There was an interesting op ed in the Globe two weeks ago that received no attention at BMG (that I saw), that took the public unions in Massachusetts to task. The reason this editorial should be of particular interest to the BMG community-and certainly the public sector unions-is that it was authored by Barry Bluestone, a well known labor advocate and left leaning academic. I saw Bluestone speak many years ago when he was pushing for a federal law-which eventually passed-for a plant notification law that required companies to inform workers in advanced (90 days?) of a plant closing (instead of the morning they show up to work).
When it comes to advocating for unions, he’s proven to be the real deal. That’s why this op ed should have gotten more attention than it did. Here is the main thrust of his piece:
Teachers unions refuse to make changes in work practices that could help improve the chances of children succeeding in school. Police unions fight against lowering the cost of details at construction sites. The MBTA union and others representing transport workers lobby vociferously against reforming the state’s transportation system. Municipal unions refuse to permit their local communities to join the Group Insurance Commission that would save their towns millions without compromising the quality of their members’ medical care.
As a result, between 2000 and 2008, the price of state and local public services has increased by 41 percent nationally compared with 27 percent in private services. Even in the face of the worst fiscal crisis in decades, many state and local union leaders refuse to consider a wage freeze that could help preserve more of their members’ jobs.
And…
To move in a different direction, we need to think about a new “grand bargain” between public-sector unions and government. Union leaders in the state need to consider ways to work collaboratively with public officials so as to offer quality public services at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer while preserving union jobs for their members.
Now when some of us have expressed reservations about what we view as over reach on the part of some public unions in Mass, we are accused of being a Republican, Barry Bluestone is no Republican. He, like me, is just trying to give some tough love so that current union leaders and rank and file members do not create a popular push back that may endanger more than 100 years of hard fought progress for workers.
…But how is this plausible? Their overreach has been incredibly successful from the point of view, no? Why stop?
…fire fighters…are killed in the line of duty and it turns out they were impaired by drugs (klast time I looked, alcohol is a drug), the union uses the life saving need for drug testing as a means to leverage more concessions from “management”, that is over reaching. Why stop? I think Bluestone outlines why that kind of behavior on the part of unions is self-destructive.
suggests that new teachers leave of their own accord. About 50% in the first 5 years leave.
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p>This is the only text I could find, but Richard Ingersoll has done much of the hard core research. The stray numbers refer to footnotes.
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He’s right (says the card-carrying member of the MTA, former member of SEIU Local 509).
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p>I remember Bluestone from my UMass/Boston days. He’s a sharp cookie and his bona fides cannot be challenged. Many would do well to listen….
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p>You are quite right, and that’s the frustrating thing about much of this debate. Often it seems that suggestions that the unions are not always in it for the public good are shouted down with taunts like “you are against working people!” or “don’t you know how much unions have done for America in the past 100 years?”, as if past advances give unions immunity from contemporary criticism.
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p>Believe it or not, unions do not always act in their own members’ interests. Those who have put in the time are well-represented, but for the newer, younger members, it’s often “we’re willing to sacrifice your job rather than take a pay freeze ourselves (but we’re perfectly happy to keep collecting your dues in the meantime)”. The oft-heard apocalyptic talk about town/city/state management always trying to “screw” working people is an overstatement as well. Many public-sector also don’t seem to have much of an idea that the current economic crisis is a very serious, very global, and very real one — it is not simply public employers trying to squeeze blood out of the working class.
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p>This is not to say unions are bad, nor is it to sign up to some Republican quest to eliminate them. What it is saying is, like everyone else espousing a political position, unions cannot truthfully claim an absolute monopoly on what is right and in the public interest. Bluestone should be commended for pointing out unions’ flaws after a fine career of discussing their benefits.
Nicky Sobotka: Seniority sucks.
La-La: If you ain’t senior.
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p>Unions are proving to be yet another pillar in the growing gerentocracy (rule by the old) in this country. Once upon a time, you could argue that young workers would get paid back when they become the more senior members. But does anyone believe that the next generation will get the same wages and benefits and working conditions? Of course not. I find it pretty hard to support unions as they are perfectly willing to implement two-track systems (see, e.g., different GIC premiums based on when someone is hired. can someone tell me why this makes sense or is at all equitable?) and lay off younger workers, all to preserve the same unsustainable system for some old timer.
For components of compensation for which the long view is required (health and retirement), a two-tier system sometimes makes sense.
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p>For example, consider the overly generous MBTA system where union workers could retire with full pension after 22 years. Now, they negotiated for that compensation package, and I don’t think it’s appropriate to strip that from anyone who currently has it, because that employee has made career, investment, housing, and family decisions based on that contractual agreement.
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p>But, it’s too generous. There’s no reason to keep offering that retirement package to new hires. It’s simply inappropriate. So, for new hires, dialing that back to something more reasonable (perhaps in steps over time) will make the retirement part of the compensation in line with societal norms without reneging on the current contract with current workers.
but Solidarity, it ain’t.
which were negotiated and contracted to people because …
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p>”…because that employee has made career, investment, housing, and family decisions based on that contractual agreement.”
it, but I did. I thought it sucked. I think the system should be changed.
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p>On the other hand, politics is politics. If it can be done, it can be done. Doesn’t make it the high road or the best idea, but it is life in the realms of power.
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p>John Kerry! Is that you?
and posting with my Blackberry.
I actually didn’t have quite the negative reaction that many did.
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p>Each bonus was different, and certainly I won’t comment on any particular bonus. I also don’t know labor law well enough to know what would be legal (though shady).
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p>A deal is a deal. If one side makes a bad deal, they should still stick with it if possible. Sure, bankruptcy, restructuring, etc. can allow one side to escape the deal, and sometimes that escape clause is economically efficient. Without specific details for any given bonus, I’m not willing to state that it shouldn’t have been paid (assuming the employee accomplished whatever the bonus required).
When I started paying into the system, I could start getting SS at 62 or wait for a fatter check at 65. Then the rules were changed on me and millions others and (I think) it’s a 3 tier starting at 65 and needing to wait until 70 for greater payouts.
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p>In general, I agree with grandfathering, but having to allowing a 20 year old hired today by the T to retire in 22 years and then having to pay for the pension pushes the bill into the year 2070. Maybe grant this sick sweet heart deal for folks with 15 or more years in the system…but not everyone.
so if it went to 24 from 22 for example, and a guy was 21 in, then instead of retiring in 1 year he gets to retire in 1 + (24-22)/12 years (ie 1 year and 2 months), whereas if a guy was 2 years in, then instead of retiring in 20 years he gets to retire in 20 + (24-2)/12 years (ie 21 years and 10 months).
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p>That would be reasonable in my opinion. Maybe you let everyone within 1 year of retiring retire at the same time as before (so nobody gets added on a few weeks or whatever) out of convenience and short term planning.
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p>Lots of technical actuarial details I’m sure, but the idea seems reasonable enough.
Watch out Frank, you may end up in the same cement grave as me. đŸ˜‰
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p>But seriously, thanks for posting.
I,and many at BMG, believe in the need for unions and like them to expand and grow (like into Walmart and many low paying service sectors). We’re just trying to stop some self-infliected abuses that impede their true effectiveness.
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p>You, and you elk at RMG, want to see unions go away.
I want to see the abuses go away.
Ha ha, typos are funny.
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I love these unexplained examples. But:
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p>I wish someone would do that for me. Whenever my company wants to make “changes in work practices,” it means doing more with less. These practices “could help improve” — just like every other program cooked up by administrators and politicians, I’m sure a teacher would note, not teachers.
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p>Um, yeah. Unions fight against wage cuts. They’d be pretty lame unions if they didn’t.
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p>Same point about the teachers. Why should reform mean going after the unions? How about some more pressure on the contractors?
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p>This is a perfectly logical fight, actually. Who would you rather negotiate with, the town administrator across the table or the distant GIC?
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p>I know unions aren’t perfect, and I wish they were. I know I’m not perfect either; no one and nothing is. But I do know I’ve worked in the private sector for 20 years, and the private sector gets away with all kinds of abuse. My friend got laid off last year with NO severance. There are no standards governing what an appropriate workload is. And there is no management accountability other than profit. I would love to be in a union.
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p>It will never happen, though, because most of my coworkers hate unions.
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p>This fight may be lost. But when the last union is gone, we will all suffer. All of us.
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You write…”But when the last union is gone, we will all suffer.”
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p>By trying to offer some “tough love” this is exactly what we are trying to avoid. You seem to be taking the view that ANY attempt at reform (like banning personal cell phone use by T employees after a train crash caused by texting) will result in the end of unions. That is a scare tactic, plain and simple.
Nor my view.
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p>I would like to see unions reform themselves. Banning cell phone use is one example. The MLBPA implementing regular testing would be another.
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p>I was talking about a long-term decline of unions, not trying to scare anyone. But that said, I think we should be concerned about it.
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It would be nice if unions didn’t fight to retain teachers that are demonstrably very bad.
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p>That’s my wife’s main complaint with teacher unions- protection of incompetence.
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p>She didn’t join the union initially because of this practice (and a couple other issues). Admittedly, she ended up joining the union after a couple incidents with school administration (involving her not getting paid according to the contract).
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p>The counter-argument is that it wouldn’t be much of a union if it didn’t protect its members. By at the end of the day, protecting a bad teacher helps only that teacher (and maybe tutors who get work with students of that teacher, which is my wife’s current gig), to the harm of, frankly, kids, other teachers, and administrators.
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p>Net-net, it’s a bad deal.
We may have to agree to disagree here. I think seniority is something that should be protected.
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p>Incompetence should still be ferreted out. I can understand the difficulty of getting all parties to agree on when a teacher has to go, but it’s not impossible.
But it’s a bit more difficult than it should be.
I’m not 100% clear when it comes to public employee labor law, but in the private sector the union has a legal obligation to defend the “bad teachers” you’re talking about, it’s about due process for employees.
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p>Defending a bad employee can also have a huge impact on all teachers (and kids). If the union and the administration both agree a teacher is no good and let them get fired, not only can the teacher come back and file an unfair labor practice charge against the union (which could potentially result in them getting their job back or back pay) but that firing becomes precedent. So the next time around, when the school wants to use the same reason to fire a teacher that is excellent, an arbitrator is going to look at what’s happened in the past to determine whether it was okay.
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p>The onus is on the administration to carry out their responsibility. If they can’t carry out their duties when the most basic form of workplace democracy exists, that is not a reason to get rid of unions, that is a reason to get rid of a superintendent or principal.
tough love so that current union leaders and rank and file members do not create a popular push back
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p>My wife is in the MTA, and they are definitely setting themselves up for a backlash. I’m sympathetic to unions, but it angers me when I see my wife’s union fighting tooth and nail to avoid a wage freeze.
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p>These are not ordinary times. Towns and taxpayers are struggling to an unprecedented degree. It’s hard to feel sympathy for the unions as they refuse to give up raises while watching the towns struggle, the school systems suffer, and new members lose their jobs.
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p>Those of us who work in the private sector and have taken pay cuts aren’t in the mood to watch unions burn everything down so they can have a raise.
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p>Nine times out of ten I would back the union, but not right now.
for a backlash?
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p>Union locals bargain, not the MTA. Just curious.
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p>And forget backlash, teacher unions have been the whipping boy of education for decades.
His op-ed begins with,
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p>Then he goes on to lament the downfall of the UAW union.
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p>What he didn’t explain, or maybe didn’t know while working as a UAW member, was that there were layer after layer of highly compensated Union execs that clung to the Detroit auto companies like lichen. Same with the Teamsters. There was actually a cottage industry that sprung up solely on providing UAW execs with their own personal loaded leased cars. Detroit crumbled; the UAW did too. A natural progression: labor and benefits, whether caused by the Union or merely enabled, drove the business to cheaper cost sources.
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p>But, then the op-ed goes on to ask if the public sector unions will follow the same path. No way. There’s only one natural backlash that could possibly end public sector unions, and that’s if they become so outrageous or so expensive that there’s a voter revolt.
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p>I suppose that’s his op-ed: don’t do anything really crazy that they end your party. You know, the equivalent of, it’s ok to take dirty money from constituents, just don’t stuff it in your bra, you’ll make us all look bad.
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p>But all the way through the op-ed, he keeps comparing the Public sector to the private. Public sector unions aren’t remotely close to private sector unions. Like apples and horseshoes. Private sector unions are just posers. PACs disguised as benevolent advocates against the Man.
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p>The difference, and the difference is huge, is that there’s simply no natural resistance to public sector union growth. GDP grows; taxes grow; government grows; unions grow. Nothing I can think of can stop it.
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p>The difference:
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p>Private sector unions want higher pay; management resists.
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p>Public sector unions want higher pay; politicians want to give it to them.
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p>But notice, at no point in the op-ed does he explain the public benefits of public sectors unions. He merely says, hey we have a good thing going here, don’t blow it.
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p>For example, can someone make the objective argument that, say, the NEA, or the MTA has actually benefitted students?
By providing job security for teachers, the NEA has benefited students.
Of course, one might point out that this often does not benefit students, since younger teachers (trained in new methods) are pushed out of the profession by the old-timers, several of whom either gave up on actually teaching years ago, or refuse to employ new methods of teaching.
One might point out the value of experience.
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p>I hope you never get pushed out of your job by someone younger and cheaper.
You gotta source for this?
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p>I think he might actually know a thing or two about those “layer after layer of highly compensated Union execs”, his father, Irving, was a union executive. In fact, Dad Irving – a UAW pioneer- headed the GM Department at the UAW for a few years. I actually was a UAW member, as is my father, and was my grandfather, and a few other assorted relatives, so I know a bit about this.
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p>I can tell you a bit more, too, if you’d like about the UAW. And a bit about GM executives, somewhat more luxurious, perks and digs, too. I’ve been in their offices. Better than the digs in Solidarity House. Highly compensated comes to mind, too.
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p>Barry Bluestone is right, unions need to change. A broader and more long term perspective is needed, and a wiser understanding of their members’ real self-interest lies.
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I never said GM didn’t take big perks; I said UAW did.
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p>And it’s speculative that Mr. Bluestone has awareness of the layers of union management and perks, unless you’re claiming that legacy necessarily imparts knowledge.
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p>The Union’s largess is well discussed.. As for the cottage industry that arose to made bucks leasing cars to UAW execs, I know it, because I did it.
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go away, I just want to see their self-destructive abuses disappear.
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p>I realize this is only an op-ed, and I don’t know Barry Bluestone from Adam, but this column boils down to a complaint that unions should think more long-term, big picture. After all, it’s in their own best interest.
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p>He gives a small nod to the shortsightedness of big business, though he forgets that it is bred in the bone, and it is perhaps the biggest cause of our current economic woes. Of course, many catastrophic concessions GM made to unions took place as much as 50 years ago, I think even Mr. Bluestone would forgive them their lack of foresight.
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p>As an economist, Bluestone recognizes that everything is a matter of costs and benefits. He suggests the costs of unionization are running a little high, and they should tone them down before the state government breaks them. He ignores labor history and the fact that much of the decrease in union membership was due to a concerted effort on the part of business and the government to break them.
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p>Most troubling is his use of a broad brush to characterize unions. I know there are union members who pay 15% of their insurance premiums. As a member of my teacher union in one of the higher paying systems in Western Mass, I pay 50% of mine plus co-pays. I don’t know percentage of other unions in my area pay. I do know my parents, former educators in other systems, pay about the same. In addition, my mother’s insurance is purchased through the GIC.
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p>Unions, like businesses, are averse to change. It would be good to consider this intransigence from a cost-benefit perspective. Mr. Bluestone, however, fails to do this. He uses cost-benefit rhetoric, but he neglects to look at unionization as a whole in context.
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p>Are there any benefits to slowing change? In education, I would argue that there is. At least since the 1950s, rhetoric on education has characterized it as an urgent crisis. Yet ours is a fad-ridden profession, from new math to whole language. Submitting to the whims of educational change might actually be worse than slow change. It’s a cost-benefit question to which I don’t know the answer. I do know it’s always posed by those who take a management perspective, i.e. management knows the answer, and if unions would only stand aside and let teachers do what they’re told, the question would be solved.
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p>I’m not sure why Bluestone would discuss “the shortsightedness of big business” in this article, though, since he’s talking about public unions.
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p>I have more sympathy for unions with private employers, because clearly there have been(and are) many examples of employer abuses and employer shortsightedness. What I have less sympathy for is when public sector unions take the same over-the-top adversarial stance when dealing with public employers (superintendents, principals, etc….and ultimately us, the public).
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p>Maybe big-wig private CEOs really do want to grind down their employees to nothing. But it is rather extreme to suggest that towns (and town management) want to do the same when many of the people in state/town management willingly gave up opportunities in the higher-paying private sector to go into public service or because (like many principals and superintendents) actually care about education (or other public values), not about making profits.
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p>I guess that’s the difference. When you’re dealing with private sector employers who care first and foremost about profits and not the public good, unions serve a useful and necessary check. Public sector employers have much more complex motivations with a view to the common good, however, so when unions push the envelope it’s a bit different. Further, shortsightedness in private sector unions might lead to short-term gains and long-term losses that only hurt themselves (i.e. when plants shut down). Shortsightedness in public sector unions hurts a lot more than themselves in the long run — it hurts the public.
farsightedness was hardly a union problem.
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p>I disagree with the characterization, however, of teacher unions, the only ones I have much experience with, as taking an extreme adversarial stance.
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p>I’m in Western Mass, and I haven’t seen unions with a tough stance in over a decade. I’m sure some do, mine doesn’t. Others are co-opted by management. Or just weak. Belonging to the MTA (as you may know) has nothing to do with local contracts. If I’m not mistaken, the Springfield teacher union took huge concessions in their last contract, which was years in the making.
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p>My most recent contract, which I thought might not include any COLA’s gets one in the third year. In the other two years, there is a zero and a .25. I pay about $6,000 of the $12,000 cost of my insurance, which is purchased through a regional cooperative, something common in Hampshire and Hampden County.
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p>What I’m trying to say is that you may be able to lump the UAW together, but teacher unions differ from community to community. Some may be obnoxious, many are not.
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p>Incidentally, I think teacher unions deserve a lot of credit for bringing teacher salaries up to a reasonable rate. As a teacher I don’t make six figures like many of my private sector employees, but neither am I impoverished.