On Teachers Unions

I've been watching the whole episode up in Wisconsin and have been fairly amused by the happenings across the board.  This has been the most entertained by political drama that I think I can remember being.  I've largely stayed out of the debate, as I have with much of anything for a while, as I've been incredibly busy with both work and in my personal life, and haven't sat down to formulate my thoughts on the matter.  I ventured into the fray a little bit over at my favorite leftwing lunatic blog, d r i f t g l a s s, and admittedly made an ass of myself, mostly because I felt like stirring up the rats nest.

While the post itself is fairly inane nonsense attempting to tie Walker to the Koch brothers (driftglass is one of the more vehement "vast right wing conspiracy" bloggers I know of, and of the general Liberal ilk of "everyone on the Left is smarter than everyone on the Right, so every idea on the Right is stupid, and I never have to prove it so I'll just be snarky"), three of the comments were fairly instructive to me.  The first was from a commenter called "double nickel" who informed me after I expressed my thoughts that I see no reason for teachers unions to exist, that I am an asshole.  Touche to that.  Well argued and a very reasonable way to carry on a conversation.

A more important comment to me, however, was one from "zombie rotten mcdonald" who responded to my assertion that I find it nonsensical that there should be a public sector union for anything, least of all for the white collar professions.  His response:

It used to be that white collar professionals were protected by demand for their services; good working conditions and wages were necessary to attract decent employees. But In our new, exciting Republican Wage-slave economy, employers are perfectly happy to hold people hostage to employment and most especially, health care. 

Unions created the middle class. And that aggravates the Koch brothers no end.

First of all, I will largely agree that unions created the middle class.  I agree that history bears this out, and vehemently agree that private sector unions were, and remain, necessary to bring stability to wages for workers, and prices to the end client.  An organization like UAW over history has been indispensable to bringing good wages and benefits to auto workers.  They have vastly overreached of late and continue to do so at the peril of the industry itself, but they have been immensely important in bringing a voice to the working class against a small group of employers that collectively can tip the scale of an entire economy.

This comment, despite the commenter not intending it, makes a very strong argument for privatization of most any service that is currently monopolized by the government.  Services such as firefighting, law enforcement and teaching, for example, have little or no private sector equivalent, and are therefore compensated at a rate that is determined only by the local government that oversees them.  I will set aside the professions of firefighting and law enforcement where individuals put their lives on the line in service to the safety of the public and focus on the the collective bargaining of the white collar governmental professions.

White collar professionals in the private sector are indeed protected by demand for their services.  This is the reason that there is not a union for say, civil engineers or project managers.  There is a general ceiling to what the market will bear compensating those positions, to be sure, and one is unlikely to rise above that ceiling unless he or she has management potential and can eventually command some form of percentage bonus structure or profit sharing, but since there are always many different employers willing to compensate these positions they are always likely to garner good salaries and benefits.  Private companies continue to require the best and brightest to remain competitive in the quality of service their clients expects, for what their clients will pay.  The constant demand for high level performance yields a relatively constant supply of well compensated positions.  But this is not the case in white collar government work because there is only one possible major employer: the government.

White collar government workers and the supporters of their union, might be quick to make the elementary observation that this is all the more reason for public sector unions.  Somebody has to negotiate for better wages and benefits, because they've got nowhere else to go!  Ignoring the fact that many governments cannot afford what they are currently paying the positions, hence the current dilemma, this qualifies as a monstrous distortion of the marketplace by the government.  This is the argument for something like a school voucher program.  Put money back into the hands of the people, and the market would self regulate to more of a balance of people sending their kids to private schools.  More private schools offsetting the public schools would create a better market for teachers, allowing compensation for teacher positions to be driven by the market, rather than by political lobbying by the union.

This brings me to driftglass commenter, "CC," who left this impassioned comment (while taking me hugely out of context):

Paul K said "...it's teachers working 9 months a year in pleasant conditions..." 

Yep. Pleasant conditions. 25-30 kids an hour each day in a room with no windows with intermittent heat/air, especially at the change in season; outdated equipment; kids that come to school sick; high stakes tests; being shit on (I mean advised) by asshats (I mean concerned citizens) like you; chalk dust; white board markers; poor lighting. Yep conditions are perfect. 

