The labor movement is trying to come to grips with the results of the 2016 elections, and this has led some of its leaders to interesting conclusions that could have implications for education.
One such reflection comes from David Rolf, a local Service Employees International Union leader from Seattle (hat tip: Mike Antonucci).
He argues a coming wave of Republican-backed anti-labor policies and appointments is likely to further weaken unions’ clout. The best way to respond may be to reinvent themselves, and find new ways to build collective power.
The next labor movement won’t consist of unions as we currently know them in the U.S. It won’t be based on contract bargaining at the enterprise level or exclusive representation. It must be based on a value proposition to incentivize voluntary membership (as well as other revenue sources). It must have the power to impact workers lives economically. And it must be able to scale and touch millions of American workers.
The most important single task of today’s remaining unions is to seed innovation and discover powerful, scalable, sustainable new models of worker organization, just as the pioneers of industrial unionism did in the early decades of the last century. At least in the short run, they should be able to exist independent of and indifferent to federal power. These experiments should attempt at least seven specific strategies used by other labor movements globally or historically, or other types of membership organizations, for impact and value: politically constructed (at the state or city level) regional and sectoral bargaining over minimum standards, benefits provision, labor standards enforcement, certification and labeling, workforce training, workforce supply, and advocacy. And they should be prototyped in pro-union cities and states where they have the greatest chances of success and the fewest well-resourced enemies.
In education, what Rolf calls “contract bargaining at the enterprise level” involves teachers unions negotiating a single contract with a central district office. The unions’ commitment to this approach helps explain why they constantly fight policies that give students access to charter schools and other options outside traditional districts.
This is why some people who support both school choice and teachers unions argue traditional collective bargaining in education has to be replaced with a new model.
A school system might be ripe for the kind of experimentation Rolf advocates, bringing together educators who work for a variety of school organizations, not just traditional districts, and allowing them to align their interests with families, including their own members, who exercise school choice.
