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Comment by debacle | Hacker News Reader

Teachers are the most powerful public sector union in the US. New teacher pay sucks because the unions designed it that way.

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I’m a college teacher in a union. I don’t know much about what happens in k-12 but I do know my union is not responsible for our low pay in my system. What evidence do you have for your claim?

Police unions are far more powerful that public k-12 teacher unions.

I do not know what the other poster is referring to, but things like this are often indirect consequences. The unions may not be literally, directly suppressing wages, but their other policies may be strongly causing it.

Across history, trying to "do good" by force/law/policy has caused a lot of negative side effects.

In Washington the teachers union is the most powerful special interest group bar none

In Washington, it is illegal for public school teachers to strike:

https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/public-employee-stri...

Yet they strike regularly with complete impunity. That's power.

In my system what happens is a contract is negotiated for a period of time. During this period of time we agree to not strike. Once the contract ends we can strike. In 20 years in my system I have never experienced a situation in which a new contract was negotiated before the old contract ended. While we negotiate for a new contract, and after the old contract has expired, we can strike. Don’t know if things are different in Washington but I doubt there is a blanket ban, in all possible circumstances, on striking.

Citation?

Don't know anyone elected in WA state without the teachers' union endorsement.

The police, on the other hand, got drastically defunded.

> Police unions are far more powerful that public k-12 teacher unions.

There are about 5 teachers per police officer, so teachers unions should typically be much stronger than police unions.

Power as it pertains to a union is about their ability to negotiate working conditions, pay, and worker protections. I know of no large group of public employees with better worker protections.

What worker protection has the police union negotiated that the teachers union failed to get? Qualified immunity isn't due to the unions, and there is no reason to give it to teachers since teachers aren't required to be violent to do their job. If teachers were required to be violent then they would have qualified immunity as well.

Police hold municipalities hostage if they don’t get their way in terms of protection from prosecution for violating peoples’ civil rights and for exerting nonjudicial punishments. In my city a councilman complained about police brutality and the police purposefully responded to non violent 911 calls hours after they were made. When they would show up they would tell people to thank their councilman for the delay. Police commit more domestic violence on average and get prosecuted for this violence at a much lower rate than non police. In some municipalities police are effectively a gang.

My police union's president has been fired from the force 3 times because he literally abused people, including children at the school he was supposed to be protecting, and each time the union sued and got him reinstated. Meanwhile teachers are fired regularly.

Sure, but a police officer has much (much) more power than 5 teachers. I can't remember the last time teachers benefited from qualified immunity or civil forfeiture.

I have never heard people chant "Defund the schools" though, so it seems like teachers has much more political support and power overall. Qualified immunity isn't thanks to police unions, the supreme court decided that because they thought that policemen shouldn't risk go to jail just for doing their job, the police union didn't seem to have much involvement.

I have never heard people chant "Defund the schools" though

Sounds like you don't live in a red state.

https://newrepublic.com/article/163817/desantis-republicans-...

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/elviadiaz/2021...

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/gop-populist-defun...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/betsy-devos-and-the-gops-plan-...

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/01/schools-out-forever-arizona...

https://www.texasobserver.org/disrupt-deplete-destroy/

> I have never heard people chant “Defund the schools”

Hah! That says more about what you listen to than what’s being said. People have been fighting loudly to pull money out of public schools for longer than most people on this site have been alive. It provided more election debate and more massive ad and PR campaigns through the 80’s and 90’s than any police reform politic could dream of, and it continues to be a major part of today’s more crowded debate.

They don’t chant “defund schools”. Instead the slogan is “school choice”. There has been a campaign for the last 50 years to erode public education.

Are there no teachers in private schools?

We aren’t talking about private schools. We are talking about whether or not there is a chant similar to “defund the police” for public schools. The answer is yes there is.

To be fair, police kill a lot more people than teachers do.

I’m inclined to agree, especially because teachers also receive pensions for the rest of their lives after retiring, in average before the age of 60 according to a quick google search. Young teachers make less to support these pensions.

I would be interested to hear an argument that refutes your claim.

Teachers also have solid gold health insurance.

Anyone can retire at any age. Those in a defined benefit pension typically get around 2% per year worked of the average of the highest 5 years of pay. This benefit has penalties for retiring before the standard Social Security retirement age. I could collect my pension right now but it would be around $1,000 dollars a month. If I start collecting at 65 it will be much higher.

Aren’t you supporting my point? Your current salary is lower because you are also earning a 1,000/month income in perpetuity for the rest of your life. And people who teach for longer, like you said, will get more.

Teacher salaries are low because unions have negotiated them to support pensions, especially pensions of teachers that last long enough to get a “much higher” pension.

I think you might not understand the situation. A person can’t realistically live for 30+ years at $1,000 per month. So while it is true that I can retire right now it wouldn’t be efficacious to do so. You mentioned retiring at 60. I’m pointing out that this is a meaningless fact. What matters is at what age one can realistically retire.

EDIT: My pay might be lower due to the pension but it isn’t much lower as a result. The pension is not good in my system. I’d have been better off with the defined contribution plan.

How would you measure “power” in this case if teachers are famously underpaid by such a terrible amount?

That's exactly how you measure the power: that everyone believes they're underpaid despite their being paid market clearing rate.

Your comment is misleading. Yes, the union has the ability to decide how the pie is allocated within teachers, but if the teachers are underfunded there's a systemic problem about making sure the teachers get a big enough pie.

If that was the case wouldn't we expect private/nonunion schools to pay better?

"they're so powerful, they refuse to be paid more"

what? Have you heard yourself?

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