Neither of you are giving examples, only conjecture. Bad teachers are a noteworthy cause of poor schools. House prices wouldn't be so high if we had unions. Ok, prove it. Or at least give me some reasoning to go off.
In Switzerland, all the large unions (railroad workers, public service workers, ect.) have so much money and so much access to cheap credit, they can (and frequently did in the past) start housing co-ops for their members.
This results in large developments in the middle of the most expensive cities, where only union members have a chance to rent. And even those have year-long waiting list on every new development.
Since the housing co-op is non-profit and pays rock bottom interest rates on its loans, rent is frequently around half the fair market rate.
That war chest, in combination with it being unthinkable that a big union goes bankrupt, and the fact that they are building real estate, pretty much means they can borrow more money dirt cheap.
Otherwise, those apartments are completely normal and indistinguishable from any other development in a central urban neighbourhood.
And yes, union jobs pay decent salary in Europe. Probably one of the easiest/safest ways to a middle class life, especially without going to college.
You have that completely backward. Virtually all bad teachers start out hopeful and excited to teach kids, that's why they become teachers in the first place. They are then worn and beaten down by bad schools. Bad schools are mostly caused by bad students, who are disrespectful, disruptive, get into fights, etc. Bad students are mostly caused by bad parenting. If they aren't raised to respect adults, education, authority and their peers, then there is little that teachers can do about it. The reason "bad schools" have trouble keeping enough teachers despite high levels of state and federal funding is because the students burn through the teachers quickly. The teachers who hang on for a long time at those schools are often ones that develop coping strategies like not giving a shit, finding pleasure in yelling at kids, etc.
Employees have more money thanks to unions -> those deriving income from capital have less money -> narrower distribution of wealth -> goods (including housing) which both classes pursue are more affordable to the working class. QED.
Now, save recently, the cost to rent money for real estate was in steady decline. That means even a constant income could afford to rent an increasing amount of money. As a result, the price of housing was able to rise disproportionally to income, but proportionally to rent.
They are quite common in the UK.
Only if allowed to do so - but yes, landlord are leeches who do nothing and in return soak up every penny of income they can from their tenants.
However, isn't the typical market-capitalist argument to this, "if they could be making more money now, they would?" Don't "markets" set the price of real estate?
Markets don't, but it's really funny to me when people argue against good things, such as increasing minimum wage, with absurdities, like somehow a minimum wage increase is simply a subsidy for landlords.