Introduction
Unions are legally formed to serve as the voices of all workers in New York City or entire country. They act as representatives of public and private employees in several industries in the United States. Their main aim centers on cooperative negotiations in issues related to wage increase, workers’ benefits and better working conditions for their members and addressing other issues like disputes with administration about infringement of contract conditions.
Most unions in the United States are adjusted to one of two major unions, Change to Win Federation and AFL-CIO that was legally formed in 1955. These two unions represent or bargain guidelines and legislation as they represent employees in America and contribute a major part in the country’s politics (Moe 66).
The paper discusses the achievements of United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and District Council (DC 37), as well as their challenges and shortcomings that are involved in their membership. United Federation of Teachers has played a huge part in addressing the rights of teachers and nurses in New York City. Since its formation in 1960s, it has solved several issues related to educational matters, such as wage increase, workers’ benefits, and currently the reduction in class sizes.
They also take part in the political affairs through financing most campaign activities. Some critics have stated that American teachers’ unions undermine the performance and productivity of schools through disregarding the issues related to students, management, and parents, while serving as a voice for teachers.
Some studies have reported that increase in teachers’ wages does not improve the productivity and performance of students and schools in general. DC 37 has played an important part in matters of women’s rights and equal pay among all employees in public sectors.
United Federation of Teachers (UFT)
Since 1960s, the management of United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has ensured that it portrays itself as union of expertise that exercises the rights and privileges of its members. UFT serves as a voice of more than 200,000 teachers, home daycare employees and nurses in New York City and consider that children are worth of secure schools, provision of social and health requirements, and appropriate instructions from the teachers and the government.
In 2005, there were around 18,000 paraprofessionals and 120,000 in-serves teachers in United Federation of Teachers, together with around 55,000 retired teachers and other participants. At the end of 2007, 28,250 home daycare employees selected to be part of the union, making the sum number of members to go by the 200,000 mark (Moe 66).
Achievements
UFT was very active in decreasing the size of classrooms and directly intended and led to advanced teaching arrangement and system which permitted for professional association and teaching background. The union was also powerful in legalizing charter school acceptance policy to guarantee an unbiased assessment application procedure.
Currently, the union is in opposition to merit pay for its members and favoring seniority-based payment, but became involved in 2007 in approving a voluntary incentive system for performing schools with higher population and greater requirements.
The United Federation of Teachers does not favor a recommended reform of the seniority-based LIFO (education) policy. The union powerfully supports the lessening of class sizes for every grade stage and subjects in all public schools in New York City to provide quality and standardize education program.
In 2005, in the contract negotiations, the United Federation of Teachers effectively included language to the agreement that precisely safeguard teachers from experiencing penalty due to the planning of the classroom furniture, the arrangement of the bulletin boards, and finally the precise length of lesson units.
Annually, the union provides scholarship opportunities to undergraduate and graduates and around $1 million are awarded to these students according to their academic achievements and inability to finance their college expenses. In 2011, 250 high school graduates were awarded $5,000 each to gather for their higher education expenses (Haskins 116).
United Federation of Teachers has embarked to start charter schools of their own and there are some reasons why they want to begin this process. United Federation of Teachers claims that Charter schools permit teachers to innovate and experiment in approaches that are complex in common government schools. Charter schools operators are aware that their members have the privilege to create unions if they consider it important since organized and prepared teachers can produce valuable partnerships.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the lobar and civil rights which had experienced destruction and set backs during 1960s and 1970s were restructured as labor unions that came together to address the issues of quality and acceptable education for every student, standard class sizes, and provision of safety nets to families.
The United Federation of Teachers was an active follower of landmark school aid court case recorded by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity in 1993, an alliance of education activists and parents who were concerned about the welfare of their children. The legal clash resulted in a decision forcing the state to offer not less than $2 billion above the normal in educational funding to public schools around New York City (Meyer 3).
Another field of which the United Federation of Teachers has shown well-built relationship with its structured members and has achieved its goals is with the Municipal Labor committee. This committee is an affiliate alliance for government employee unions that serve as a negotiating representative for health coverage with the New York City.