I'd agree that I only work for 9 months of the year. Can I remind you that I plan and grade on my own time (also on the weekends) bringing my weekly hourly work time to somewhere in the area of 70-80 hours a week. So if I spread that over the entire 52 week year (with no time off ever) I would put in about 48 to 55 hours a week. Sounds like a great job for $70K a year...oh wait, it will take me 25 years to reach that pay. 

Couple that with the fact I'll take a month in the summer to take a required class (on my own dime) as well as run classes for other dedicated teachers--correction--brothers and sisters. 

Teachers unions, while we fight for better pay for teachers, also fight for better conditions for students, better teaching materials, better administrators and school board officials. All of this in addition to trying to provide a quality education for students. 

The job is so difficult and stressful that more than 50% of teachers don't make it past the first 5 years. But you're right, screw it, get rid of unions so that you can pay teachers $8 an hour to balance the budget. 

I love the work that I do and I do my job well. But try to tie me to my job by my love of it and I'll walk and many of my counterparts will do the same thing. Guess what? We are good at other things. Private sector beware. Teachers will take your jobs.

I'll throw a little irony on the fire here by taking the "I have black friends" approach to defending against being called racist, and say that one of my best friends is a teacher.  I know quite well how hard she has to work to keep pace with the paperwork end of things, and she's teaching early childhood, so there's not even homework to deal with.  It was stressful enough at one point when she was preparing for the beginning of the school year that several of us got together with her for big group preparation sessions, helping her prepare materials for her classroom, deep into the night.  This was just preparing for the beginning of the year.  She's been one of the busiest people I know since the year started, besides.  She always is.  The amount of work that teachers do on their own time is phenomenal, and it's absolutely the unfortunate tragedy of our lifetime that they are not paid better than they are.

But when we look at the relationship between the teacher and the employer, the perception among the unionized is that there is only one way to achieve better wages and benefits, and that is to support the union.  The flaw in this idea, however, is that, as FDR knew, the relationship between government and its employees is fundamentally different from the relationship between the private sector and its employees.  Government has always paid its employees less than the private sector, and offset that by providing vastly superior benefits.  This grew out of the nature of working for the government being one of serving the public.  Government workers were assumed to be people who were sacrificing their private earning potential to serve the public for a certain amount of time, before going back to their own lives.  Only when the government monopolized certain industries, such as education, and working for the government necessarily became a career pursuit, did a union also arise, the view being that falsely espoused by CC, that the government would pay teachers $8/hour just to balance the budget.

This is nonsense because the government also sets values like the minimum wage and the cost of living allowance.  These are meant to be guideposts for the private sector that the government sets in its role as referee.  If the government didn't also at least follow these guideposts, its legitimacy as referee would be reduced to zero.  Also making this nonsense is that when government does need to hire white collar positions that are not unionized, they are not paying people $8/hour to do them.  The aforementioned civil engineers and project managers are positions that the government also hires, and that are hired by the government at compensation packages that rival that of the private sector.  If they did not rival those of the private sector, the people simply wouldn't go work for the government.  This would also be the case in a privatized, open market teaching industry.

What would not be the case in a privatized, open market teaching industry is what we see today:  a gigantic, overly-bureaucratic employer attempting to balance its books, that's wound up in a ludicrous political showdown with a gigantic, overly-bureaucratic employees union that is pitching the biggest sore loser shit-fit this side of Kanye West simply because it no longer has the employer in its hip pocket.

Chicago Union Operators Strike Comes to an End

After nearly three weeks without setting foot on a jobsite for any reason other than to picket, the Operators have reached an agreement with MARBA.  Tentatively speaking anyway.  According to Local 150:

Tonight, after more than 9 hours of negotiations, a tentative agreement was reached between Local 150 and the Mid America Regional Bargaining Association (MARBA). The agreement calls for 3.25 percent annual increases for three years on the District 1, 2 and 3 Heavy Highway and Underground and Building Agreements.

Ratification is scheduled for this Wednesday.
 
The Operators have been leading the charge in this strike, and, as they usually do, the Laborers are likely to follow.  Let's get back to work!

Chicago Union Operators & Laborers Strike Continues

On June 30th, the Chicago area's Union Operators and Laborers went on strike, after working for a month without a contract in place.  Those of us in the business of managing projects staffed by union companies found ourselves in a "hurry up and wait" situation.  Progress on active projects all over the city has stopped, with few notable exceptions.  The expansion at Children's Memorial Hospital continues, as the hospital has agreed to pay the workers what they are asking for, in order to keep the project moving.  Other projects continue as well, notably Ogden School on the City's north side.  Such projects are either fully or in part funded by federal monies, which precludes them from be affected by the local strike.

