Maybe New York’s teachers could benefit from something their colleagues are doing in Wisconsin. Recently the 2,400-member Kenosha Education Association — Wisconsin’s third-largest teachers union — voted to de-certify. In so doing, these teachers signaled the union no longer officially represents them in negotiations.
Most of this was a value decision: Collective-bargaining reforms pushed through by Gov. Scott Walker led these teachers (and other public workers) to question whether they were getting their money’s worth from their union. And because Walker also ended the noxious practice of having the government automatically deduct dues from teacher paychecks and send it over to the union, the unions now don’t get their money unless they persuade their members the dues are worth paying.
Can union strongholds such as New York follow suit? It’s not clear, but scholars such as Manhattan Institute senior fellow Daniel DiSalvo note that teachers here have their own reasons to question how much value they are getting for their dues. “The Triborough Amendment guarantees teachers and other union members get automatic pay increases even when there is no contract,” says DiSalvo. “The teachers haven’t had a contract in a few years. Some might say, if the union isn’t negotiating new contracts for us, maybe they don’t need all the dues money they’ve been collecting.”
That’s a good point. It may be especially timely after a Democratic primary in which the same union that has failed to get its members a contract blew $2.6 million of dues money on a losing candidate.
If ending government-as-dues-collector can happen in Wisconsin — birthplace of the public-sector union — why not here?