In 2011, the health insurance bargained for domestic daycare providers, who are members of United Federation of Teachers, in their initial contract with the city and will soon come to action. Family care providers are expected to obtain health coverage under the UFT Family Health Plus system, this is a health coverage project funded by New York City and provided completely to providers of United Federation of Teachers under health coverage of EmblemHealth.
Other than health benefits provided through this plan, providers engaging in this program will also obtain an influential medical advocate that will be under the United Federation of Teachers. Often, bargaining the medical coverage arrangement is challenging and this is the reason the union is regularly examining the UFT Health Care Plus plan keenly are prepared and accessible always to support every member in it who considers that he has not received or his rights are limited (Wright 4).
The benefits provided through this program are wide-ranging containing dental and inpatient hospital, specialty, and primary care, together with prescription medicine insurance to their members who need these services.
Remarkably, and regardless of the direct allocating of $700 million to decrease class size and significant projects of the community by United Federation of Teachers and its new alliance parties, the sizes of classes in the government schools in the city really improved in the years after obtaining this sum of money. Incensed, the union filed a case against the New York City DOE for not utilizing the funds allocated by the state to decrease the class sizes (Meyer 3).
The UFT applied the court case to inform the people, especially the parents, about the inability of City Administration to utilize taxpayers’ monies appropriately. The initial rulings in the lawsuit, during the mid 2010, were showing positive potentials.
The first achievement of UFT was in 1969 when they successfully won the privilege to represent around 11,000 government school paraprofessionals in the state of New York. Even though different AFT (America Federation of Teachers) locals had served as the voice of most librarians, school nurses, and other members of education structure, the United Federation of Teachers election officially inaugurated the first main growth into non-teaching staff (Wright 4).
DC 37
Launched in 1944, District council 37 (DC 37) has expanded from union of not more than a thousand members in the state’s health care, business, and parks to the national biggest union of government workers, with above 130, 000 employees participating in state’s cultural and agencies organizations.
In 2005, the officials of DC 37 wrote to the mayor addressing the challenges that the members of DC 37 are undergoing. Working jointly with the mayor, and some banks, DC 37 generated the MEHP, the earliest and the greatest widespread labor-sponsored reasonable priced housing projects among all other states. With the help of DC 37, the members received mortgage and the union housing plans provided comprehensive services, which includes mortgages, development loans, and other services for the city employees who are experiencing shortage of housing.
The members of the union can qualify for the funds and mortgage support to buy co-ops, second home within the city, and even condos. In November 2010, DC 37 started contract bargains with the New York City for a new economic accord and has examined the budget of the city and revealed the intensive contracting-out misuse and corruption. For instance CityTime, along with the policy of the city, did not intentionally receive particular taxes and charges to which it is warranted.
Some of the major important activities executed by DC 37 in 1980s were in the area of rights of women. In early 1980s, the court ruled that the New York City Employee Retirement System might no longer locate specific points for gender for pension compensations and donations, and this disagreement had taken a decade to be decided. Women municipal employees who had been ordered to pay more due to their anticipated permanence were repaid some of their earlier pension donations.
Another success of rights of women appeared also in mid 1980s with a case presented by DC 37 opposing the lower wages of mostly women 911 workers in the Police Department as matched up to the raised wages of men’s Fire Department workers executing comparable tusk. This successful case filed by DC 37 simplified the process of paying workers and presented equal pay for both men and women executing comparable tusk, even when the titles of their job are different.
DC 37 contributed a major role in this movement and led the first demonstration in the country due to the pay equality matters; along with a successful court case in opposition to the Washington state who had won a case to pay women low wages in their titles, but this was overruled after an appeal. Employers were forced to include gender pay equity in their new contracts and this success was mainly contributed by DC 37 (Budd and McCall 479).
DC 37 continued to fight for the benefits of members that included raised protection for temporary employees, pension for workers on part-time basis, and policies directing admission of on-the-job protection risks to employees.