When the strike began on June 30th, I opined that

The timing of the strike leaves me with the slim hope that this is a strong-arm "let's wreck the 4th of July weekend" kind of move. The news from Crain's, however, leaves me with a feeling of mild dread that this may linger for some time.

News shortly after the strike began was that the unions and the negotiating entity for contractors, the Mid-America Regional Bargaining Association, or MARBA, would be going back to the negotiating table on July 7th, with additional meetings scheduled, if necessary, for the 9th and the 12th.  This strengthened my hope that the differences would be resolved shortly.
 
The negotiating days of the 7th, 9th and 12th have come and gone, with both parties still at stalemate.  News on the negotiations is slim, with updates available at the Operators Union website, Local 150.  Local 150 is, in fact, controlling the narrative of these negotiations, while MARBA remains silent.  After negotiations have gone on with no resolution, James M. Sweeney, President-Business Manager for Local 150, released the following statement

“The Unions and employers did not reach an agreement tonight, and we are tremendously disappointed at the employers’ lack of urgency, refusing to meet with us until Monday, July 19th. Once again, we made ourselves available around the clock, and the employers are stalling. They do not seem to understand that there are workers and contractors whose survival hinges upon these negotiations.

“It is becoming more apparent that MARBA’s intent is likely not only to starve out our members, but also to starve out the smaller contractors within their own ranks. Many of the contractors who have assigned their bargaining rights to MARBA are very small businesses, and delaying negotiations for another week puts those contractors’ survival in jeopardy.

“Local 150 will continue to provide for our members during this strike. Local 150’s Food Bank provides boxes of food for 1,000 families a week and we have subsidized COBRA payments for 1,200 families who have lost their healthcare coverage. Our International Union has pledged its financial backing to support striking members and their families. If the employers think they are going to starve out Local 150, they are sorely mistaken. We will continue to provide for our members as we always have until the employers.

“We are not negotiating for wages, but to protect our healthcare and benefits. Despite the fact that benefit actuaries gave employer representatives the very same cost figures that we have for our funds last Friday, the employers’ latest proposal still would not cover costs, and would require significant reductions in wages or benefits. MARBA says that they are not looking to make cuts, but that is exactly what their proposal would do.

“Local 150 has committed $150 million of our own money to make up the gap in our funds caused by a nearly 40 percent reduction in hours worked. We are asking the employers to share the burden with us. All of these funds are jointly administered by labor and management, so the employers have a responsibility to maintain the health of these funds as well.

“Local 150 and other area Unions have reached contract settlements over the past few weeks for significantly more than what Local 150 is asking for here, and far more than what is being offered by employers, often with little or nothing going to wages. MARBA claims that our proposals are not realistic, but these types of packages have very recently been agreed upon in, Peoria, the Quad Cities, Northwest Indiana and throughout the construction industry in Northern Illinois.

“If the employers do not believe that we understand the current economy, we invite them to come hand out boxes of food to our members one night. Our members have been hit as hard as anyone by this recession, but we will not give away everything we have bargained for because the employers don’t want to negotiate with us.”

Further, according to People's World Blog, Local 150 is controlling the narrative with both talk radio and the newspapers in Chicago.

Ed Maher, spokesman for Local 150 told Chicago Public Radio that union members want to get back to work as soon as possible.

"But they don't want to do it at the cost of 30 years worth of bargaining," he said. "No body likes this strike. A strike is never a first option. But we're certainly not going to give up our health care without a fight, and certainly not to an organization that isn't willing to negotiate with us."

MARBA, on the other hand, appears entirely oblivious of the existence of any form of media.  They have not had spokespeople on the radio, or interviewing with newspapers.  The only correspondence I've come across from them is again at People's World Blog:

MARBA representatives say they are not seeking to reduce wages and are surprised that the workers would strike during the midst of an unstable economy. The construction companies argue that funds are tight because of the economic downturn.

After significant initial public bafflement and outrage at this strike, MARBA is beginning to lose ground in the court of public opinion.  The two parties don't appear to be significantly far off from reaching an agreement, but if MARBA continues to allow Local 150 to control 100% of the public narrative, it seems as if MARBA will lose more than just a bit of the bargaining position this current economy has afforded them.

