Category: Unions

Never a Wrong Time to Do the Right Thing

by JC Bowman, posted in Advocacy, JC Bowman, Professional Educators of Tennessee, Tennessee Education, Unions

Supreme-Court

The United States Supreme Court has been busy this week.  I have only been focused on the Janus Case.  The justices ruled 5-4 to prohibit unions from collecting fees in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31. The justices also ruled that workers must affirmatively opt into the union before fees can be taken out of their paychecks.

It will effectively break the cycle where government unions can collect compulsory fees from government workers and then use it to help elect pro-union politicians to achieve and maintain political power — who then empower and enrich the government employee unions.  Think about this for a minute, the unions were arguing in this case: “that government has a duty to financially prop up a private enterprise.”  “In what universe?” the Supreme Court Justices must have thought.  The legal rationale was questionable at best.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in the majority opinion and addressed that directly: “It is hard to estimate how many billions of dollars have been taken from nonmembers and transferred to public-sector unions in violation of the First Amendment. Those unconstitutional exactions cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely.”  Justice Alito then added: “We conclude that this arrangement violates the free speech rights of nonmembers by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern.”

The opinion added: “The First Amendment is violated when money is taken from nonconsenting employees for a public-sector union; employees must choose to support the union before anything is taken from them. Accordingly, neither an agency fee nor any other form of payment to a public-sector union may be deducted from an employee, nor may any other attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay.”

The Tennessee branch of the National Education Association is already saying the ruling will not impact them.  They have already lost almost 35% of their members in the last five years according to the Education Intelligence Agency.  However, the Janus ruling will have an indirect impact, as the unions will have fewer resources, and will undoubtedly be focused (in the short-term) on simply keeping the members they have. The NEA has projected a loss of some 307,000 members over two years if the Janus decision went against public-employee unions, with an expected $50 million two-year budget cut, or 13 percent.  Today’s decision will ultimately reduce the political activity of public sector unions.

Referenced by the Education Intelligence Agency, former Tennessee Education Association employee and Uniserv Coordinator Chris Brooks wrote about the unions: “Many state associations are run by their staffs. Rarely do they engage in meaningful fights at the school or district level. Annual lobby days mobilize a tiny fraction of members. Teachers and school support staff feel only loosely connected to the union.”  Brooks’s former union bosses cannot be happy with his comments.  However, it proves that educators need more effective voices and other organizations to speak up for their interests.

“The unions will call this tortious interference with their business expectancies. Disinterested people will call it an affirmation of individuals’ constitutional rights” according to Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist George Will.  No American worker should be forced to become or remain a union member. People should be free to join, or not join any organization or union they want, without losing their job or be forced to pay for political agendas with which they disagree based on political or ideological purposes.

The Janus Decision will not create drastic structural changes to unions.  It will simply make them more accountable to their own members.  And in the case of teacher unions, this greater accountability should focus on making the quality of education front and center, help public education rebuild support from the public for issues like raising teacher pay and school funding, and work for the common good of all students and educators. There is never a wrong time to do the right thing.  The Supreme Court Decision in the Janus Case was the right thing.

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JC Bowman is the Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-partisan teacher association headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.  Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the association are properly cited. For more information on this subject or any education issue please contact Professional Educators of Tennessee.

Chaos is a Ladder

by JC Bowman, posted in Advocacy, JC Bowman, Leadership, Legislation, Professional Educators of Tennessee, Unions

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I am unapologetically a fan of the HBO series Game of Thrones.  In the episode, “The Climb,” the overly ambitious character, Petyr Baelish, aka Littlefinger, played masterfully by Aiden Gillen, delivers a speech that is eerily reminiscent of Saul Alinsky:

“Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb; they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.”

Essentially, Littlefinger is supporting a moral code that says everyone ought to be out for themselves. The only purpose in life is to gain power. Sound familiar?  Power can only be accumulated through chaos, by using upheaval to rearrange things so that you gain power.  The speech reads like a paragraph out of Rules for Radicals, with the word chaos replacing the word conflict.  Issues such as patriotism, love, religious faith – are all things to be denigrated.

