Until just a few years ago, teachers, while many in number, were a relatively voiceless group. Teacher salaries were notoriously low, and teachers were not even guaranteed such a basic working condition, enjoyed by every factory worker, as a lunch hour free of work. (Early teacher picket signs carried the slogan, "TEACHERS DEMAND THE RIGHT TO EAT.")
The last few years have seen changes. Teachers have organized and engaged in collective bargaining. Slowly, salaries and school conditions have been improved. What had been an undesirable occupation became so attractive that the teacher shortage became a teacher surplus. But here in New York the general feeling of optimism on the part of teachers has been dissipated by the actions of the 1970-71 legislative session.
The failure of the state to provide the adequate aid to education will result in jobs lost to teachers and educational services lost to children. This at a time when ( as it appears at this writing) moneys that cannot be found for public schools will be found for non-public schools.
In another action, the legislature lengthened the probationary period for teachers, before tenure is granted, to five years. This new legislation makes the teacher probationary period longer than that required of any other public employee in the state. The legislature's intent in this enactment clearly was not educational (it doesn't take five years to find out if a teacher's good enough to be retained) but budgetary in nature. The action provides hard-pressed school boards with the opportunity to stretch their dollars by dismissing higher paid, experienced teachers and replacing them with poorly paid, inexperienced ones. These actions by themselves are bad enough. But the legislature did not stop there.
Sabbatical leaves, a traditional privilege which permits teachers to update their skills once or twice during their careers, were frozen by law. Moreover, the legislature came close to imposing a 12-month school year and to enacting Taylor Law revisions which would have wiped out agreements on class size, job security, transfer, discipline, and other school conditions. With the end of its sessions in sight, the legislature still has before it proposals for subcontracting school programs to private companies and for establishing new teacher certification procedures which would sharply downgrade teacher eligibility requirements.
Legislative Ineptitude Spurs the Drive for Statewide Unionization of Teachers
There can be no doubt that we face a period of retrogression for teachers and public education, and teachers who had pinned their hopes for progress on gains that were being made at the bargaining table now see these gains as being wiped out in the political arena.
In spite of the damage which has been done, the actions of the legislature may have some unanticipated consequences. Teachers in suburban and rural communities, along with the teachers in our cities, may be drawn by harsh reality to the realization that they need a single, united statewide organization to be effective in Albany. Local teacher associations and local unions, faced with legislative threats, are ready to bury old jurisdictional fights. Teachers who up to now felt that labor unions were not for them are learning fast that, without union affiliation and union strength, they are powerless.
The acts of the legislature may be only a temporary setback. The legislature may well have accomplished, by its own folly and shortsightedness, what years of labor organizing drives could not -- the statewide unionization of teachers.