Teachers unions ‘hold the education of kids hostage,’ worker rights group says

By Harold Hutchison

A worker rights group is calling out two powerful teachers unions, claiming that they “hold the education of kids hostage” in a press release.

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), told the Daily Caller News Foundation that teachers unions like the National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are taking advantage of a labor law provision passed in the 1930s for the private sector.

“In several states across the country, union officials, specifically teachers’ union officials, have been granted a really unique privilege called exclusive monopoly bargaining,” Mix said, adding that former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt opposed granting such privileges to public-sector unions while in office.

“Monopoly bargaining,” which grants unions the right to control negotiations for all workers, is enshrined in multiple federal labor laws dating to 1926, according to a NRTWLDF fact sheet.

Mix went on to explain that union officials like Randi Weingarten, the president of AFT, use that power to “have dramatic control over the government school system” despite the 2018 ruling by the Supreme Court in Janus v. AFSCME. The ruling prohibited unions from taking money from public-sector employees for union dues or agency fees without their consent.

In Chicago, the local teachers’ union carried out a job action in an effort to force the city’s public schools to switch to remote learning. The action ended after a deal was struck.

“Independent-minded teachers, those that would exercise their rights under Janus, have to make a decision. On one hand, they can defend their political and ideological rights by resigning their union membership and they have to give up their workplace rights,” Mix said. “They can’t vote in union elections, they can’t run for union office, they can’t vote on the contract that basically governs the conditions of their employment because they’ve decided they don’t want to be a member of the union and the union itself has the monopoly bargaining power to be the sole voice in the workplace.”

“So in order to keep your workplace rights, you have to give up your ideological and political rights. In order to keep your ideological and political rights, you have to give up your workplace rights,” Mix added.

Unions also have employed scare tactics to keep new teachers who might not agree with the political agendas pushed by NEA and AFT, Mix told DCNF. One alleged “scare tactic” centered around liability insurance in the event of something happening to a child in the classroom. Mix added that the teachers unions also claim to offer other benefits like a grievance process.  He noted that efforts to provide liability insurance as a benefit for teachers in Tennessee and Virginia were opposed by the teachers unions.

Mix told the DCNF that the NRTWLDF and state think tanks have been informing teachers and other public-sector employees of their rights under the Janus decision, while other organizations including the Christian Educators Association International and the Association of American Educators, are providing benefits for teachers opposed to “abortion on demand and some of the radical positions” the NEA and AFT promote, including liability insurance, professional training, grants and representation in legal matters.

“I think we the people are waking up to the power of government unions, particularly the teachers unions over the last two years,” Mix said, pointing to events in Virginia as one sign.

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Image courtesy of U.S. Department of Education

3 thoughts on “Teachers unions ‘hold the education of kids hostage,’ worker rights group says

  1. Read this for teachers union TRUTH. It is a comment by the retiring NEA head lawyer (for 41 years!) , a handful of years ago. In his speech he came right out and said the teachers union is not there for kids, it is there for POWER…and thus money…always follow te MONEY!;;

    “Caroline Hoxby, also a professor at Stanford, made a three-minute video in 2009 in which she explains in plain language how union collective bargaining stifles any management flexibility in determining the best slot for a teacher at a given school, as well as denying schools the opportunity to get rid of underperformers.

    The teachers unions have also been at the forefront of the move to establish the noxious Critical Race Theory in our k-12 schools. At its latest yearly convention in July, the National Education Association proposed projects and actions from the delegates for the union to pursue during the coming year – frequently pushed CRT.

    Perhaps the poster boy/patron saint for teachers unions is Bob Chanin, 41-year general counsel for NEA. At the union’s yearly meeting in 2009, Chanin gave a legendary talk announcing his retirement, and explained why NEA and its affiliates are such effective advocates. “Despite what some among us would like to believe, it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a “great public school for every child.” NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates – because we have power….”

    Chanin is correct, and it is a power they never should have been given, and it should now be taken away. Yes, it’s time to abolish the teachers unions.

  2. It’s the same modus operandi promulgated by corrupt State and District Attorney Generals – it’s a protection racket. And its more than obvious. Ever since the National Education Association transformed itself in the 1960s from a professional organization to a collective bargaining union, nested in a State-sponsored monopoly, the corruption of the politicians enabled by these special interest mafiosos has become unassailable for three reasons.

    First, voters are being coerced by violence threatened on parents and their children.
    Second, voters have, themselves, been corrupted with the money the mafia distributes to its wise guys.
    Third, voters are simply ambivalent, lazy and stupid.

    Again, it’s textbook protection racketeering typical to most organized crime syndicates, as they finance corrupt politicians and extort otherwise law-abiding citizens. Two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.

    The cure, you ask? School Choice, folks. School Choice. It’s the only way we can save our liberty and freedom.

  3. Blame the teachers unions not the lobbyists in DC who helped/demanded/paid legislators craft the rules…lets ignore the elephant in the room – that the CCP is using every trick in the book to create debt slavery of nations and states globally. Lets just not look at that.

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