The Role of Teachers’ Unions

For years, the debate around unions has focused on whether they are “good” or “bad” for education rather than the results of their activities.

Teachers’ unions have been a part of education for decades and exist to support teachers in better working conditions by negotiating better wages, benefits, and working conditions. However, in some countries, education unions get a bad rap under the debate over whether they really help education or hurt it.

Unions are organizations that negotiate with companies, corporations, or other organizations on behalf of their members. Some unions represent workers who carry out certain activities, such as educators, and some industrialists represent an entire industry. They have existed for a long time, but they have been credited with improving many workers’ working conditions and wages since the Industrial Revolution. Many unions of manufacturing, steel, and mining companies were formed at that time.

Unions are also known for negotiating the salary of their workers using different techniques: promoting the minimum wage, increasing marginal productivity through training, and restricting imported goods through quotas or tariffs, among other measures such as using their influence.

Teacher unions

The teachers’ unions’ purpose is to help them; they aim to achieve proper functioning of the education system. These unions are made up of people interested in and passionate about education. According to the European Trade Union Committee on Education (ETUCE), teachers have limited opportunities to develop and little influence to change this, so they need a meaningful and independent voice at the level of policy and practice, labor carried out by unions, to make a significant change and solve your working conditions and professional learning needs.

The Education Trade Unions for the Teaching Professional report (2018) published by ETUCE highlights three key reasons why unions should address the professional needs of educators and make them their priority: first is supporting teachers’ career and professional development as it is vital for professional progression; the second reason is to be a voice for teachers, especially on momentous issues that impact their daily work. Finally, there is the construction and strengthening of the union itself, focusing on professional issues and allowing members to construct a union identity.

In addition, the report points out five ways that unions use to address the main problems faced by teachers:

• Develop a negotiation plan focused on social dialogue so that the voice of teachers is heard.

• Ensure access to professional development is provided to meet the need to train educators.

• Facilitate self-organization by working for the union with teachers to identify and address their professional needs.

• Help build the narrative about public education, which supports changing how people view investment in education resources.

• Build alliances and create partnerships.

Although the role of unions is to give teachers a voice, support their professional development, and improve their working conditions, many people are skeptical of their role and benefits. Conservative critics argue that there is no relationship between union membership levels and student achievement.

Are teacher unions helping or hurting schools?

In the United States, between 1990 and 2011, many states changed how they finance schools, intending to send more money to those with the highest poverty rates. However, some local governments instead used that state revenue to pay for their expenses.

According to a 2018 study titled School Finance Reforms, Teachers’ Unions, and the Allocation of School Resources, states with strong unions received most of the money, and it was spent on the schools that needed it most. In addition, the money was also used to raise teachers’ salaries, which generated a greater benefit for students, the study notes, as they obtained better grades. This study shows that having a strong union that defends the interests of teachers not only benefits educators it also means better student performance.

Another publication from the Loyola University of Chicago concludes that it is dangerous to exclude educators from the formation of educational policies because they are the ones who have the experience and knowledge. In addition, they advocate for students because their needs are linked, teacher awards benefit students and their achievement.

The relationship between working conditions and school performance is a highly controversial issue. On the one hand, studies like the previous ones indicate that teachers’ better salaries and working conditions are reflected in better student performance. But other research, like this study by Joshua Cowen and Katharine O. Strunk of Michigan State University, reports that unionized districts have higher dropout rates and lower grades in math and literature.

Cowen and Strunk analyzed research from 1977 to 2014 to understand the impact of unions. Districts with unions were found to spend more money and invest it directly in benefits such as teacher salaries.

For his part, Gary Ravani, president of the California Federation of Early Childhood / K-12 Education Council, defends the role of unions in public education. Ravani points out in an article published on EdSource that teacher unionization does not necessarily guarantee low student achievement, and lack of unionization does not guarantee high performance. Unions allow: “Teacher unionization does not guarantee low student achievement, and a lack of unionization does not guarantee high achievement. Teacher unionization does allow for teachers to have a stronger voice in professional matters and also allows them “to secure their influence in the political field.” State education funding per student tends to be higher in unionized, higher-achieving states.”

Students also seek to unionize

Gregory Wickham, a 17-year-old, wrote for the New York School Talk portal about the importance of students organizing and having their union. Wickham argues that students have a different power than teachers; by coming together, they could make heard and fulfill demands to improve student life even without the approval of the education department.

For the student, student unions encourage sharing resources among learners throughout a city, such as his native New York, making learning more accessible to all. This exchange could be reflected in the following ways:

1. Class Library: Students record their favorite teacher’s lessons and share them for free later. This would make the best teachers reach more people who need them and allow students to learn from different educators, find one that is more suited to their way of learning, and be a great support resource when studying and being a resource for always learning from home.

2. Assignment files: The union could organize an assignment file for students and the answers and their grades, especially those whose assignments are projects or essays. The purpose is to know and see how the standards and expectations of the different teachers are applied. In addition, it would ensure the transparency of grades because it would reveal favoritism of the teachers or some unfair treatment of a student.

   Having access to these files also makes the educator’s job easier as students can see the content of others, better understand their work, and complement it. And because the assignments are in one place, it is easier to verify that the results are original and not plagiarized.

3. Textbook Library: The student organization could easily maintain libraries and plan exchanges of physical and digital textbooks. Although many schools use the same books, not all students have access to them.

   In addition, students can coordinate to digitize textbooks so that they are accessible at all times, without the need to carry their physical versions. The exchanges would also ensure that those schools with fewer resources have access to a better library with more topics and support resources.

4. Tuition Library: Many schools request tuition to access databases, digital libraries, test preparation resources, and so on. Students can share their license plates so that more people have access to these materials. Although the department of education has research sites and online libraries accessible to public schools, the union can make a great deal of material available to all students equally.

5. Technology Library: Students need devices and internet access, and the student union can guarantee by loan or donation of equipment. For internet access, students who don’t have it could go to institutions that offer access through WiFi or even go to the home of a teacher or other student who lives nearby and can support them. This would also help struggling dads balance the demands of work hours with the needs of the home and childcare. The union would be in charge of organizing everything for the students’ schools that open their doors.

Gregory Wickham added that student unions are the best option to organize among the entire school community and support each other rather than wait for the education department. A student union could solve even problems such as the lack of food, shelter, or clothing for low-income students. In addition, there can be a significant difference between the educational quality that one school receives and another, even if they are part of the same district. These proposals would help the less privileged to have a better future since they would have access to more and better resources.

Wickham does not mention anything about public policies; he focuses more on organizing activities, which need to be analyzed more in teachers’ unions. Joshua Cowen and Katharine O. Strunk mention in their study the value of conducting more research on the impact of their activities.

The biggest issue with unions is that, for years, research has focused on whether they are “good” or “bad” for education rather than on the results of their activities or the policies they support or block. Beyond labeling them as positive or negative, the discussion should identify evidence-based solutions for teachers’ needs and how to help them.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Paulette Delgado

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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0