David W. Kirkpatrick
2323 Rudy Road
Harrisburg, PA 17104
Ph: 717-232-2146 Fax: 717-232-2164

Remarks
EPI News Conference, National Press Club, May 6, 1999

A career educator in many capacities, I spent more than a dozen years as a top officer of staff member of affiliates of the National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and I am a life member of five different divisions of teacher unions, including the NEA and the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), of which I am a past president.

But, particularly as a local association president for several years, I ran democratic unions. Neither the members, nor I as president, sought a to negotiate such anti-teacher policies as the agency fee, whereby teachers who don't join the union must still pay a fee, usually an exorbitantly high one; maintenance of membership, whereby if they do join they can only withdraw during the final days of the contract, which may be for as long as five years, or even the restricting of material they may receive in their school mailbox to those from the union, other than that from the school district itself.

While the NEA dates back to 1857, and the AFT to the beginning of this century, neither became effective in the traditional labor union model until the 1960s and, virtually from that beginning, they began to adopt some of the less attractive features of unionism, tactics they have since expanded.

For example, in 1970 the U.S. Government began looking for a school district to try a five-year project, and required teacher approval. One was found in Alum Rock, California, many of whose teachers belonged to an NEA local and a fewer number belonged to an AFT local. Both groups agreed to participate, only to be attacked by their national unions. The project went ahead but the national unions still say their members were wrong. At the Education Commission of the States annual conference in 1997, in Providence, R.I., I asked top officers of both unions why they did this. NEA Pres. Bob Chase said, in effect, he wasn't involved then while AFT office Ed McElroy, who is from Rhode Island, said it was because what the teachers did was "a stupid decision."

In Philadelphia the AFT contract specifies the required school hours for teachers. They have criticized their members who stayed in school after those hours, charging them with embarrassing their colleagues and engaging in the educational equivalent of a speedup. More recently, also in Philadelphia, the school district received millions of foundation dollars to help develop mini-teams in the large high schools whereby 4-5 teachers would work with 100 or so students. Some teachers requested that they be able to agree among themselves who would constitute such a team. The district had no problem; the foundation had no problem; but the union did and refused to let the teachers voluntarily work together.

Jaime Escalante, a calculus teacher at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, who became famous for his success with mostly poor and Hispanic students, and the subject of a 1987 movie, "Stand and Deliver," was harassed by his union. One of his "sins" was not turning any student down and having classes of more than 70 students, three times the number stipulated in the contract. Union representatives helped persuade teachers to vote him out as the math department chairman. Escalante wrote his union president, saying, "If you looked into what is going on in this school in the name of the union, I think you...would be appalled." He has also said he "thought the union was going to focus on how to improve our skills. But they're more interested in politics than kids."

In Bethlehem, PA, high school teachers and administrators developed a plan to use aides to free teachers from nonteaching duties, increase by 450 minutes a year the time teachers would actually spend with students and, coincidentally, reduce the teaching staff at the high school by 12 positions. The union president and staff representative promptly opposed the idea, the staffer saying, "They seem to have put this together thinking they were doing what's best for education...But this is business." Each year in Minnesota the teachers union recognizes a Teacher of the Year. Over the past decade and a half or so, at least three of those teachers were later laid off because more senior teachers took their places, as called for by contracts negotiated by the same union that praised them.

In San Francisco, the union field a grievance against a charter school because it paid its teachers $2,800-$3,600 more than they would have received as regular teachers and, the key point, did so without first negotiating the pay increase with the union.

In Richmond, VA the superintendent wanted to give new teachers a $5,000 signing bonus. The union objected. In Washington, D.C., Superintendent Arlene Ackerman wanted to raise starting teacher salaries to $30,000, an 11% increase. The union objected.

Speaking to the 1995 convention of his union, C.T. Purdom, president of the Washington (State) Education Association, told his members they should stop trying to "control" the Association so the hired staff could do its work. He added that those members opposing changes sought by the leadership would be responsible for the WEA's death, and that "We have met the enemy and it is us."

In a recent publicized case, a former teacher wishing to return to the classroom was offered a job by a school district, but without full recognition on the salary schedule of all her prior years of teaching. She willingly accepted but the union said the board could not hire her unless they paid her an additional $9,000. The teacher said they didn't need to, but the union held firm and the teacher was not hired.

Perhaps the most notorious violation of teachers' rights, and a constant ongoing battle, derives from what dues, if any, nonmembers must pay the union. In 1988, in the Beck decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said workers can only be required to pay dues or fees for costs directly related to collective bargaining. In the decision, Harry Beck, who launched the appeal, was awarded a reduction of 79% in his dues. Neither the unions, such as the AFL-CIO, nor government agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board, make any effort to notify workers, including teachers, of this right. A 1996 poll found that 62% of union members opposed the AFL-CIO's $35 million campaign to win Democratic control of Congress.

Unions have been so successful at keeping workers unaware of their rights that one poll found 78% of them didn't know they need not pay for political and other union activities unrelated to bargaining. Under former President George Bush, the Labor Department required unions to publicly reveal what portion of their dues workers could keep, and Bush ordered federal contractors to tell the workers of their rights. Within days of taking office, President Bill Clinton rescinded both actions.

One final note on this subject. Unions deny agency fee payers the right to vote, arguing they are not members. However, since those who pay it are paying a full share of the costs of negotiations, and generally more, why should they not at least be allowed to vote on the contract? Where possible, the union insists on being able to take their money, yet it equally stridently objects to their having any say about the results that are obtained from the expenditure of that money. Is this fair?

In brief, despite their claims that any critic of union procedures is anti-union and out to destroy them, the problem, for many of us, is not the existence of unions but the lack of union democracy, a lack that is virtually universal throughout the labor movement.

A closing comment, which could be said about both teacher unions: "The NEA has been the single biggest obstacle to education reform in this country. We know because we worked for the NEA." Billy Boyton, former Nebraska NEA Executive Director, and John Lloyd, former Kansas NEA Executive Direction, quoted, p. 53, Educational Freedom, Vol. 27, No. 2, Spring-Summer 1994.