Let employee freedom ring!
Larry Sand makes the case for teacher freedom and against monopoly bargaining in his California Policy Center column, “More Than Unions Bargained For.” Straight out of Saul Alinsky’s arsenal, bargaining for the common good brings the community in to the whole process, provides a convenient excuse to take teachers’ money out of their pockets without their permission, and provides a fail-safe way of keeping teachers captive passengers.
In June 2016, right around the time the Friedrichs v CTA case wound up in a 4-4 stalemate, Rachel Cohen wrote a piece for The American Prospectcalled “Teacher Unions Are ‘Bargaining for the Common Good. ’” Prominently featured throughout the article are the Los Angeles teachers union and its president, Alex Caputo-Pearl, who claims that collective bargaining is “an important tool available to fight for equity and justice” and should go beyond issues like salaries and work rules. He envisions UTLA as a vehicle to push for collaborative policy alongside community organizations in bargaining for “the common good.”
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.