OPINION EDITORIAL

September 6, 2004

Labor Day Exploits

By Marsha Richards
It used to be Labor Day was a celebration of worker empowerment, but labor organizations around the nation have turned it into a day of worker exploitation.

Consider the National Education Association (NEA).

The NEA currently “represents” more than 2 million public school teachers and employees the same way the mobs used to represent small shop owners. While teachers in forced-union states technically do have a choice, it’s not much of one: They can pay several hundred dollars a year to union officials, or they can find another career. It’s the old “buy our insurance or you’ll need it” model.

The NEA, like the Internal Revenue Service, is also empowered to take money directly out of teachers’ paychecks, so union officials get their cut before teachers even see the money they earned.

These monopoly conditions allow a small group of NEA officials to collect more than one billion dollars a year from teachers through the union’s national, state, regional and local affiliates. Since they don’t have to ask before they take money out of a teacher’s paycheck, union officials don’t have to care if the amount taken reflects the actual value of the services rendered. Nor do they have to care what teachers think about how the money is spent. So they don’t.

In July, the NEA held its annual convention to determine its priorities for the coming year. The union’s 2004-05 budget is revealing. Of total spending, “collective bargaining and member advocacy” make up just 12.8 percent, while “student achievement” and “teacher quality” account for 1.1 percent and 1.7 percent respectively. The NEA’s largest budget item is “membership and organizing,” which accounts for 26.5 percent of its spending.

Clearly the NEA’s top priority is not to represent the best interests of teachers or students, but to maintain and expand its power.

As with most monopolies, the services rendered by the NEA are overpriced and poorly delivered. Policy researchers at the Washington state-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation who reviewed more than 60,000 internal teacher union documents concluded that no more than one percent of the union’s expenditures at the national level—and no more than 20 percent at the state and local level—are spent on traditional workplace representation.

For example: Teachers in Washington state pay an average of $759 in annual union dues, which is divided between the NEA’s four affiliate levels. In return, teachers receive an annual liability insurance policy that costs the union roughly four dollars per member and a contract bargained by the union’s local affiliate (with some input at the regional level) once every three years.

Most of the contract issues that concern teachers are already written into state laws. Teachers in many states receive automatic “step” increases for each additional year’s work, as well as raises for continuing education credits. The number of teaching days is determined by the state legislature, and pensions are owned and managed at the state level.

NEA officials claim these laws justify the political power they buy at the expense of teachers. In reality, the union’s policy goals are the biggest obstacle professional teachers face. Far from representing the best interests of teachers, union officials use millions of dollars taken from their paychecks to elect politicians whose primary purpose (in the union’s eyes) is to help preserve and expand the union’s government-granted monopoly.

When it comes to policies that reward excellent teachers and improve student achievement (such as performance-based pay, objective value-added assessments, deregulation, and salary incentives for teaching high-demand subjects like math and science) the NEA becomes their biggest obstacle. Why? Because such policies weaken the union’s monopoly power.

In addition to buying self-preserving political clout, union officials pay themselves generous salaries at the expense of their captive customers. Figures obtained by the Education Intelligence Agency show that NEA officials in most states make significantly more than the teachers who are forced to pay them.

In California, a professional union staffer collects an average salary of $92,010, while the state’s teachers earn an average of $58,287. Massachusetts union officials average $89,919, while teachers average $52,150. Virginia officials get $68,660, while teachers earn $44,240. At the national level, NEA executives pay themselves as much as eight times more than the average teacher.

Teachers deserve better this Labor Day. They deserve a union or professional association that truly represents them. They deserve the kind of consumer choices (in services and representation) that will bring accountability to the union. And they deserve strong enforcement of laws that will protect their rights.

Until then, it’s only NEA officials who are really celebrating Labor Day.

Marsha Richards directs the Education Reform Center for the Washington state-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a policy research organization dedicated to individual liberty, free enterprise and accountable government.

Contact: Marsha Richards | Education Reform Center Director | 360-956-3482

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org