Don't Blame Teachers for Being Good Negotiators
Mr. Glenn Welch has again assumed a role no-one gave him, “the watch dog of our community education”. I will gamely take on the role of bear-baiter.
In general, Mr. Welch points out the obvious: we are an economy severely battered by the recession and our taxes are an expense we should all be trying to control. Where his comments grow weak to the point of breaking are the sweeping assertions he makes, such as “health and pension benefits that exceed the private sector” or “teachers’ pay exceeds the local medium income by 46%”.
If health and pension benefits exceed the private sector, I want facts and figures. If the union has negotiated that, then they are good negotiators. I don’t begrudge anyone – teachers or otherwise – decent health and pension benefits. I would like them too. In the richest country in the world, EVERYONE, Mr. Welch included, should have access to decent healthcare and a pension. Mr. Welch and his cohorts would apparently like everyone to suffer poor healthcare and meager pensions simply because they don’t have them. Is this what they mean by “trickledown economics”? Do we all trickle down to the lowest common denominator?
As for the comparison with local medium income, I wonder of everyone earned minimum wage, Mr. Welch would argue that teachers too should earn minimum wage. There are and have been countries with similar systems to those which Mr. Welch seems to be proposing: The Soviet Union, China and North Korea. China and (now) Russia do see the advantages of differentiating teachers and other skilled workers, in terms of pay.
All the guff Mr. Welch mentions about days per year and hours per day are nonsense. First of all, most teachers I know work more than 8 hours a day and can be seen at night and on weekends working or participating in school life. They have the summer off (although they do have less time off than students) because students have time off. What is he suggesting? They pick lettuce in Arizona over the summer and earn less for teaching the rest of the year? Who would be a teacher under those conditions?
What Mr. Welch is trying to do is blame the Teachers Union for the fact they get a decent salary. If the teachers are earning a decent salary, it is because they have fought for it, and management agreed. As one lawmaker in Columbus wryly said after hearing a school board president complain about unionized teachers’ salaries and benefits, “Thank you for admitting you are a poor negotiator”.
Despite earning a decent salary, there is a shortage of teachers because, ironically, people with the education to become teachers can earn far more in other walks of life. Mr. Welch sites a host of factors, which will affect negotiations, but fails to cite the greatest factor in our beloved country: capitalism and free markets. As long as they are around, teachers are free to negotiate and get paid their due and we can either pay or not – and take the consequences, good or bad, of either decision.