This Labor Day Unions Stand On The Edge by Dr. Michael Flanagan

Labor Day. The holiday that gives us a three-day weekend (brought to you by unions), to commemorate the struggles of organized labor.

For teachers, and educational support staff, Labor Day often coincides with the beginning of the school year. We return to our summer-stale classrooms, and think about the things that we plan to do differently this year: new cell phone policies; ways to adhere to the standards; strategies to learn all of our students’ names as quickly as possible; ways to hide the fact that even after all these years, we are  almost as nervous as they are.

But this Labor Day there is something else for educators to consider. We must decide whether or not to remain in our unions. 2018-2019 is the first year American teachers will work under the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME ruling. This decision means that municipal unions throughout the country can no longer collect agency payer fees from members who chose not to join the union. Yet the members who opt out of paying dues will still receive, by law, collectively bargained benefits. Essentially, this means those who choose to not financially support the unions, will still be receiving the union protections-- for however long those protections will last.

The Janus decision has made us a Right To Work nation.

As a union chapter leader, I am now directly responsible for convincing new teachers, veterans and staff alike, to stay in the union. But this cannot be a job for union reps alone.  We all need to be able to articulate compelling reasons why teachers should spend their hard earned money on union dues to pay for something that by law, the union must give them.

We must educate our colleagues that leaving the union weakens the collective bargaining power non-payers take for granted.

We must remind those who are contemplating discontinuing their union dues, on what life was like before unions. These points are old news to those who have worked for years in Right To Work (for less) states. The hard-fought rights unions have won over the years are largely taken for granted by those who have never known what it is like to work without a strong contract.

Teachers in newly Janus-affected states, who choose opting out, might soon face: classrooms overflowing with kids, longer work days, no health benefits, lower wages, no job protections, deteriorating working conditions, elimination of due process, no right to advocate for your students, retaliation for speaking out for your own beliefs and the stifling of our ability to advocate for social justice reforms.

This not only has a detrimental effect on teachers' lives, but our students as well. Teachers should only be focused on teaching --  not on saving their profession.

All of the arguments for staying with our unions listed above sound good, on paper, but how do you sell it to a new teacher or staff member trying to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, as well as paying rent? How do we make them believe that the time to stand up for unions is NOW? Not ten years from now, when they decide to, or just end up making a career of the teaching profession.

How do we motivate young teachers and those who transferred from other professions, that the “we” is equally, if not more, important as the “me”? For that matter, how do we convince veteran teachers who have become disenchanted with their union leadership, that it is important to stay Union Strong?

Anti-union sentiments in this country have been carefully crafted to the point where people will routinely act against their own best interests.  Non-unionized employees who work without those health benefits or workers rights often look at unions antagonistically. “Why should they get weekends, salary steps, health benefits, ‘Summers off’ and job protections, when I don’t have any?”

The odds are definitely stacked against unions.

One possible argument is that the Janus decision might be exactly what the floundering unions of this nation need. People rarely appreciate the things they have until they’re taken from them. Unionized workers are back to square one in many respects. We again need to fight for our rights against those in power. We may even have to stand against our very own colleagues.

There will come a time, perhaps in the teacher work room or sitting down at lunch, when people who have chosen to remain in the union will be face-to-face with those who have chosen not to. The question is: how will those conversations go? Will we, as teachers, rely on the union leaders to sell the union, or will we buy into the system ourselves and push back against the teacher in the next classroom?

Make no mistake: the ultimate goal of those in power is to defund and weaken the unions, and to roll back the hard fought gains that have allowed for a middle class in this country. Those who control our government want division, animosity, and separation to create weakness. The unions are our last stand, and they intend to break us.

This Labor Day unions are on the edge of a cliff. The question is: will we be pushed off, or stand strong and push back? #StayingWithMyUnion