avoid strikes).

This is HN, right? I'd expect someone here to seize on that opportunity, and
develop some sort of service to help workers organize themselves, perhaps
against the wishes of their union-appointed bureaucrats.

~~~
duxup
I'm not convinced that either the unions or one off actions are doing much.

~~~
sundaeofshock
Teachers keep withholding their labor and getting pay increases as well as
increases in overall school funding. I’m curious why you feel that is not
“doing much”.

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morpheuskafka
I generally support teacher labor movements. However, I think it's important
to consider the effects that even the smallest disruption. For example, last
year in NC the teacher's groups organized a "Rally for Respect." What they did
to bypass strike laws was they encouraged every teacher in the state to
request unpaid personal day, which is normally rubberstamped by the principal
as you only have a couple. When half the school wants leave, that would be
when you stop signing them. But instead, to avoid that conflict, nearly all
major districts cancelled school entirely, treating everyone taking leave as a
foregone conclusion.

So, one extra teacher workday, barely even worth noting, right? Well, it just
so happens that the day selected was the day of the AP Lang exam that year. By
the time they saw fit to announce the non-strike, all of the exams had already
been ordered and students and teachers had been planning for the normal date.
Thanks to the non-strike, the state had to pay $45/exam to get late exams, and
it could have caused some students to miss the exam if they had to take a
conflicting exam late for a legitimate reason. Oddly enough, College Board
wouldn't have charged if it were a real strike.

~~~
door5
The whole point of strikes is that they are disruptive.

~~~
morpheuskafka
But when government workers strike, they don't disrupt the legislatures that
set their pay, they disrupt the everyday citizens who might have even been
sympathetic to their cause.

~~~
sundaeofshock
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make here. Of course strikes are
disruptive to the general public; that’s one of the reason people strike.
Ordinary citizens who have their lives disrupted will turn to their elected
officials to end the disruption. There will always be people who turn
unsympathetic when workers withhold their labor. The long-term benefit is
worth it.

~~~
ferongr
As an ordinary citizen affected by, I support privatization where possible and
at-will employment regimes for public servants where not. Public servants are
privileged and should not have the right to strike.

~~~
RestlessMind
So if public servants are forbidden from striking and their employer (govt)
starts abusing them, what would be their recourse? Voting might be
insufficient if size of the workforce is too small to matter.

In general, strike is a tool labor has against capital. Just because capital
happens to be provided by taxpayers, how does that warrant a special case
handling?

~~~
ferongr
They can always quit. But nobody quits from guaranteed for-life employment
with generous pensions, lots of paid leave and limited workload.

~~~
snazz
Public school teachers don’t have any of those benefits, at least in the US.
Their pay and pension are anything but generous, they have little paid leave
(where I live, maternity or paternity leave uses up paid sick days too), and
they work long hours, with the expectation that they are available to answer
emails practically every day.

This is pretty much why there are very few public school computer science
teachers who do a decent job, since the ones who can legitimately write code
can get a much better job at a private company.

~~~
cascom
They have little paid leave because they have summers and other holidays off,
and as for answering emails - welcome to having a job in America.

When you factor that they only work 2/3 of the year, the value of their
pension and healthcare teachers actually make a considerable amount of money.

That being said I’m not sure what the right amount is - I put a great deal of
value on education - then again the best private institutions probably pay
less than public ones at the k-12 level

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hedora
Labor laws were a carefully negotiated compromise between economic chaos and
workers rights.

I think the lesson here is that that they’ve been weakened to the point of
irrelevance, people still need to (and will) strike, and it will cause more
harm to employers than the system that was intentionally dismantled after the
last few decades.

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tomatotomato37
I don't get labor movements for public institutions. I mean for corporate or
private businesses its makes sense to counter the profit above all else
motive, but for something like a school which uses public funds to push a
societal good I find it to be a bit entitled.

~~~
harimau777
I think that the issue is that even though school is a societal good (and
presumably most teachers are motivated at least somewhat by altruism) it is
also how teachers make their living. So the same forces involved in a private
sector strike are in play, just with management replaced by the government,
school board, or citizens.

~~~
Zach_the_Lizard
On the other hand, private workers don't typically vote for their leaders, but
public unions can and do get to vote. So they have additional levers to pull

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CryptoPunk
Vice writers are unionized and are thus profiting from pro-union laws that
allow them to undermine the contracting rights of their employer and get
themselves above-market wages. Therefore the angle they choose for this
article is not surprising to me.

Most of those working in the media have a major conflict of interest when
writing about politics.

~~~
harimau777
Can you explain what you mean by contracting right?

~~~
CryptoPunk
The right to hire whoever you want at whatever terms you want to offer.
Collective bargaining mandates for one violate that right. You can't offer an
employment contract that doesn't obligate you as an employer to collectively
bargain, meaning negotiate with a representative of a collective bargaining
unit to the exclusion of all other parties, in the event that a majority of
workers in a work unit unionize and demand it.

Anything the press commonly defines as a "labor right" is really a restriction
on the employer's right to freely contract.

~~~
harimau777
I see what you are saying; however, I think those restrictions are often
necessary due to to the dramatic difference in power between a corporation and
an individual employee.

Since most people do not have the opportunity to support themselves anymore
(because they cannot afford farmland or the capital to start their own
business), for most people working for someone else is no longer voluntary.
Therefore, I think those people must have the right to negotiate fair* working
conditions with their employer.

* I realize that the exact definition of what constitutes fair is going to differ between different people and political views. However, I think there are general principles that most people can agree on such as making enough to provide for ones family, a safe work environment, being treated with respect by the employer, and work hours that allow the employee to participate in other aspects of life.

~~~
tropo
No, "fair" is more like a lack of fraud or coercion. It means that you get
what you can manage without those, which is generally the market rate. You may
be able to trade off pay, safety, respect, and hours. (give up some of one to
get more of another) The deal you get comes from the value you bring. Getting
more than your share, for example by coercion against the employer or by
defrauding the employer, is definitely not fair.

~~~
harimau777
I definitely agree that it is legitimate for an individual to trade off
certain benefits of a job for others. I think the issue arrises when they
either do not have the opportunity to actually make that decision (e.g. if all
of the jobs they are able to get lack one of those traits) or if the overall
split of benefits between the employer and employee is skewed (e.g. the
business becomes more profitable but the increase in profit is not split with
the employees).

~~~
tropo
Employees get their wages. They must be paid the market rate no matter if the
business is profitable or not. If they aren't paid that, they leave. The
business can't force employees to stay and work for less, even if the business
is losing money. If the business had to share profit, then it would only be
fair that it gets to share losses, forcing employees to stay and work like
slaves... but we don't find that to be acceptable.

Profit is the dream that drives entrepreneurs to take crazy risks to start
businesses. Without that, they would not try, and jobs would not get created.

There is some justification for keeping the profit from getting extreme, to
keep customers from being hit with abusive monopoly pricing. The least harmful
way to do this is by enforcing the existence of competition, breaking up any
business that gains excessive market share. One could draw the line at 15% for
example, splitting any business with a greater market share. Another
possibility is to persuade businesses to split themselves, perhaps via taxes
based on market share. A danger is that innovation slows due to businesses
avoiding hitting the market share limit.

~~~
CryptoPunk
>>There is some justification for keeping the profit from getting extreme, to
keep customers from being hit with abusive monopoly pricing.

Another option is for the state to directly fund open-source software in
sectors prone to monopolization. Then there will be competition, and if the
open source software wins out and becomes the market standard, no profit
gouging.