For Littlefinger, a character loathed by most fans, the tearing of the realm can create opportunities. For people who subscribe to his, or Alinsky’s theories on accumulating power for the sake of accumulating power, what is there left to rule over when you have destroyed the world?  In 1972 as Alinsky was questioned by Playboy, the interviewer asked him: “Do you believe in any kind of afterlife?” Alinsky said if there was an afterlife he would “unreservedly choose to go to hell.” And while further explaining his answer:  “Once I get into hell, I’ll start organizing…”

Emma Goldman, an anarchist in the first half of the twentieth century declared, “Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man’s enslavement and all the horrors it entails.” That radical response, which is embraced by Marxists, should be alarming to those in our country.

The levels of hypocrisy of most, who seek conflict, rather than attainable solutions to issues facing people, are rarely confronted. People should not be afraid to talk about their beliefs, stick up for those in the faith community who are under attack, and call out bigotry whenever or wherever we find it.  When you want chaos or conflict, your goal is to continue the creation of problems, not find solutions to real problems.   And if problems do not exist, you make them up. That is why some organizations and institutions are increasingly losing members, support and influence.

For example, in our organization and on a personal level we try to map-out a path toward a viable and sustainable solution on issues facing our members. Just recently, we were made aware of school district that had too many students in their class for a teacher.  Our solution was not to go to the media and have the school district on the defense.  We didn’t get on the school board agenda, and send letters to our members to embarrass the Superintendent.  We simply called and talked to the Central Office.  The problem was resolved in 5 minutes.  The Director of Schools was simply unaware of the issue.  That is leadership, and it doesn’t have to be built on pointless or unnecessary conflict.

Resolving issues is about people working together to resolve legitimate concerns. There are no hidden agendas when you build a culture motivated upon collaboration and problem solving.  As an organization, our beliefs are practical and non-partisan, consisting of rational people across a broad political spectrum who will focus on solutions for our members.  A solid strategy is critical in order to solve any problem.  If your problem-solving creates chaos, that is a sign of a serious leadership problem.  This never-ending cycle is not conducive to the adversity most people face.  Solving problems consist of the transparent exchange of ideas, where the concerns and points of view of all people are freely expressed, not just those of the militant minority.

To relate this to my field of public education, we have to engage parents and taxpayers more on the great challenges we face.   We cannot engage in frivolous lawsuits against our own school districts and expect Boards of Education to be responsive to legitimate concerns.  Public education fails, when Alinsky tactics win.  It isn’t hard to figure that out.  We must work together.

In a Game of Thrones episode from this past season, “The Spoils of War,” Bran Stark perhaps mockingly uses Littlefinger’s own words against him: “Chaos is a ladder.”  This statement reveals that Bran understood the very heart of a master manipulator Petyr Baelish.  He knows that Littlefinger is a self-centered, promoter of himself, more interested in power-plays and schemes, and being deceptive.

Petyr Baelish, will never hear the announcement, “Littlefinger, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.” He may be organizing hell with Alinsky, still in the middle of chaos—and there is no ladder there.

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JC Bowman is the Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-partisan teacher association headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the association are properly cited. 

 

Beyond Alinsky

by JC Bowman, posted in Advocacy, Bullying, Educators, JC Bowman, Leadership, Legislation, Tennessee Education, Unions

Alinsky-dedication

There is no doubt that the “community organizing” methods and philosophy developed by Saul Alinsky have had a penetrating effect on our politics. However, has it made government more responsive or improved results for citizens?  That is highly doubtful.

What happens when Saul Alinsky and his tactics do not go far enough for you?

We are probably about to find out. There are seemingly no longer limits to acceptable behavior in society, no moral conscience for some people and Alinsky’s radical “methods” are now the new normal. Combined with the usual Orwellian double-speak from those trained in Alinsky tactics. They can attract the gullible.

Alinsky famously referenced his admiration for Lucifer in his book Rules for Radicals. I really do not care to speculate what the motivation was; it is in front of the book.  Alinsky adhered to a Marxist ideology.  People should read Rules for Radicals for themselves.  Some of the rules that are often cited, and are subsequently employed regularly are:

  • “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
  • “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
  • “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.”
  • “Pick the target, freeze it, person­alize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not instit­utions; people hurt faster than instit­utions.

The objective of most community organizers is to inject politics into every issue, every debate. It is dangerous to induce immoral and scrupulous tactics solely for political gain for the “militant minority.”  One overarching goal is never-ending conflict.  They simply move from issue to issue.

