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'Too Bad For Recently Hired, Talented Teachers'

'Too Bad For Recently Hired, Talented Teachers'

(Source: June 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Union Bigwigs Make Sure Public School Layoffs Are 'Quality-Blind' In recent years, forced dues-funded teacher union lobbyists and union negotiators played a major role in convincing public officials to increase the number of instructional employees at K-12 public schools at a blistering clip. Nationwide, the number of K-12 public school instructional employees (full-time equivalent) grew roughly 3.5 times as much as the number of school-aged children (15.9% vs. 4.5%) from 1998 to 2007. This spring, Gaylene Hayden was one of just six Indiana K-12 public school teachers to be recognized for their "outstanding service." Teacher union boss-perpetuated seniority rules have since cost her her job. (Fox 59 News, Bloomington, Ind.) Since an estimated 65% of U.S. public schoolteachers are under union monopoly bargaining, and more than 40% are forced to pay union dues or fees as a job condition, K-12 employment growth that far outpaces the growth of America's five to 17-year-old population represents a huge windfall for Big Labor. However, in the wake of the severe 2008-2009 recession, many strapped states now have no choice but to pare back a small portion of the K-12 instructional staff increases of the previous decade. Hoosier Teachers Recognized For 'Outstanding Service,' Then Laid Off When school officials have the power to restrict layoffs to employees they have identified as the least effective, then occasional recession-related reductions in force of 5–10% are not necessarily detrimental to student achievement, according to education experts like Stanford University's Eric Hanushek.

Big Labor Contracting

The Wall Street Journal weighs in on the Obama big labor contracting kickback scheme to hand government contracts to unionized companies: There's almost a direct correlation these days between the Obama Administration's complaints about "special interests" and its own fealty to such interests. Consider its latest decree that federal contractors must be union shops. The federal rule, which went live yesterday, implements an executive order President Obama signed within weeks of taking office. It encourages federal agencies to require "project labor agreements" for all construction projects larger than $25 million. This means that only contractors that agree to union representation are eligible for work financed by the U.S. taxpayer. Only 15% of the nation's construction workers are unionized, so from now on the other 85% will have to forgo federal work for having exercised their right to not join a union. This is a raw display of political favoritism, and at the expense of an industry experiencing 27% unemployment. "This is nothing but a sop to the White House's big donors," says Brett McMahon, vice president at Miller & Long Concrete Construction, a nonunion contractor. "We've seen this so many times now, and how many times does it have the union label? Every time."