“You can recall the governor. You can recall the school board. But how do you plan to recall me?” Cecily Myart-Cruz, chairman of the United Teachers Association of Los Angeles (UTLA) union, said the parents opposed her The practice of closing schools in the second university district in the United States was ridiculed.
heavy bomb interview The UTLA top boss announced last week turned a deaf ear to widespread concerns about the impact of the closure on students. “There is no such thing as learning loss,” she said. “Our babies may not learn all the timetables, it’s okay… They know the difference between riots and protests. They know words uprising with coup.”
Los Angeles is just one of many places where parents’ advocates for reopening face-to-face learning have long been hindered by special interests. Despite the fact that as early as February, Overwhelming majority Of parents expressed support for the reopening, although Strong scientific evidence In order to ensure the safety of the reopening, teachers’ unions continue to resist, often using the pandemic as an excuse to promote radical agendas that have nothing to do with education. UTLA itself, debate The “safe and fair conditions” for the reopening of schools should include the cancellation of funding for police, universal health insurance, and suspension of new charter schools.
At the national level, senior officials from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) unions Be disturbed In the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s February School Reopening Guidelines. As a result, the agency cancelled its plan to allow face-to-face guidance independent of the level of viral community transmission.
Other major school districts face similar be opposed to Throughout the epidemic. The powerful Chicago Teachers Union stated in a now-deleted December 2020 tweet that “Efforts to reopen schools are rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.” Miami Area Dade Teachers’ Association in July 2020 Sued Florida, demanding that the school be closed. The AFT affiliates in Baltimore and Fairfax County (outside Washington, DC) each opposed at least four different reopening proposals, while the Philadelphia Teachers’ Union rejected three. The list goes on.
Why do teachers’ unions across the country have the right to determine the conditions for school districts to reopen, while parents’ tax payments (nearly 80% of which support face-to-face teaching) continue to flow to these school districts?
The answer is that in almost every state, the head of a public sector union has at least some power to force teachers, police, firefighters, and other public employees to sign a one-size-fits-all contract, so that the public service’s interest to the union boss is higher than the public’s interest. .
Spencer Pratt/Getty Images
This means that union leaders can “bargain” with local government officials on education, police, and other public service policies, which limits the ability of elected officials to fight for the wishes of voters. If these policies need to be changed—for example, due to a surge in coronavirus cases—it is hoped that unions will take this opportunity to gain concessions in the “negotiations” of new needs.
The monetary cost of allowing union officials and their promoters in the government to perpetuate the system is steepAccording to data from the National Institute of Labor Relations, states with a high proportion of unionized public employees have a significantly higher tax burden than states with a low proportion. But this does not even take into account the labor costs associated with ignoring the public interest in favor of the union agenda.
The long-term closure of schools by the union alone caused serious damage. three million It is estimated that the most marginalized children in our country’s education system have not attended a class. Obesity and eating disorders It is becoming more and more common among children and adolescents, and the number of emergency room visits related to mental health among U.S. adolescents in 2020 is 31% higher than in 2019. CDC dataAt the beginning of this year, suspected suicide attempts for girls aged 12-17 in the emergency room increased by 50.6%.
Many parents respond to this madness by transferring their children to private or charter schools.However, the chairman of the union Joe Biden Always intend to rescue school districts dominated by labor unions.His 1.9 trillion U.S. rescue plan $200 billion Among them, it is mainly used for “recruitment”—in other words, hiring union teachers with more dues—although enrollment is decreasing.
With the devastating consequences of COVID-19 and the ensuing misleading policies, now is a better time than ever to examine how public sector unions have become such deeply entrenched special interest groups as they are today. Ending the monopoly bargaining privileges of union officials will combat the root cause of the problem while protecting the freedom of association of teachers and other public officials who do not think these unions represent them.
Otherwise, any time union bosses chant “crisis”-whether it is COVID or other-will be another opportunity for them to hold the public in pursuit of a radical political agenda.
Mark Mix is the chairman of the National Work Rights Committee.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author.
