Carte Blanche: Unions aren’t the problem; their leadership is
Ann H
The idea of organized labor is a new one in human history. Workers and professionals come together to ensure fair wages, safe working conditions, and benefits in line with what they believe should be available based upon their jobs and those they work for. While these demands may not seem unreasonable, unions have a history of being abused by both outside organizations and their leadership. This has often sown distrust of unions and those who lobby for them. Free Americans have every right to form unions should they so wish and negotiate with their employers. However, when that trust between workers and leadership is broken, it harms everyone involved, including those they work for. One particular instance that has become part of the public discourse is that of the President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. She has recently been accused of misappropriating union funds and resources to publish her book. This $1.4 million cost to the union, which Congress intends to investigate, may have come from union dues. Which begs the question: what did this do for the average union member and the students they say they are so deeply about?
The mission statement of the AFT is, “The AFT is a union of professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do.” Political activism is a dangerous and slippery slope that Weingarten seems to have committed the union to, regardless of the cost. She assumed the Presidency in 2008, and for close to two decades, the union has shifted its focus almost entirely towards activism and away from its members and the children they were entrusted with educating. Among other things, the AFT under Weingarten has pushed for less accountability for teachers based on educational outcomes, an end to standardized testing, and a solid opponent of charter schools. In fact, Weingarten has so entrenched political activism as a key component of her agenda that the AFT has taken a stance against ICE, and she has boasted about the money and power she has leveraged in that stance.
Stacy Davis Gates, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, is another prime example of a union leader who is more concerned with their personal and political agendas than that of their members or students. The CTU invested over $2.5 million in the election of Mayor Brandon Johnson, who, as a former member, nearly universally backs the union. When issues are brought up about students' appalling math or reading levels, she is quick to cite racism, and when the matter of standardized testing is brought up, she cites it as a form of eugenics. With over 100,000 members, the CTU is a powerful union with a history of strikes and walkouts, support for shuttering schools during COVID-19, and a reluctance to return to in-person teaching. While Gates has been a fierce critic of both school choice and private schools, she has chosen to send her child to a private school. As with Weingarten, the idea of power and influence seems to be a primary source of concern over the well-being and education of those who are the most vulnerable and important in society, the nation's children.
Randi Weingarten has turned her attention and that of the AFT almost entirely to political mobilization. Earlier this month, the AFT encouraged its members to take to the streets to campaign for their chosen and backed candidates in the upcoming midterm elections. The great irony is that Weingarten wants the union to work against an oligarchy of rich and powerful elites who she argues will take over and control the nation. All while using money, influence, and political pressure to ensure the same thing is done with different branding and her and those like her in charge. “Do we want a future in which elections are rigged to maintain one-party control and government is for sale to the highest bidder? Or one in which every person’s vote matters and government serves the people? That’s what’s at stake in November 2026.” All while her union raises millions to do just that.
In a free and fair society that we ascribe to as a people, the right of citizens to organize and to form unions is a right that each of us should work to guarantee. However, the right of those unions to gain and use political power and vast sums of money to further their chosen ideas or the whims of their leadership is something that should be enshrined in the laws of this land as abhorrent and unacceptable. Two presidents of two powerful unions have shown time and time again that neither the well-being of their members nor the success of the children they’re paid to educate matters to them or to their institutions' leadership. Money and power have come to dominate their goals and play a decisive role in the corruption of politics and American society as a whole. There is nothing evil or destructive about a union; it becomes what it is allowed to be. But when was it decided that what once was the tool for collective bargaining for better pay and benefits should become the vessel for the utter destruction of public discourse and accountability? Unions should exist and be open to those who want an honest chance at negotiation over what happens in their workplace. They should not continue to be allowed to be hell-bent on enriching a select few at the expense of the welfare of the nation and the children who will inherit what’s left when they're done with it. A path forward would be one where Congress empowers parents, workers, and professionals over political activists who hide behind the cloak of caring unionists or educators. So long as they are allowed to continue as things are, the country will only suffer, and unions will only become more hated and distrusted.