The Truth About Teachers Unions and Why the Indiana GOP Hates Them
by Teresa Kendall

1970s High School.

My first teaching job was the fall of 1977 in a small town in northern Indiana.  I was hired the same day as a nice young man, about my age (21).  He was a Social Studies teacher, I was Art.  This new guy was just down the hall from me.  He appeared to have the same number of students as I had; we both had extra duties before and after school.  He was married and a new dad, so he always left as soon as his contractual duties were done.  Being single, I had no other obligations at home, so I would stay an hour or two later and prepare for the next day.

Two weeks after the start of school I received my first pay check and I was excited.  In the late 70s it was hard to find a teaching job and I was as grateful as I was thrilled to be teaching and getting paid for it.  I can remember my summer meeting with the administration about the contract, and the odd phrase at the top near my name that described me as “a single female.”  But my name was on it and there was an amount that I didn’t quite comprehend and I signed.  With my first paycheck, I realized that not only was I making $5300 per year, but I was being paid less than my fellow hire, the man who was married with a kid.  The Social Studies teacher and I compared checks at lunch.  His salary of $7650 was over $2000 more than I made.   I taught at the school for one more week, but the reality of making $200 per week hit when I had no money to put gas in my car to drive to work and I resigned.

At the next school system I worked in, two women that became pregnant during the school year were made to leave.  That same school system fired a highly regarded female teacher for vague reasons, when it was revealed that she lived in the large neighboring city with a man and the two were not married.  Teacher friends, mostly women, have been fired for wearing slacks, having a part-time job at a bar, or dating a male colleague.  A fellow art major with me at ISU lost his job when a coach was hired and demanded the art position go to his wife.

All of this occurred in the late 70s and early 80s.  The teachers unions or “associations” as they were called then, didn’t have large numbers in the schools yet, and administrators were used to getting their way with teachers and their contracts.  By the mid-80s teachers and their unions were getting strong.  It was obvious that there were many inequities not only in pay, but in the treatment of teachers based on their subject matter, their age and their gender.  More union members meant schools had to correct the inequities and provide the type of educational environment that was beneficial to the teacher and the students.  Administrators railed against negotiating with union teachers, but their efforts brought about things such as, all teachers had to be licensed, and teach their certified subject (hard to believe, but I was made to teach a science class once in 1978).  Unions negotiated smaller class sizes, demanded that teachers be fully licensed in their subject area, that students have a daily recess and teachers get a half hour lunch.  Yes, we actually had to negotiate to get lunch. 

So fast forward 40 or so years and our state legislature is doing all they can to dismantle public education and break the teacher’s union all under the guise of fixing the teacher shortage.  The latest attack is HB 1004, a bill disguised as a way to fix the shortage, but in reality it is way to make one more deeper cut in the teacher’s union.  Not only does this bill change teacher retirement so that it will destroy the retirement system, but it allows for teachers to negotiate their own contract for higher pay outside of the union-bargained contract with a school corporation to fill subject areas of high demand.  And guess who pays for that higher salary – the teachers.  We all take a pay cut so a few can make some extra pay.

 

HB 1004 is not intended to do anything to entice teachers to come to work or stay in Indiana.  It is a tool to diminish the ISTA and AFT so that the state legislature can sell off our public schools and relieve them of any responsibility to educate our children.  Teachers’ unions advocate what is best for the school; teachers’ working conditions are the student’s learning conditions, so this is about more than money. 

There are state legislators that want to privatize public education.  The only thing standing in their way is the AFT, ISTA and a whole lot of parents and public education advocates.  The teacher’s union is not the bad guy, it is the delusional members of the legislature, mainly Bob Behning that will do anything, including destroying public schools, to dismantle the union.   Help stop HB1004, contact your legislator.  Don’t allow these people to take away your public school and your public school teachers.