Daily Archives: 10 November 2014

Teachers Union Misbehavior

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In a case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ten teachers say the California Teachers Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association, forces them to participate in collective bargaining, whether they’re union members or not; pressures teachers to campaign for selected political candidates, whether the teachers actually support the candidate or not; and collects union dues, whether the collectee is a union member or not.

Under California state law, a union that is recognized as the exclusive bargaining representative for a school district, such as the CTA, can enter into an organizational security or “agency shop agreement which, in lay terms, means that while it is not mandatory for a teacher in the district to become a member of the local union, they must pay fees to the union for it to negotiate on their behalf. The rule is a condition of employment for all teachers.

Financially, this doesn’t involve chump change, either:

CTA members and non-members alike pay the full annual dues, which total around $1,000, with non-members only able to request reimbursement of the portion deemed separate from bargaining expenses.

The union does the deeming, too.

This is an affront to dignity, to individual liberty. This caps individual freedom of opportunity by taking the fruits of an individual’s labor for another’s purpose without the taken-from’s permission. This denies the individual his opportunity to cut his own deal with his employer. This demands an individual perform tasks to which he has not agreed, which are not part of his contract, and for which he is not paid.

This is a denial of opportunity by making even the chance of that labor conditioned on the power to take or to compel.

It’s union abuse.

Three Press Conferences

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After the “what shellacking?” outcome of Tuesday’s mid-terms, Senate Minority Leader (and expected Majority Leader in the next Congress) Mitch McConnell (R, KY) held a press conference in which he invited bipartisanship and a working-together atmosphere in which the President and Congress could get done the things that need doing in those areas in which there was substantial agreement and continue debating those matters in disagreement.

A few hours later, President Barack Obama held his own press conference. In this one, the principle, Obama, also invited bipartisanship and a working-together atmosphere. So long as the Republicans came along with him. If they did not, he would act unilaterally, most particularly on immigration, via Executive Order. After all, he insisted, the election outcome was a demand by the voters—especially those two-thirds who stayed home and didn’t vote—to “work together.”

The next day, with the offer of peace and willingness to compromise having been thrown in Republicans’ face by Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) came out angry, offering to work with the President, but warning him against going against or around Congress.

Two out of three isn’t bad. Unfortunately, that third is willfully rejecting the voters’ demand—especially of those voters who voted.

No, Mr Obama, the outcome was not a demand to work together. It was a repudiation of your behavior, of your policies, of the policies of your party. The results are plain, not just at the Federal level, but also in the governors’ mansions where Democratic Party governors were ejected, for a net gain of three governorships by the Republicans, and in the 99 State legislative houses, where Republicans increased their control to 67-69 of those chambers (some elections remain too close to call).

Neither, though, was this set of outcomes a mandate for the Republicans to enact their plans (which, despite the NLMSM’s attempt to spin otherwise, have been quite specific). Republicans, under our system, were simply the alternative on the ballot. Suggesting that if it’s repudiation of the one it must be endorsement of the other is a cynically false dichotomy proffered by that same NLMSM.

This was a demand, rather, to do something else. Not necessarily what the Republicans propose, just most definitely to stop doing what the Democrats and Obama have been doing, and do something else.

That will take the two parties working together, and where the Democrats continue their obstruction, it will take the Republicans exercising their majority power and the majority authority the voters have given them—for now—so overwhelmingly.

And it will take Obama getting out of the way.