01-01-2017, 05:11 AM
(01-01-2017, 02:38 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Of course, unions do their job in both the private and public sector to protect the interests of their members. Before the neo-liberal era, private unions were stronger. Now, in the neo-liberal era, public unions are much stronger and more common than private ones. Public sector unions are needed to protect public workers' interests, no doubt. But often it is the public whom these unions strike against. They are the only source of the salary increases they want, and poor school boards and other public authorities are caught in the middle.
But there's no essential reason why there can't be private teachers' unions as well as public ones, especially if education is going to become an industry like making cars or rolling steel. So unions may both improve or retard the quality of products and services provided by the institutions they organize. Fair payment for teachers helps both the teachers and the students, and are essential for a good educational "product" and service.
Sure. But there's a key difference that makes public unions more pernicious than private unions. Specifically, public unions often control both sides of the negotiating table, because the unions can lobby for their supporters to be on those school boards and public authorities. In many places, the school board is elected on a different day than other representatives, so that the average parent won't even know the election is occurring. But rest assured the union will be turning out its supporters.
With a private school, if there is a union, it is at least negotiating against a management team that has been independently selected and has an interest in extracting the best value for the money.
Quote:Teachers' jobs should indeed depend on making the public happy.
Actually this is not necessarily so great. Where I live, a lot of the public is childless by choice; they have no idea what is involved in bringing up kids, so what makes them happy is often a far cry from what's good for the kids. And once they get to a certain age, they couldn't care less whether the kids are well educated, because by the time that education pays off in higher productivity, they'll be dead.
Quote:Teacher's jobs don't depend on unions
Bad teachers' jobs do.