Who Is the Union, Actually?

[alterin]

One thing that I see that the public doesn’t understand-- and worst yet and more importantly, a lot of teachers don’t understand either-- is that the Teachers union is teachers. Most people want to separate the two as if there are teachers and then there are teachers unions. It’s especially prevalent on the political right, but like most things that are just known, what the political right knows as true is shouted from all of the rooftops of our stupid little algorithmic bubbles that are most definitely generated based on getting people as riled up as possible.

And it makes sense, teachers as a group are overwhelming popular. Sure, there are people who are very vocally anti-teacher, but for the most part, it’s fairly overwhelming popular. It’s in that public servant group that includes doctors, nurses, firefighters, and police officers (although, the last is maybe not the most in the group.) So if you’re anti-public education, you can’t necessarily attack the teachers. Instead, you need to create some kind of boogeyman that you can put all of the blame on. So, teachers =/= teachers union. But that can’t be farther from the case.

Disclaimer: As much as I want to, I can’t really speak for all unions. There might be some regional differences, and there are definitely some national differences. If you watched American Factory on Netflix, you might have noticed that the worker’s union in China is definitely not the American idea of a union. And awkwardly enough, I think it’s probably closer to what the public thinks about American unions than what is really true, but again, I can’t speak for all unions.

My union, and I believe the majority of union’s in the US, is the workers that are in it. We get things done and our power comes from our ability to organize our workers to fight for our rights. My union does employ a rather large staff, but they aren’t decision makers. They work at the behest of our leadership which works at the behest of our leaders.

A lot of people like to attack our staff for the decisions that we make, and there’s this narrative in some online spaces that they are in charge. Some people like to claim that “if they got rid of that guy! I’d join! But he’s so ...” and, honestly, it’s a struggle for how they explain the next part every time because it never is grounded in reality either of our organization or of the power structures behind it. Like all politics, it’s a constant fight between arguing about reality and arguing about the way people feel. And separating those two is so hard for everyone involved.

The biggest issue facing my union, and I think all unions in general is the nature of where the real power lies. It lies within the people that volunteer their extra hours beyond their working hours to our craft and towards the betterment of our profession, and in the case of our very public service profession, the betterment of our society.

Part of what makes being a public school teacher so enticing is the belief that education is should be open to everyone, and if it is open to everyone, it can really equalize the existing power structures that disenfranchise so many people from ever really participating in society as anything more than pawns. And with that belief and with the passion that goes into that belief comes a little bit of a martyrdom complex. There’s a complex that if only we sacrifice a little more of ourselves, a little more of our lives, a little more of our extra time, we can achieve that goal and give some kid or some kids a path into the parts of society that would never have been opened to them otherwise.

And then when you have a bunch of those people who are already giving up so much to help their little corner of the world, where do you find someone willing to give just a little more to reach a larger audience? Because ultimately, those people are the ones who need to make the decisions and organize the others into fighting for our selves. And, there are some people who would look at that fight as selfish, but it’s like they tell you on an airplane if you’re traveling with a child, you need to help yourself before you can help someone else. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to help someone else.

I’m part of the bottom rung of union “leadership.” I’m giving all that I can, and honestly, it’s not much. It’s an elected position. For this bottom rung, my school can elect 5 people to this position. We’re not even a large school, but we can have up to 5 members of the bottommost rung on the leadership ladder. We have me. I win the “election” every year to continue my position against no-one. I win unopposed.

Then there’s an executive board that makes the big decisions. These positions have a little more prestige, and it’s a stepping stone to actual offices. But for the most part, it’s a completely thankless position. In the past 7 years, I think there was one time that one of those positions actually had an election. The people who get into those positions run unopposed.

The next level is our officers. Three of which are also thankless positions. And they’ve all won by running unopposed.

The last position in the officers pool is our President. This position is not thankless. They leave the classroom, and they take up this position full time. They are paid at the highest spot on our salary schedule for the duration of their term. It’s absolutely not insignificant. In exchange, they have to leave the classroom which is absolutely horrendous. We do what we’re doing because we love it. The President has to give that up, and I hope I showed what types of people teachers are. This is a very high price to pay. But again, the salary is a significant bump, and if they happen to be within 4 years of retirement anyways? Our pension plan would be based on those years. And holy crap, that would certainly make the sacrifice worth it.

Still. We did not have an election. Not for any nefarious reasons or purposes. But our new President ran unopposed. ¹

The point of all of this is: unions run on engagement, and we can rally when we find it super necessary. But it’s those moments when it’s, supposedly, not necessary that would lessen the impact of those moments. And it’s so very hard when life, when passion, when duty all get in the way of doing just a little more. I’m not knocking anyone here. I wish I thought I could give more, and I wish others thought they could give more, and I wish everyone could just give more. But it’s just not realistic.

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1. Honestly, if I had this on radar as something for me, I wouldn’t have bothered running against her either. (If you’re reading this, you can probably make some educated guesses about what union this is about, and there is definitely some very powerful photos of her in action. But still, no-one wanted to make even a small attempt? It’s not like they would have had to do anything more than give a 5 minute speech? ) ↩︎