Unions Striking Back at Bills to Curb Labor
Teachers Mobilize With Short-,
Long-Term Aims in Mind
By Stephen Sawchuk
Education Week
Published Online: March 28, 2011
Published in Print: March 30, 2011
Posted at Beaumontenterprise.com
March 28, 2011
www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Teachers-Unions
-Strike-Back-at-Anti-Labor-1311519.php

Besieged by state proposals to eviscerate collective
bargaining, eliminate teacher tenure, and make it
harder to collect dues, teachers' unions are fighting
back. Lawsuits supported by local union affiliates have
for now blocked anti-union legislation in Alabama and
Wisconsin.

Unions are drawing on membership networks,
e-mail "blasts," and phone banks to mobilize teachers
and connect them to local politicians. Rallies and
demonstrations, meanwhile, have kept the issue in the
minds of the public. Most of the action is occurring at
the state level, but by providing state and local
affiliates with specialized aid, the National Education
Association and the American Federation of Teachers are
playing an important role in supporting the efforts.

Both unions have raised or plan to raise dues to help
pay for efforts to delay, block, or mitigate the impact
of such legislation. Observers note that the unions'
longer-term strategy, though, hinges on winning in the
court of public opinion and being able to capitalize on
such sympathy in the 2012 elections. "With the
resources left to them, I would think unions would
fight as hard as they can, because this really is a
threat to their organizational existence," said Charles
H. Franklin, a professor of political science at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has been closely
tracking the situation in that state. "Until the
treasuries are exhausted, I would assume the unions
will put everything they can into creating a Democratic
majority in the legislatures." The unions have long
been closely allied with Democrats, and newly ascendant
Republican governors and state legislators are pursuing
most of the measures the teachers' groups oppose.

Ground Zero

Conservative lawmakers, some backed by
tea-party activists and other right-leaning groups,
have largely blamed teachers' and other public
employees' unions for budget shortfalls. More than a
dozen bills seeking to revoke or curb collective
bargaining by those employees are making their way
through legislatures. Unions have recently sought to
make the case that cooperation with teachers on changes
to pay and evaluation will lead to better education
policy, but such legislative action has put them in a
defensive posture. "I think the focus on professional
issues is really important, and I don't think the
unions have gotten enough credit for it," said Julia
Koppich, a San Francisco-based consultant who has
written about teacher collective bargaining. "But they
can't at the same time roll over and play dead and say
everything else they've worked for doesn't matter. It
does." Ground zero for such legislation remains
Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican,
signed into law on March 11 a measure that, among other
actions, curbs the scope of public-employee bargaining.

As far back as February, the 98,000-member Wisconsin
Education Association Council, or WEAC, began to
coordinate a response to the legislation through the
regional NEA support network, UniServ. "UniServ has
played a major role in all of this," said James R.
Carlson, the director of the Kettle-Moraine UniServ
Council, which organized many of the rallies and
protests in Madison, the state capital. "It's been the
center of our world over the last six weeks, not only
with contractual matters, but also legal challenges,
and organizing efforts. "When you mobilize both
veterans and people new to the profession, you're
infinitely stronger and more effective," Mr. Carlson
continued. "[Gov.] Walker is trying to outlaw us, but
the opposite will occur; we'll become more vital."

Public-employee unions in the state, including WEAC,
have won a reprieve for now. On March 18, a state judge
blocked publication of the bill, temporarily preventing
it from taking effect. The union supported the lawsuit,
which argues that GOP lawmakers violated open-meeting
laws when using a procedural tactic to pass the bill.

Read more:
http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/default/article/
Teachers-Unions-Strike-Back-at-Anti-Labor-1311519.php#
ixzz1I1s9jAC7 

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