The fable begins with a child walking softly through a jungle, lost in thought. Unexpectedly he comes upon a snake looped luxuriously over a lower branch. The child stops and gasps. The snake smiles charmingly and greets the child. “Hello! Don’t be afraid. I am only a snake.”
The child gazes at the iridescent geometric pattern of jewel tones. Never has he seen anything quite so spectacular. “You are beautiful,” he whispers quietly.
The snake’s eyes glitter, and he seems to smile at the child. “Why, thank you,” he says. Would you like to stroke me? Would you like to feel my skin?”
“Oh, no. I don’t think so,” says the child, who knows that snakes can be poisonous. “I should probably just continue on my journey.”
The snake flicks his tongue beguilingly and reassures the child. “Goodness, child. I am just a snake. And I am gorgeous. You may not come across my kind again. I won’t hurt you. I promise. Stroke my long loops. Let me curl around your neck and embrace you. You can trust me.”
Eventually the child approaches the snake, strokes his long body, lets him wind up his arm to gently curl across his neck…
Whereupon the snake bites the child. As the child lies dying on the jungle floor in confusion and pain, he cries out, “But you promised you wouldn’t hurt me!”
The snake looks back at the child before sliding off into the jungle and replies, “Well, yes, but you knew I was a snake when you touched me.”
Eleven months into the COVID pandemic, as I follow the battle between the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU)—who wants its teacher members to continue teaching remotely—and the Chicago Public School (CPS) system—who wants students back in the classrooms, this fable slithers through my mind.
Specific to this particular labor dispute are millions of mitigation dollars, vaccine scarcity, positivity rates, Rt trends, absentee rates, screen time hours, academic failure rates, and competing political, economic, and scientific narratives. But common to all labor disputes, the union is bargaining on behalf of one group, and one group only: its members. It does not take into account the students, the parents, or the city at large. If the union claims to be making demands for the good of the children, it is being as disingenuous as was the snake. If parents, taxpayers or school administrators bemoan the harm accruing to the students, they are being as naïve as was the child in the jungle. They knew CTU was a teachers union when they signed the contract.
As important as it is to be clear-eyed about the purpose and motives of the union, I think it is even more important to untangle the four main distinctions between a public sector labor union and a private sector labor union. First, the workers in a public sector union select their own employers. Second, the employers of public workers are not personally responsible for fulfilling the terms of the labor contract. Third, those who will be responsible for fulfilling the contract are shut out of the negotiating process and have no means to amend the contract once signed. Fourth, public sector entities never go out of business.
In the private sector, the employer hires the laborers. The laborers have the right to organize themselves and negotiate with the employer for wages, benefits and working conditions (i.e., collective bargaining). When the organized employees finally reach an agreement with their employer, a contract is signed. The employer is then bound by law to fulfill the terms of the contract. The money to pay the laborers will come out of the employer’s pockets. If either the employer or the workers miscalculate and agree to unaffordable wages, the private company will go out of business. The workers will be out of jobs. Both sides, therefore, have an incentive to reach a balanced agreement.
In the public sector, the laborers are government workers (e.g., teachers, police, childcare workers, librarians, courthouse clerks, snowplow drivers). They, like their fellow citizens in the private sector, go to the polls and elect their mayors, county board members, judges, township supervisors. Unlike their fellow citizens in the private sector, this group of voters—those who work for the government—are voting not just for a person to govern them, but for a person who will be their employer.
When the time comes to negotiate a labor contract, the employer—I’ll use a mayor as the example—takes into consideration that he was elected by these employees. In fact, it is highly possible that these employees not only voted for him, but pooled some of their dues to campaign for him. The mayor didn’t hire the employees; the employees “hired” the mayor. The relationship is exactly the opposite of the employer/employee relationship in the private sector. This is a very important distinction. A public sector union is so fundamentally different from a private sector union that the two should be considered different species—rattlesnakes and garter snakes, if you will.
