Public education may be a tax payer system- but we, the teachers, pay for the union out of our own paychecks- and you don't have to pay for the political activities if you don't want to- you can have those subtracted out if you want. You don't even have to join the union. I actually didn't join for a couple years, but after all the crap I read on SI about unions from people who were clearly off the wall about everything else, I decided if they didn't like the union that much, it was probably a grand idea, so I joined, and I'm glad I did, but I certainly didn't have to.
The fact that teachers trust the democrats to represent their interests better says more about the two parties, than it says about denying the teachers the right to organize- unless you only want to allow unions to exist where they support the political party you think they should support (or even worse, you don't want to allow anyone to organize. Organizing is all about giving workers the power that large corporate lobbies have- because that's the only way workers will ever have a foot in the door, or a seat at the table). |