The union went extra mile to celebrate Black History Month and acknowledged different ethnic cultures, and created a Disability Advisory Committees to address the issues of disability within and outside the union. In 1985, they participated in activities related to Women’s History Month and were engaged in national position in agreement to gay rights.
Disadvantages and Challenges
The drawback of being a member of United Federation of Teachers union and DC 37 is that the members have limited expressions in processes of educational institutions they work in and the procedures of teaching they intend to execute. They also have to contribute some money to sustain the union.
Teachers’ unions available in America, especially United Federation of Teachers, are most influential and well structured in issues related to education policies and politics. However, they take advantage of their powerful position to block reforms required to advance the country’s education system through placing their emphasis on teachers instead of focusing on the children or students. Unions, sometimes, are blockages to school selection and other important policies.
In all the issues that unions, such as DC 37 and American Federation of Teachers, express about students, their concerns are more to their adults and dues-paying constituencies. Teachers’ unions have been seen as big businesses handling huge finances with real political powers. United Federation of Teachers, DC 37 and other unions in the country have been greatly contributing to political campaigns and using most of their funds to support the contenders who think they will support them later.
DC 37 experienced various challenges at the end of 1990s, when surveys by Manhattan District Attorney exposed different cases of fraud within the council and its members. Particularly, very serious cases were disclosures in 1998 that top-most officials of the union had fixed an endorsement vote on the contentious 1996 contract that contained payment freezes for the opening two years. This led to restructuring of the top officials of the union after some members revealed that they were involved in the corruption case (Cannato 572).
DC 37 experienced some significant challenges in 1970s as most cities were facing huge fiscal crisis, where public employees underwent decrease in benefits, wage freezes, and work termination. Regardless of these demanding periods, the council, however, was successful to go beyond the 100,000 membership mark in 1975.
All through history, DC 37 has dynamically held social movement unionism through connecting its efforts for better pay and benefits to other matters related with political economy and social issues. DC 37, represented by some delegation, participated in various other strikes in opposition to segregation and inequality, the council and its partners demonstrated also in opposition to the Vietnam War.
Effect on Productivity and Performance in Schools
Haskins (116) did research on the connection between teachers’ unions and education systems. The research concluded that teachers’ unions hamper the productivity through raising the institution inputs as they reduce the performance of the students. The existence of unions of teachers and other unions in employment sectors are likely to raise school funds and that the raised finances are dedicated to superior standard wages and reduce class sizes.
Actually, the raised salaries for teachers may not raise the performance of students and quality of education. The Unions should address also the issue of performance and quality of education to portray their quality representation to both the teachers and students. Some have argued that teachers’ unions take reform control away from management, students and parents, together with exploiting the city’s resources as they only address the issues experienced by teachers.
Conclusion
Unions in the United States have reported significant achievements since they were established in 1950s through addressing the issues affecting teachers and other members, such as nurses and home care providers. From above discussion, we can conclude by stating that unions, such as United Federation of Teachers and DC 37, have played a significant role in resolving some issues that were traditionally experienced by employees in their workplaces, including benefits, wage increase, reduction of class sizes, and other school-related issues.
There are various disadvantages faced by employees who are members of these unions. Their members have limited expressions in development in their educational institutions and the way they should teach in schools. They also contribute huge sum of money to maintain or finance the activities of these unions that they are later contributed to various political parties.
Works Cited
Budd, John and Brian McCall. “The Effect of Unions on the Receipt of Unemployment Insurance Benefits.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 50 (2007): 477-491.
Cannato, Vincent. The Ungovernable City. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Print.
Haskins, Justin Trask. Saving America: From Global Warming to Immigration. New York: Lulu, 2007. Print.
Meyer, Heinz-Dieter. “Trade, Profession or Entrepreneurs? The Market Faithful Raise Important Questions about the Future of Teacher Unions.” American Journal of Education 112 (2005): 1-7. Print.
Moe, Terry. Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2011. Print.
Wright, Carol. “Unions and Teachers: Differences in the State of the Nation.” ALSB Journal of Employment and Labor Law 10.2 (2001): 1-12. Print.