Chicago Strike Emblematic Of Union Struggle
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| Scott Olson/Getty Images Chicago public school teachers picket outside William H.Wells Community High School on Monday. |
The strike that shut schools in Chicago on Monday illustrates a larger, national trend: Teachers unions are having a harder time getting what they want.
For decades, teachers unions have been among the most powerful lobbying groups in nearly every state — and have been arguably even more powerful at the local level, where they've often been able to unseat school board members and even mayors who crossed them.
"Although they've been criticized in the past, they have not been under any real pressure to change," says Tim Daly, president of The New Teacher Project, which helps to train and place teachers.
That's no longer the case. Since the 2010 elections, four states — Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee and Wisconsin — have either eliminated or largely curbed collective-bargaining rights for teachers.
The result of these laws, along with widespread teacher layoffs due to state and local budget woes, has been a sudden and rapid decline in union membership. The National Education Association, the largest teachers union, has lost 100,000 members since 2010. The NEA projects it could lose 200,000 more by 2014.
The political and policy challenges that teachers unions face have left them with two choices, says Richard Kearney, a political scientist at North Carolina State University: They can take a more collaborative approach and seek to embrace and shape ideas that they have largely opposed to