Monday, July 23, 2018

Progressive for Me, But Not for Thee

His progressive vision of affordable housing, quality preschool, and Nordic-style social policies would close the gap in quality of life that residents of the two cities were experiencing.

In mid-June, the United Federation of Teachers and New York City announced a new deal: the city will pay for six weeks of paid parental leave, at 100 percent of salary, for the union's 120,000 teachers.

The new benefit is structured so that, unlike with health insurance and most other basic benefits, the union, rather than the city, will administer it.

According to the fine print, as the Empire Center's E.J. McMahon has noticed, union officials have "Discretion" to grant this leave to "All UFT-represented employees." Announced just a week before the Supreme Court, in the Janus case, ruled that state and local governments could not force their workers to pay dues to unions, the new benefit gives teachers and other members, such as school secretaries and guidance counselors, an incentive to stay in the union.

These contrasts all raise the question: if a widely desired benefit financed by a broad payroll deduction is good enough for millions of workers in the private and nonprofit sectors, as well as for DC-37's 100,000 members, why isn't it good enough for the UFT teachers? Union leaders style themselves as progressives and often say that they're sticking up for everyone, not just their own members.

Much of public-sector union history involves unions bypassing the more modest benefits that make up the social safety net: health benefits for retirees too young for Medicare paid for by the city, for example, rather than the choices available on Obamacare exchanges.

New York City politics are dominated by public-sector unions and other groups that lobby relentlessly for their own interests.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/nyc-teachers-unions-16066.html 

No comments: