Union Thugs with Mac Books

This is a piece I am somewhat tortured over. I know several teachers and professors and they are all very fine people. For reason of my personal experience, let me say I am very pro teacher, but very much anti-teacher union.

Labor unions exist in this country to force employers at the end of a rhetorical gun to pay above market wages. This cannot be denied. The beginning of organized unions had people slaving in mines for horrible wages. This also cannot be denied. They had the moral right to organize, that much is true again. The overall effect of the union movement though, is less than successful for society as whole. It flies in the face of all economic laws of supply and demand.

The unions I will focus on in this piece of course are the teacher unions. Unions always say they want the employer to bargain fairly. When I first heard this expression as a kid it sounded fair to me. Add to that the fact that my father was a union worker it seemed a no brainer. As an adult I learned about economics and learned to think beyond slogans. I have come to understand the bargain fairly means giving them whatever they ask for.

I was somewhat disgusted this summer because the school district my son attends was faced with a possible strike. Happily it has been settled prior to the school year. At least two times my sons teacher from the last school year sent us emails telling us the 'status' of the talks. The status was of course colored to the opinion that the teachers were being hosed as usual. Now I am no lover of school boards, but they did not have the luxury of sending me emails telling us of the status. This would have been bargaining fairly to me. In reality I didn't want to hear from either side. Both sides are professionals that we pay to do an important job, namely educating our most precious asset, our children. Taking sides with either of them to me is fruitless. To me they just need to get it done, without trashing each other in the media. I also have come to resent the local news crews going out to find a cute blond haired kid telling us how horrible it is that their beloved teacher doesn't get to make as much money as they would like.

The laws of supply and demand tell us that the higher the supply of something, the less you will be able to charge. This works with cans of soup, with gallons of gasoline, with professional baseball and football players, we but we are to believe it is unfair to have this apply to teachers. In northeast Ohio where I live there is an extreme glut of teachers. Many can't find jobs because the population of most communities are laying off teachers, due to lower populations. Still this being known more people keep going into the field, why is this? I believe a number of reasons, first and foremost I hope they enjoy teaching children. Remember I am not anti-teacher. Second there is the knowledge that once they get a job there is a good chance that they are going to have that job for as long as they want it. Tenure and the union rules make it nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. Teachers in most markets also enjoy phenomenal benefits. This is true of most union jobs. When you factor the paid benefits into their salaries it can increase their overall compensation by tens of thousands of dollars. For K-12 teachers there is also the fact that they have summers off. This is great for teachers with families.

The thing that grates on my nerves is when I hear of people complaining they don't make enough money. Economics tells us that if the price is too low for a product suppliers will not come into the market. The fact that more and more young men and women come into the market tells me the overall compensation including enjoyment, pay, benefits etc. must be adequate. We all wish we could be paid more, but if we feel this enough, we can change careers. I did just that about fifteen years ago and am very glad I did. This doesn't seem to occur to union workers, and government workers. This is a shame. Maybe they could use a primer in economics.