The merger of the nation’s two giant teacher unions is very likely to be approved at their national conventions in New Orleans this July. The combined entity, as yet unnamed, will be the largest union in the AFL-CIO and a powerful political player.
Yet the consequences are easy to underestimate. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, after all, have so many similarities that their merger doesn’t seem to change much. Both have been all-out supporters of the Democratic party: One of every nine delegates to the Democratic national conventions that nominated the Clinton-Gore ticket in 1992 and 1996 was a member of the NEA or AFT, and former union staff members hold key positions in the Democratic party and the Clinton administration. In addition, the two unions hold similar, if not identical, positions on economic and social issues as well as on education policy. In fact, the merger, by making plain how much they have in common, should dispel the naive idea that the AFT is a good union, while the NEA are the bad guys.
Consider the sheer number of bodies and dollars involved. Currently, the two unions enroll about 3.2 million members, of whom about 2.6 million are regular classroom teachers. The unions’ revenues at all levels exceed $ 1.3 billion (excluding their PAC funds, foundations, and special-purpose organizations). In political campaigns, few if any organizations can provide as much in-kind help as the teacher unions; indeed, the Democrats often use teacher-union offices as their campaign headquarters. In most states, the work year for teachers is 180 days or less, and their work day is six to seven hours including lunch. As a result, teachers tend to have more time than others for telephone banks, demonstrations, mailing lists, transportation to the polls, and the other nitty-gritty tasks of political campaigns.
Although NEA and AFT membership figures include hundreds of thousands of retirees and others who pay minimal dues, a merger will probably lead to increased membership of full-time employees, not limited to teachers; at least, that has been the experience in state and local mergers to date. Furthermore, the merger will undoubtedly lead independent public-sector unions, such as the 170,000-member California School Employees Association, to affiliate with the AFL-CIO. The reason is that the AFL-CIO operates under a no-raiding policy, which bars affiliates from attempting to organize members of other AFL-CIO affiliates. Currently, hundreds of thousands of public employees are in independent unions. As long as they remain outside the AFL-CIO, rival unions in the federation can threaten to raid their ranks; affiliation with the AFL-CIO would preclude this outcome.
The upshot is that, not only will the newly merged teacher union dwarf others in the labor federation, but unions representing perhaps a million or more additional state and local public employees will also join. Public- sector unions will soon comprise over half of AFL-CIO membership. These unions are adamantly opposed to smaller government, lower taxes, privatization — any policy that limits government programs or expenditures. To anyone concerned about union participation in the 1996 elections, I would say, You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
It is important to underscore, in this context, that teacher unions, like public-sector unions generally, are political by their very nature. Private- sector unions achieve concessions by exerting economic pressure on employers; while they may be active politically, their collective-bargaining operations are separate from their political activity. For teacher unions, however, bargaining means pressing school boards and other elected officials for concessions; the distinction between bargaining and political activity disappears, and the entire organization is geared to political action.
In the overwhelming majority of state capitals, the teacher unions, especially the NEA, are among the two or three most powerful interest groups. The NEA and AFT employ more than 6,000 people, over half of whom are paid $ 100,000 or more in salaries and benefits. The union field representatives who negotiate contracts do not perform this activity year round; they negotiate multi-year contracts, then devote themselves to their primary activity: politics. In fact, even on very conservative assumptions, the NEA and AFT employ more full-time political operatives than the Democratic and Republican parties combined. The merger will add to this critical mass and facilitate its strategic and tactical deployment.
As for the effects on teachers, in some ways at least, teachers will be worse off as a result of the merger. First, teachers are consumers of representational services; unions are producers of them. Like any other consumers, teachers are better served if producers compete — if teachers can choose between rival unions. Like other would-be monopolists, NEA and AFT leaders loudly decry the destructive, wasteful effects of competition, though their protests are hardly credible. They do not seek to hold their officers accountable for the alleged waste, and in reality they haven’t competed very hard for years.
But even more discouraging than the merger itself is the passivity with which conservatives are greeting it. The merger presents a unique opportunity to persuade hundreds of thousands of teachers to leave the NEA/AFT — and join a more congenial union, if one existed. Many teachers dislike the idea of affiliation with the AFL-CIO (the AFT has always belonged to the AFL-CIO, but the NEA is not a member). That is one reason the merger agreement provides for affiliation with the AFL-CIO at the national level but does not compel state and local unions to affiliate. Many teachers are put off(or would be if they knew about it) by the influence of the gay and lesbian caucuses in both unions, the NEA’s ethnic and gender quotas, the overwhelming Democratic tilt of their PACs, and the lush compensation for union staff, to mention only a few issues that would make a less expensive union without these drawbacks attractive. Conservatives should be working to create alternative representation for teachers.
Instead, they are playing into the hands of the teacher unions. Their proposals to weaken teacher tenure, or institute merit pay, or authorize a few charter schools, illustrate the point: These are worthy but secondary objectives that merely drive more teachers into the arms of the NEA and AFT. Meanwhile, legislation that would weaken the unions and would actually enjoy considerable teacher support is overlooked. For instance, the teacher unions are generally not required to meet the minimal reporting and disclosure standards that apply to private-sector unions. Rank-and-file members cannot find out how much the staff and officers of their own union receive in total compensation or whether conflicts of interest exist in the union’s awarding of contracts. A “Teacher Right To Know” law would receive substantial support from teachers and would help curb some of the worst abuses that currently prevail. As matters stand, however, we are likely to see the emergence of a 4- million-member coalition of state and local public employees with a formidable anti-conservative presence in every political jurisdiction in the United States. It’s an unpleasant prospect, but one that grows more likely every day.
Myron Lieberman, senior research scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, is the author of The Teacher Unions (Free Press, 1997).
