Last July was a good month for factory workers in Anderson, Ind., where a Honda parts supplier announced plans to build a new plant and create up to 325 jobs. But it was a grim month in the Cleveland suburbs, where an industrial plastics firm told the state of Ohio it was closing a plant and laying off 150 people.
Nearly all of the Ohio workers belonged to a labor union. Workers at the Indiana plant don’t. Their fates fit a post-recession pattern: American factories are hiring again, but they’re not hiring union members.
U.S. manufacturers have added a half-million new workers since the end of 2009, making the sector one of the few bright spots in an otherwise weak recovery. And yet there were 4 percent fewer union factory workers in 2012 than there were in 2010, according to federal survey data. On balance, all of the job gains in manufacturing have been non-union.
Shed union jobs, add non-union jobs.
It's happening in manufacturing, and it's happening in education.
That's what charter schools are all about.
That's what teacher evaluation systems based upon test scores are all about.
That's what the anti-teacher media movement is all about.
They're putting into place the climate and the tools necessary for unionized teachers to be fired and non-unionized teachers to be hired.
It would be nice if teachers unions like Randi Weingarten's AFT actually fought this trend instead of aiding it with their "solution-oriented unionism" garbage.
But we have seen no coherent or coordinated messaging from the teachers unions telling the public what the anti-teacher movement is all about.
Instead we get collaboration and "a seat at the table."
Which is why the teachers unions are losing tons of members - more charter schools means fewer teachers union members.
Somebody better put a stop to this trend soon or we're going the way of the UAW.
But the current teachers union leadership surely are not the people to do it.
We need an end to the concession stand operator Weingarten and the endless capitulations of invertebrates like Mulgrew. I think a Karen Lewis profile/primer is what we all need as a blueprint for where we need to go. Karen only recently left the classroom and look at the leadership,she delivers to her people. If it can be done in Chicago it can be done everywhere. Out with the old and in with some backbone.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to purchase non-union goods and services. I don't agree with the unions politics - been buying US cars (Union-made) all my life - that will not continue. I will shop Toyota and Honda or any other brand made in USA by non-union labor
ReplyDelete