[On September 12, 2012, I posted on the Chicago Teachers Union.  It’s time for a repeat]

They are outside my window at work.  Across the street from my building.  It’s hard to talk on the phone because of the banging on drums, the yelling, car horns, the loudspeakers, the chanting and the noise.  It’s difficult to get from point A to point B because the demonstrators in their red shirts have locked arms and forced streets to be closed.  Public transportation is disrupted.   There is a sense of entitlement that it’s okay to interrupt everyone else’s day.  And they care not about the 350,000 Chicago school children and their parents who suffer.           

Chicago teachers are the highest paid in the nation and they work among the shortest hours in the world.  Elementary school teachers have 5-3/4 hour days and work 170 days a year (both stats are less than the national average).  While at the mountaintop of compensation and the basement of hours worked, they want more.  And less.  Chicago teachers are on strike.  They are demanding a 16% increase in pay (how many private sector workers get this?) and push back on the need for more school hours and teacher accountability.    The unions want to control the schools.  Hiring.  Firing. Expectations.   Oppose charter schools.  Oppose magnet schools.  No performance standards (as is found in every other occupation).  More money.  Less work.   Protection of the worst teachers.   And it’s all for “the children.”  Right. 

We spend the most money on public school education and we get dismal results.  Our children are losing.  Every day, they are falling behind the rest of the world.  We desperately need to educate our children.   We need great teachers.  Yet the Chicago Teacher’s Union is blocking the door.   And does not care.  Maybe an “Arab spring” on dealing with teachers unions is what it will take.

I heard from a close friend about my last post. He wrote that unions have served – and continue to serve – an important purpose in America.   He observes, however, that the ethic of unions has changed:   “I believe unions served a critical purpose.  Unfortunately, that purpose has begun to replicate the very greed and heartlessness that inaugurated them.  Look at the auto industry.” 

We are talking about a teachers union.  Teachers teach.  They serve as role models for our students.  And yet look at the image that is being projected by them as they strike:  they are degrading and demeaning to anyone who disagrees; they disrupt traffic;  they close streets; they use angry slogans; they have a 20 foot inflatable rat outside of school headquarters; look at and listen to their spokespersons.  And witness the demands.  Mercy!   Maybe it is that teachers unions have devolved and descended into that disappointing abyss of entertainers and professional athletes who simply “don’t care” that they are role models to young people.  It’s become obvious that education is not their primary interest.   But is it too much to ask for teachers to behave?    

What we need is respectful and ethical people on both sides.  Employers paying fair wages and workers making reasonable demands — and knowing what “fair” means.