The reaction community organizers seek: is to identify activists, who can build a larger, more robust militant minority within organizations they control.  This warped strategy leaves the majority of people in organizations impacted by community organizers pushing this radical agenda underserved.   This approach is why so many labor unions are dying, as they only exist to serve the excessively bureaucratic union leadership.  This leadership often encompasses a socialist agenda at odds with a majority of the members.

The question for all of us, is how far is too far? In the world of Alinsky, “organizing” is simply the revolution.  Who leads the revolution?  The community organizers who control the radicals/militant minority will be the leaders.  And for many, Alinsky is just a stepping stone for the next wave of issues that will emerge.  And the organizer knows that there can be no action until those “issues are polarized.”  There is no solution possible, when conflict never ends.

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JC Bowman is the Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-partisan teacher association headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the association are properly cited.

Building an Organization with Trust

by JC Bowman, posted in Advocacy, JC Bowman, Leadership, Professional Educators of Tennessee, Tennessee Education, Unions

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Organizations continue to transform and change.  Part of the reason for the decline of unions has been their reluctance to change and willingness to cling to an outdated system built on an industrial model.  Creating and sustaining a culture of high performance while leading organizational effectiveness is one of most complex challenges facing non-profit and organizational leaders.  An imperative question that any organization should ask is: Do your members trust you?

Organizational leaders must understand the processes necessary to incorporate performance improvement, membership focus, professional learning, and necessary change to achieve a highly effective organization. Organizational members have a world of data at their disposal, but what they truly desire is to be a member of an organization that knows their needs and gives them maximum value for their investment.  For example, our organization is able to keep our dues  under $200 dollars ($189 to be exact), while unions are priced in the $600 dollars plus range.   And many teacher union membership forms now authorize them to charge an unspecified amount of dues in perpetuity.

Organizations that are recognized as exceptional providers of customer service are the ones that have incorporated member-focused behaviors into their daily operations. A vibrant, energized organization is one that interacts with its members across every potential outlet of communication. Members want to know what you can do for them and they will engage your organization in ways you might not have imagined even six-months ago.  You have to work to keep ahead of your membership.

Even with a dynamic plan and an unambiguous vision for implementing high-performance and effective systems, the foremost question members and prospective members may ask is, “Why should we look to you instead of your competitor?”  It’s simple.  As a professional educators need to remain informed as to what is happening in their chosen field.  Educationally, they need to keep current with all developments in the scope of their work.  Learning new models and methods does not stop in college or graduate school. Educators often need benefits that school districts are not providing.  And as we have known for years, educators may need legal assistance—which we provide by our staff attorney who understands education law.  Educators need to know what laws affect them and their profession.   They need to know what legislative initiatives are being considered that have an impact on their field, and what they can do to effectively influence legislation to promote the profession— without the partisanship.

We have discovered that our most devoted members want to have a relationship with us. Just like we want to know who they are, they want us to know who they are as well. They want to identify how our organization can help them. And once they comprehend that your organization understands and has viable solutions to their particular set of problems, as well as a vision for making them successful in their chosen field.  That is how you gain loyalty.

But how do you build that loyalty? By building a relationship with your members based on openness, effective communication, value and trust.

We strive try to engage our members constantly.  Nearly half of our members now utilize our website (www.proedtn.org) on a regular basis.  We believe in being interconnected and actively engaged by keeping membership simple and uncomplicated, focused on an approach that is “bottom up,” not “top down,” and on our core business mission of education.  If you want to be recognized as an outstanding provider of member service, you have to consistently exceed the expectations of your members.  Once you adopt this approach, you will find a growing commitment by members.  But once you connect, how do you build loyalty?  You build this loyalty by building trust.

Organizations must strive to embrace openness and transparency in how they interact with their members.  For us, this includes how we build our legal services and member services and benefits.  It also includes vibrant professional learning and development for our members, based upon needs identified by educators, state and local district.

Consider this simple formula for creating a loyal membership base: Openness drives accountability. Accountability builds trust. Trust is the foundation of a relationship. Every organization must have a relationship with its members if it wants to be sustainable.

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JC Bowman is the Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-partisan teacher association headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee (www.proedtn.org). 

Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the association are properly cited.  Check out his Blog at http://www.jcbowman.com.  Follow him on Twitter @jcbowman