The second distinction is that the mayor is not personally responsible for paying these employees. Only a minuscule fraction of the wages will come from his pocket. If the town has 20,000 taxpayers, the mayor will pay only his portion of 0.005%. There is no personal fiscal consequence for the mayor if he miscalculates and negotiates an unaffordable contract. The overwhelming bulk of the wages will be paid by everybody else in town.
Perhaps the private sector citizens should get their act together, overcome the political arm of the public sector union, and elect a different mayor—one who will negotiate an affordable contract. Unfortunately, even if a different mayor is elected, the contract is legally binding and cannot be rewritten. It certainly can’t be rewritten by the taxpayers, which is the third distinction. The contract probably extends beyond the term of the mayor who negotiated it, so there is little if any political consequence for the mayor. (In fact, judging anecdotally, the political consequences are more dire for a mayor who tries to negotiate a contract that is affordable for the taxpayers, but doesn’t meet the expectations of the union.)
The fourth distinction is that government entities—the public schools, the police force, the courts, the DMV—never go out of business. In the private sector, if GEICO insurance becomes insanely expensive, particularly compared to the competition, GEICO will go out of business. But when government entities become insanely expensive, they don’t go away. Bankruptcy is not practically an option. By law, the contract must be met. The only way to do that is to raise taxes on the diffuse, not-collectively-organized citizens who were not involved in the negotiations.
Without public sector unions would civil servants be paid a mere pittance and suffer under harsh conditions? Would teachers have to lug coal to the school early on a frosty morning and fire up the pot-belly stove to heat the classroom? Would police have to buy their own body cameras? Would court clerks and DMV officials be issued rusty paperclips and denied tetanus shots? What protects our civil servants, if not union-negotiated contracts? Civil service laws. Laws, unlike contracts, are subject to the scrutiny and approval of all citizens, not just those who work for the government.
The efforts required to reform, let alone eliminate, public sector unions and their collective bargaining power are different snarls to be untangled some other time. But the very first step is to recognize public sector unions for what they are—completely different species from their private sector relatives.
I’ll close with a recent encounter, which has less to do with public sector unions and more to do with civic courage and willpower.
Recently I participated in a virtual meeting hosted by the Central Asia Institute (CAI), an organization my husband and I have supported for two decades. CAI’s mission is to promote education for girls and women in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. Abdul Subhan Misbah (Misbah), who is the executive director of the Shining Star Educational Organization of Afghanistan (SSEOA), an NGO working in partnership with CAI, was the special guest at this virtual meeting. He was in Chicago for a couple weeks, and took an hour to answer questions about the current situation in Afghanistan and the issue of childhood education.
My husband and I had the good fortune to meet Misbah a couple years ago, and we have continued to stay in contact. Misbah overflows with energy, humor and optimism. He was born in Kabul Province 40 years ago, and his country has been continuously at war during his entire life. He graduated from Kabul University with a degree in law, and has become a renowned lawyer—an expert on the Afghan constitution and a strong supporter of the rule of law. Concerned for the safety and security of his wife and children, a few years ago he obtained Special Immigrant Visas and moved his family to Chicago. However, he continues to spend most of his time in Afghanistan, working tirelessly and doggedly to build a country governed by laws, not terrorism—a country where all children have the chance to go to school.
Misbah talked about the cultural, economic, and practical safety obstacles that SSEOA and CAI continue to hurdle or dismantle so that girls can go to school: children and teachers walking an hour to and an hour home from school, stone and iron barrier walls, intermittent electricity, lack of educated teachers, fear, poverty, illiteracy, the Taliban. The resolve, the vision, the cheerful persistence, the inching progress and the raw courage exhibited not only by Misbah, but by the young women who go into teaching, and the families who send their daughters to school…well, it is humbling.
Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Misbah’s own children, who are enrolled in the Chicago Public School system, haven’t been inside a classroom in eleven months. I’ll leave it at that.