Chicago: Union Operators and Laborers to Strike

I awoke this morning to the headline in Crain's Chicago Business and a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach: Potential strike could hit I-290, other construction projects.

Construction workers are preparing to strike as soon as Thursday, which would bring road-building projects such as the repaving of the Eisenhower Expressway to a standstill.

Contracts covering 15,000 Chicago-area heavy equipment operators and laborers expired June 1, but the two sides kept working in hopes of reaching a new agreement.

Talks broke down Monday, according to Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, the heavy-equipment operators’ union.

All I could think was that I hoped this wouldn't kill progress on my jobsite.  The new construction of the project I'm currently building has been going swimmingly, after all.  But we're digging and pouring grade beams this week, and that's pretty much all Operators and Laborers work in this town.  With steel set to start swinging next week, I could ill afford a strike like this.

As I walked on site, I spoke to the concrete foreman, and sure enough, the strike is on, and sooner than Crain's reported.  Non-federal workers at O'Hare are reportedly out the door today, with highway workers to follow tomorrow.  Operators are set to leave my site today at noon.  Laborers are set to picket asphalt plants today, and redi-mix (concrete) plants tomorrow.

The timing of the strike leaves me with the slim hope that this is a strong-arm "let's wreck the 4th of July weekend" kind of move.  The news from Crain's, however, leaves me with a feeling of mild dread that this may linger for some time.

Companies have offered a 1% increase in overall wages and benefits over the next three years, and workers are seeking 5%, a source familiar with negotiations said.

“We’re not seeking to unrealistically increase wages in this difficult economic climate,” says James Connolly, business manager for the Laborers’ District Council of Chicago. “But what they have come to the table with represents a significant cut to our members and jeopardizes the stability of our fringe benefit funds. And we will not settle for that.”

Tom Nordeen, chairman of the Mid-America Regional Bargaining Assn., which is representing the companies, said, "Despite the economic conditions, the locals of the Chicagoland region are asking for significant raises well in excess of cost-of-living and a continuation of their traditional rich health and retirement plans."

This news follows the recent strike by the Ironworkers and Teamsters in northwest Indiana, which the Crain's article linked also discusses, and the recent vote to strike by the Plumbers in Chicago.  The Plumbers, for all I have been able to tell, have not actually struck (they've kept on coming for my underground work anyway), and, per the PCA website, have continued to negotiate.

My personal thought on the matter is pretty simple.  As Crain's outlines, "Negotiations are playing out during one of the worst recessions ever in the construction industry, with unemployment topping 20% and construction companies reeling financially."  Heaven forbid we all just keep working, guys.  Suck it up.

UPDATE:  WGN reports that the strike vote is to take place tonight, and that picketing taking place today was in advance of the vote.  My excavator's operator left today at noon, along with all the laborers from both the excavation and concrete crews.  WGN says 8,000 out of 15,000 workers are expected to turn out for the vote tonight.  Here's hoping they vote to keep working, instead of making everything worse for everybody.

JWF links.  Thanks!

On Unions: Short, Sweet and to the Point

Apparently I will be buying my next round of grillable meats from Whole Foods for a reason other than that they carry good meats. Whole Foods Chairman John Mackey could very well be a new hero of mine after this statement on the radio yesterday:

The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.

Here is a guy who has successfully built multiple Whole Foods locations in a city (Chicago) where the unions are blocking Walmart from entering economically depressed neighborhoods that the store would benefit in every way possible, simply because the chain is not unionized. I hope he can keep it up, and eventually help pave the way to bettering the city I live in and love.

Has Obama Killed the UAW?

The United Auto Workers has made concessions on wages and benefits in order to receive controlling ownership in Chrysler. The proposed company that would reemerge would be owned as follows:

Company Creditors (Including the US Government) - 10%
Fiat - 35%
United Auto Workers - 55%

In agreeing to this situation, the UAW would be making a few concessions that seem to make sense. According to the Wall Street Journal

Among the cost-cutting measures that the UAW leaders have accepted are a suspension of cost-of-living-adjustments and new limits on overtime pay. Workers will only be paid for overtime after they have worked at least 40 hours in a week. Chrysler workers will also lose their Easter Monday holiday in 2010 and 2011, according to the union summary.

