Professionals Don't Have Unions

"Professionals don't have unions. Trades have unions. We need professionals teaching our children."

Thank you so much! I AM enlightened now! Wait a minute, though...I belong to the Utah Education Association, an organization much like the American Medical Association, or the American Bar Association. As I understand it, one of the purposes of the latter two organizations is to improve the quality and reputation of their respective professions, to provide resources for their members. Similarly, the UEA and its parent organization, the National Education Association, offer a wide variety of innovative, challenging, and creative resources and media designed to enhance the quality of classroom instruction, thereby allowing teachers to better serve students and meet their individual needs, advocating for teachers when necessary. Members recognize the need to properly prepare students to be successful in the so-called “real world.” Of the many teachers I know, most continue to further their education, whether through college courses or workshops, and strive to improve their professional skills, the goal being to improve the learning of students. This behavior seems to be at odds with union philosophy which holds that the workers’ status is more important than that of either management or the client, in this case, the student.

You might appreciate more enlightenment. The UEA and NEA are nothing like the AMA or the ABA. The former are unions and the latter professional organizations with the charge of maintaining professional standards. You would have been correct had you likened the UEA to the Teamsters, the Pipe Fitters Local, or the Professional Sex Worker's Union.

Good luck purging yourselves of the union; if not for you, for the children.

For even more enlightenment read Chapter 12 of Fleeced.

Upon reading your reply, my inclination was to point out that the NEA/UEA perform exactly the same function as the ABA or AMA, setting and maintaining professional standards to which its members should adhere, as a simple visit to their websites would have indicated. By your own definition, a professional organization is one that maintains professional standards. Therefore, the UEA and NEA both qualify. Moreover, neither the UEA nor the NEA has any interest in retaining educators who violate these standards.

Frankly, I’m disappointed. Rather than respond to any of the points I made (which is the essence of rational debate), you used circular/straw-man reasoning (“the former are unions and the latter professional organizations” is merely a re-statement of your original quote) to contend that the UEA and NEA are such simply because you (or someone) define them to be such, offering no empirical or logical evidence to support this statement other than hearsay or perhaps worse, your own idiosyncratic and self-serving definition. At the very least, your reply suggests that you are a victim of hubris and tunnel vision—you define truth by whatever set of parameters suits your purpose. Intentional or not, these are cognitive errors on your part.

Further, when you compare the UEA/NEA to the Professional Sex Worker’s Union, you are relying upon the worst sort of ad hominem attack. Resorting to name-calling invalidates whatever legitimate points you may have. Thus, for me to continue this “discussion” would seem to be an exercise in futility, pounding one’s head against a wall, as it were, and a waste of my intellect and my time.

Likewise, since one good turn deserves another, I sincerely encourage you to read Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional & Personal Life by Richard Paul and Linda Elder, in its entirety. It would also benefit you to mull over this universal truth: He who insists he knows everything, learns nothing.