As I’m sure you’ve heard, Wisconsin Governor Walker succeeded in his aim to remove collective bargaining rights to teachers and other public employees. And, following right behind, Providence, Rhode Island issued pink slips to all of their 1,926 teachers. Sure, most will likely get hired back. But what this move effectively does is remove collective bargaining for these teachers. If you watch the heart-wrenching video of the board meeting, the teachers were begging to be laid-off rather than terminated. A termination for everyone means that the district can hire whomever they want back, regardless of seniority. It’s difficult to sit back and watch these two demoralizing attacks on teachers and teachers’ unions.
In both of these stories, the governor of Wisconsin and the mayor of Providence claimed these were necessary moves because of severe budget shortfalls. While it’s true they’re experiencing a budget crisis; it’s false to presume these actions will aid in alleviating the budget. We know that Walker offered tax cuts to businesses and is further diminishing state revenue by eradicating collective bargaining for public employees.
Unfortunately, people seem to be buying the argument and agree that everyone “needs to sacrifice.” I wonder if these drastic moves are being blamed on budget issues because if Gov. Walker and Mayor Angeles Taveras came right out and said, “We want to dismantle labor unions and end collective bargaining for working Americans,” they know they wouldn’t get elected. A recent poll shows that Americans are still in support of collective bargaining. This brings me some hope. However, there’s no question teachers’ unions are under attack. And the fervor behind this comes from the mistaken notion that teachers’ unions are all about protecting bad teachers.