I think this gives us a pretty good insight into the overreaching that the union had been doing in terms of employee benefits. I'm fairly sure the actual definition of overtime is that point at which one exceeds 40 hours worked in a week. This makes me wonder just what the "overtime" structure had been all this time, not to mention just what other little goodies the UAW had leveraged out of the Big Three over the years, that has ultimately brought these once shining beacons of success to their knees.

The ownership in Chrysler has been referred to by many as Obama's payback to the UAW for the massive amount of support he received from them during the election. This would seem to fit with Obama's general stance on worker's rights and his overall anti-corporate attitude. On the surface this looks like a monstrous payback to the unions. But is it really?

Fearing a complete loss of their agreement altogether should Chrysler go to bankruptcy court, and a judge throw the agreement out, the UAW agreed to the aforementioned ownership structure. Ron Gettelfinger, and others before him, have lived out a mission to extract higher pay and greater benefits from these three companies each time a new labor agreement came around. The UAW under Gettelfinger has been particularly anti-corporate in its message, critical of companies for "the corporate global chase for the lowest wage which creates a race to the bottom that no workers, in any country, can win." This kind of fantasy statement may have been a great motivator for garnering support while things were sunshine and roses in the economy, but now this is no longer the case.

The UAW is now a potential owner in Chrysler, and has given up a great deal in its labor agreement with Chrysler to attain that role. As a matter of simple economics, this necessarily means that its other labor agreements with Ford and GM will be substantially weakened as well when renegotiation time rolls around with them. The ownership in Chrysler also necessarily removes one of the UAW's bargaining chips. No longer can the UAW use a good agreement from Chrysler to leverage one just a tad better out of Ford or GM. In the marketplace, any agreement the UAW now makes with Chrysler is essentially meaningless, since they will have shaken hands with themselves.

The general loss of leverage and subsequent loss of political and coercive power seems to me a major blow to the UAW. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. From the previously linked WSJ article:

"This is the eclipse of the UAW. It's going to be a shadow of what it once was, I'm afraid," predicted Gary Chaison, a professor of labor relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., who was interviewed prior to the disclosure of all details.

AND

"This will make it more difficult to do the things that the union is known for: organizing, political action, bargaining and community development," said John Russo of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown University

In short, the mission now needs to change for the UAW. Ironically, it is now the UAW's job to become an evil, greedy corporation, searching for an ever lower wage. In order to maintain its own existence, the UAW is now required to generate a company level profit. It must now make decisions as an owner responsible for both its employees, and the health and welfare of the company, but always putting the company first, for without the company, there can be no employees.

The question is now, after a long history of extorting the Big Three, playing one contract agreement off another off another to generate ever higher payouts for ever lessening production, will the UAW be able to do it? Will an organization that has always fought ownership, be able to act as a responsible owner? If they can, then Obama's arrangement of this situation will indeed have been a gift in payback. If the UAW continues to be the UAW, however, history will look back on this as Obama's deathblow to the UAW.

Of course, all of this is to say that Chrysler is able to emerge from its bankruptcy reorganization, rather than, as seems possible, filing for Chapter 7 and going under altogether.

Recession? What Recession? Let's Strike!

In a recession where 2.6 million people have lost their jobs over the past year, Fox News reports that United Steelworkers is on the verge of directing the 24,000 refinery workers they represent to lay down their tools and raise their picket signs instead. This follows the offer of a guaranteed three-year raise in salaries for the workers of 2.5% per year, despite the recession.

Given that most people, in general, are driving far less than they have in the past, it appears that the effect on gas prices would ultimately be minimal. This is reinforced by the fact that the bigger producers plan to either shutter their facilities altogether, or scab their plants, something that should be easy enough to do given the glut of available personnel.

The nation's biggest refiner, Valero Energy Corp., said it would shut down some facilities if workers walk out. So did European oil company BP PLC.

Shell Oil Co., the lead negotiator for the industry, along with Exxon Mobil Corp., said its refineries would continue to make gasoline, diesel and other fuels using nonunion or replacement workers.

Given the general anti-union sentiment stirring across the country after it came to the surface that UAW was a major reason the Detroit automakers needed a bailout, United Steelworkers is either showing some huge balls with this move, or they're just plain stupid.

Everything is against them in this negotiation. If they strike and we watch Valero and BP walk away altogether, and Shell & Exxon scab things over, I for one, will have no sympathy.