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Competition and Teacher Representation
Most conservatives oppose monopolies in the production of
goods and services. Such monopolies lead to higher costs and
lower quality services than if there were competition to
provide them. This point is a critical factor in support for
vouchers, and it underlies a great deal of the current
support for school choice.
If it be assumed that competition is desirable from the
consumer's standpoint, the situation regarding teacher
representation in the bargaining law states is puzzling.
Teacher unions are the producers of representation services;
teachers are the consumers of them. In the thirty-nine
bargaining law states, the NEA/AFT enjoy a monopoly on
representation services; NEA/AFT affiliates rarely face a
challenge from any other organization to represent teachers.
The outcome is precisely what economic theory would predict
in this situation. The NEA/AFT are huge bureaucracies that
overcharge teachers a lot for low quality or unwanted
services. This being the case, why is there no competition
to represent teachers in collective bargaining? Why doesn't
a lower cost but more effective teacher organization
challenge NEA/AFT affiliates for bargaining rights?
Teacher organizations seeking to challenge NEA/AFT
affiliates for the right to represent teachers could take
many forms and emphasize many different advantages over
incumbent NEA/AFT affiliates. For this reason, I will not
try to summarize the features of teacher organizations that
might arise to challenge NEA/AFT affiliates as the
bargaining agent. Instead, I wish only to comment on the
absence of such organizations.
One reason for their absence is that "competition" is
just a buzz word to many persons who ostensibly advocate it.
It is something to throw upon the heap of criticisms of
public education, but there is no real understanding of the
conditions that render market competition feasible. Instead,
every school choice plan, no matter what the restrictions,
is hailed as proof of the merits of competition. When the
plans do not result in better educational outcomes, they are
cited by the opponents of a competitive education industry
to show that "competition doesn't work in education."
Still, the main reasons for the absence of competing
teacher organizations lie elsewhere. Despite their rhetoric
about "union bosses" dictating to teachers, many critics of
teacher unions believe that most teachers support NEA/AFT
positions, hence that it would be futile to try to establish
a competitive teacher organization. Again, it should be
emphasized that I am referring only to competing
organizations in the bargaining law states. In some of the
others, the non-union teacher organizations not only
compete, they enroll more members than the NEA/AFT.
The idea that it is futile to compete against the NEA/AFT
confuses cause and effect. The overwhelming teacher support
for the NEA/AFT is a result of the absence of competition;
the absence of competition is not due to overwhelming
teacher support for the NEA/AFT extreme left-wing agenda.
This is not to say that challenges to the NEA/AFT would be
successful everywhere; we just do not know how successful
they might be unless and until there are challenges, and we
may not even know then. Like elections generally, challenges
to the NEA/AFT could fail for many reasons that are not
applicable to all such efforts. If challenges to the NEA/AFT
fail on account of poor leadership or faulty strategy, it
would be unfortunate if the failures were treated as proof
of the inherent futility of such efforts.
Cost is another factor. When teachers try to replace
NEA/AFT affiliates as the exclusive representative, the
incumbent union can call upon the huge resources of its
parent organization. Teachers who want to be represented by
an alternative to the NEA/AFT have no such outside source of
support; they must generally rely upon their own
out-of-pocket contributions. Obviously, this can be a major
problem facing teachers who wish to be represented by an
independent organization as the bargaining agent. Even when
the NEA/AFT try to organize employees who are not unionized,
they incur substantial expenses to support full-time union
organizers, advertisements, travel, publications, and other
costs incident to organization. Inasmuch as independent
teacher organizations have no parent organization or
interest group on whom to rely for support, they face a
difficult task in trying to decertify an incumbent NEA/AFT
affiliate as the bargaining agent.
Despite these practical problems, the most important
reason for the absence of competition to represent teachers
is the mindset of teachers who prefer different
representation. This mindset is that unions per se are bad,
and so is collective representation. Where this mindset
exists, it is practically impossible to mount a serious
challenge to the NEA/AFT. Most teachers want representation,
and they will accept it from the NEA/AFT if no other option
is available. If and when teachers dissatisfied with NEA/AFT
representation envisage a different kind of representative
organization instead of no representation, we may see the
emergence of serious teacher organization challenges to the
NEA/AFT in the bargaining law states.
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Building a Competitive Education Industry
