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The NEA's Latest Party
On July 2, NEA General Counsel Robert Chanin gave the
keynote presentation at the NEA's preconvention conference
on collective bargaining. In view of Chanin's influence in
the NEA, his analysis and advice to the NEA and its
affiliates will undoubtedly be reflected in NEA strategy and
tactics for many years to come.
Chanin's argument was that teacher bargaining led to
confrontation in the 1960s and 1970s because school boards
would not accept its legitimacy. Conventional approaches to
bargaining could have dealt with quality issues in a
collaborative way, but school boards stubbornly refused to
accept collective bargaining. Now that their opposition is
largely a relic of the past, teacher unions can emphasize
quality issues as well as teacher welfare in bargaining.
Chanin did not mention the fact that both the NEA and AFT
have always contended that teacher unionization would bring
about educational benefits for pupils; presumably, any
reminder might lead to skepticism about the "new unionism"
that the NEA and AFT are promoting these days.
At any rate, Chanin contended that except in the states
without a bargaining law, the teacher unions can now afford
to adopt the collegial and creative approaches to collective
bargaining that the unions anticipated with the emergence of
teacher bargaining. These new approaches should be
facilitated by changes in the state bargaining laws, such as
the expansion of the scope of bargaining to include
educational reform issues.
According to Chanin, the NEA should try to enact these
changes even if legislators and school boards reject a
collaborative approach to collective bargaining. The reason
is that it would be better for the NEA to initiate the
public discussion of reform issues than to be forced to
respond to the initiatives of others; in short, the NEA
should preempt its critics on reform issues.
As we should expect, everything that Chanin refers to as
"reform" turns out to be an addition to teacher and union
welfare. Class size is a showcase example. Its educational
benefits are vastly exaggerated, but that is only part of
the problem. What matters, or what should matter, is not
whether smaller classes (by how much?) result in higher
levels of student achievement (which they usually do not);
it is what is the most effective way to spend district
resources. In many districts, air conditioning or laboratory
equipment would bring about more educational achievement
than reductions in class size. Chanin's effort to appear
candid with his union client was really pandering to it when
he overlooks such basic considerations.
Some states, such as Michigan, enacted teacher bargaining
statutes thirty-five years ago. In such states, school
boards no longer challenge the legitimacy of teacher
bargaining and have not done so for decades. In fact,
however, teacher bargaining in these states is not
characterized by more "collaboration" than in the states
that enacted bargaining statutes more recently.
Aside from mangling the history of teacher bargaining,
Chanin's recommendations would weaken democratic
representative government, as they are intended to do. The
contracts that result from teacher union bargaining are
public policies for the duration of the contracts. Suppose,
however, that the negotiated policies turn out to be
educational disasters. Theoretically, at least, the
citizenry can replace the school board responsible for the
disaster, but the union leaders and members are not
accountable to the public in any way. Nobody loses a job or
compensation or benefits. As the scope of bargaining is
expanded, we expand the areas of public policy negotiated
with one interest group in a process that excludes everyone
else.
The fact is that school board acceptance of teacher
bargaining in no way implies board approval of it. Most
school boards would like to get rid of teacher union
bargaining; if they cannot, as is usually the case, they
would like to see the scope of bargaining reduced, not
expanded under the guise of facilitating educational reform.
In any case, the biggest flaw in Chanin's analysis is his
neglect of reform incentives. In the private sector, reforms
are typically generated by competition. Private sector
workers realize that competing companies, not their
corporate management, are the major threats to their jobs.
In the real world, it is much easier to bargain
collaboratively when management as well as unions operate
under competitive conditions. Unfortunately, the threat of
vouchers will not cause teachers to adopt reforms, at least
any that weaken or jeopardize teacher benefits or
prerogatives. Apart from the lack of agreement on what
changes are needed and why, teachers will not adopt reforms
simply because pupils would benefit. In the absence of
competition, private sector unions oppose changes that would
increase their effectiveness and efficiency; in the absence
of market competition in K-12 education, the NEA/AFT will
continue to oppose similar changes in public education.
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