People vs. Dollars
Dear Diane,
Even when we were fierce "enemies," we held one thing in common: our support for unions in general and the teachers' unions in particular. You were fonder of Al Shanker's politics than I was—but I rather miss him of late.
Were you as "amused" then as now by all the talk about "Big Labor"? It was, I thought, one of those white lies that serve all sides. It defused, for corporations, the classical and unflattering icon of the fat capitalist boss with one of a labor boss. But for labor, too, it was an attractive recruitment tool: "Join us! We have power, too!"
But it was a double-edged sword for the union movement, and it's amazing how it has withstood its decimation. The lead story in the American School Board Journal this month comes with this lead-in on the journals' website: "Once nearly untouchable, teachers' unions now are portrayed as barriers to school reform."
Even at their most awesome, unions in America enrolled a distinct minority of our workforce, and it was only
