Collective Bargaining Between The Teachers Union and Running Policies

In the past couple of decades, there have been noticed that the nature of educational activities has reduced and students are not fully getting the maximum amount of education that they are expected to get from the teachers. Teachers’ wages have drastically increased from what they once were but the academic performance of students has severely dropped. It is clearly visible that at several colleges where student performances have been constantly on the decline. There are teachers' unions, the group who are involved in collective bargaining processes, for increases of pay as the newer policies, regulations, and creative negotiation strategies. That being said, the issues that face educational institutes of learning, which are directly obstructed by the educational level of students. Hence, this also affects the students which are the future leaders of the United States.

What type of collective bargaining is this?

This type of collective bargaining is distributive collective bargaining which can be observed through the teachers union and running policies. Now the definition of distributive collective bargaining is a competitive bargaining strategy where one group gets something if the other group loses something. The conduct of the government endorsing and encouraging instructors to take the increases with the hopes of effective learning for students is true in hindsight. Even though teachers are getting benefits the educational level isn’t rising. There are actually articles showing a decrease in the academic levels for the past several years. This distributive or conjunctive bargaining is where one party is getting benefits without better benefits for other parties.

What are the underlying causes of the dispute?

There are many underlying disputes and they are:

1. Government and teachers’ unions emphasize on the issues of teachers’ issues such as their pay and greater job security.
2. There are a few things to consider for the student's education.
3. Teacher unions have become more fixated as the past data and resisted their issues to ensure instructors are held responsible for the academics of their students and have them succeed consistently.
4. Tenure policies are the reasons that you can’t fire a bad teacher. They do have regulations out there but they basically inconsistently applied.

What economic or ethical pressures has each side attempted to use to prevail in the dispute?

Well, economically this is a big loss of future possibility for people who could possibly be in charge of a business and run it better and acquire better jobs. There are many more aspects in their lives which can be done only after effective academic learning. In the article, there is a mentioning that the government is looking into doing some surveys and data collection so they can find the reason behind the issues and work on doing what they can to fix it. There are a few factors where the government would like to follow in an attempt to find a possible solution and solve the issues. Teacher unions are also tracking this and are trying to fix the situation. They know that the expectations for educational learning are an issue but they need to improve for not only the students’ future but the economical one as well.

Now ethically there are circumstances where some students learn and try to apply their knowledge in their life. If there is a lack of education or knowledge then you couldn’t expect a knowledgeable social environment. This means that there would be less discussion, research groups and so many more things which would be bad because we must always be moving forward.

Now as we know collective bargaining is “Collective bargaining refers to the negotiation process between an employer and a union comprised of workers to create an agreement that will govern the terms and conditions of the workers' employment.” This is a bit difficult to provide you with a concrete answer because neither side did all the wrong things. It is a collaborative method which includes guidelines, regulations, policies, teachers’ unions, and even the students. There was nothing in the article to indicate to me that anything illegal or unethical was going on at the time the article was written. That being said this is still an ongoing issue. It is a topic that is discussed by many people in positions of power. There are many powerful groups working to try and fix what could now be considered a serious problem.

What, if any, the role was played by third parties in resolving this bargaining dispute? What was the identity of the third party?

There is a third party involved in this case was the government. The government has a predominant role in recognizing the problem and resolving it accordingly. The solution will be beneficial for the students. This will directly influence the future of the US and its ability to effectively and efficiently run businesses.

Conclusion

The problem here can’t be easily resolved and it still hasn’t been resolved. Even today there are still negotiations tanking place and plans being thought up. As the old saying goes Rome wasn’t built in a day, and this issue can’t be fixed easily. Course my thought is that even if you can fix one area of education it might work for some but I doubt for all. So is there actually a solution or is there just this is the best we can do at this time?

References:

1. Andrew Stiles (June, 2013). 'New Study Blames Collective Bargaining for Education Stagnation. Retrieved From: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/350820/new-study-blames-collective-bargaining-education-stagnation-andrew-stiles
2. [Author removed at request of original publisher]. (2016, March 22). 12.2 Collective Bargaining. Retrieved November 8, 2019, from https://open.lib.umn.edu/humanresourcemanagement/chapter/12-2-collective-bargaining/.
3. Baron, E. Jason. 2018. “The Effect of Teachers’ Unions on Student Achievement in the Short Run: Evidence from Wisconsin’s Act 10.” Economics of Education Review 67 (C): 40–57.
4. Collective Bargaining. (n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2019, from https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/collective_bargaining.
5. Lovenheim, M. F., & Willén, A. (2019). The Long-Run Effects of Teacher Collective Bargaining. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 11(3), 292–324. doi: 10.1257/pol.20170570