In the past few years so much has been written about teachers militancy, protests and strikes as part of the national movement toward collective bargaining, that many tend to forget that the movement is relatively new. December 1971 will mark the tenth anniversary of the election of the United Federation of Teachers as collective bargaining agents for New York City's teachers. This was the first such election in the United States, and it marked the beginning of an historic decade- a decade in which teachers for the first time had a voice in the determination of their economic and professional fates.
It has not been an easy decade. The first task was to convince the teacher's themselves-against the opposition of the National Education Association (NEA) and its affiliates, who then shunned collective bargaining, militancy and strikes, as "unprofessional labor tactics" -- that collective bargaining was a good thing. As a result of union victories during these years, the NEA and most of its affiliates have abandoned their old views and adapted union approaches and methods.
The second task was to break through legal barriers, to permit or even to require boards of education to engage in collective bargaining. Much progress has been made in this area, although most states still deny bargaining rights to teachers, and many have strong anti-strike provisions which enhance the bargaining power of school boards.
Despite the impediments, the 1960 saw teacher salaries rise from an abysmally low level to what the Bureau of Labor Statistics now calls "modest," Limits were placed on class size; teachers obtained relief from many clerical and policing chores; they were guaranteed the same period of time for lunch that other organized workers had enjoyed for decade. As the 60's drew to a close, teachers had reason to believe that with each new round of negotiations; things would get better and better.
But their optimism has been shattered by what happened in the last year. At the bargaining table teachers faced their most difficult days as school boards struggled with budget crises caused by the limitations placed on local property taxation. Strikes have resulted in harsh penalties. In New York, at the state level, the tenure law was severely weakened, and benefits won at the bargaining tables were struck down by the legislature. (Some college professor, having waited as long as 25 years for their first sabbatical, sublet their apartments and moved overseas on Fulbright and other fellowship only to find telegrams waiting for them, ordering them to return immediately because the legislature had abolished all sabbaticals!) Federal and state authorities have been furthering performance contracting and voucher programs which would turn public education funds over to private, commercial and religious institutions. In New York and other states serious consideration is being given to proposals by which a teacher found unsatisfactory in one school or district would be permanently blacklisted in the entire state. As if these developments were not seen since the d pression of the 1930's-large-scale teacher unemployment. All that, plus the Nixon freeze!
Inspires a New Drive Toward Teacher Unity
These setbacks for teachers, while disheartening for many, have at the same time touched off a new mood among them which holds great promise, not only for teachers and the schools, but for the body politic as well. For the first time teachers, whether in unions or associations, clearly see that their fight is indistinguishable from that of the union movements a whole. The ending of budget crises and cutbacks, as well as teacher unemployment, plainly depends upon programs of vast income redistribution through the tax reforms sponsored by the AFL-CIO and enunciated in A Philip Randolph's Freedom Budget. (There will not be enough money for schools so long as the small homeowner has to pay taxes while some millionaires don't pay a cent.) The unfreezing of teacher salaries hinges on the unfreezing of all contractual agreement through the efforts of George Meany and the labor members of the wage board. Mr. Meany has become the "bargaining agent" for all employees, including teachers. At this crucial juncture, the separation of teachers and labor makes no sense.
But teachers have also come to realize that their own jurisdictional struggles make as little sense, and that the only intelligent was to combat the dangers facing them is to stop wasting their energy and money fighting each other. The movement toward unity was given a powerful stimulus last week, with the founding of the United Teachers of New York, a statewide teachers union. If this new state group succeed in uniting the 250,000 teachers in New York State, it could well mark the beginning of the organization of the largest and most powerful group in the nation-3, 000,000 educators. The triumph of this effort would have an impact even more profound than that of the collective bargaining revolution in education, which began a decade ago.