The Long Reach of Teachers Unions: Using Money to Win Friends and Influence Policy
2010; Routledge; Volume: 10; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1539-9664
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Education Studies and Reforms
ResumoWhen the Florida legislature, on April 8th, passed a bill that sought to replace teacher tenure with merit pay, the Florida Education Association (FEA) sprang into action, organizing members and community activists to lobby Governor Charlie Crist to veto the measure. FEA, with the help of its parent union, the National Education Association (NEA), generated thousands of e-mails, letters, phone calls, and Internet posts in opposition to the legislation. When Governor Crist delivered his veto on April 15th, the union ran television and Internet ads, thanking him. A few weeks later, FEA gave a much-needed boost to Crist's independent bid for a U.S. Senate seat by endorsing both Crist and Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] If you think it's far-fetched to suggest that a teachers union could play the role of political kingmaker, think again. The largest political campaign spender in America is not a megacorporation, such as Wal-Mart, Microsoft, or Exxon-Mobil. It isn't an industry association, like the American Bankers Association or the National Association of Realtors. It's not even a labor federation, like the AFL-CIO. If you combine the campaign spending of all those entities it does not match the amount spent by the National Education Association, the public-sector labor union that represents some 2.3 million K-12 public school teachers and nearly a million education support workers (bus drivers, custodians, food service employees), retirees, and college student members. NEA members alone make up more than half of union members working for local governments, by far the most unionized segment of the U.S. economy. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in State Politics joined forces last year to produce the first comprehensive database of political campaign spending at both the state and national levels. The results should open the eyes of policymakers and educators alike, as well as those involved in the wider world of domestic politics. In the 2007-08 election cycle, total spending on state and federal campaigns, political parties, and ballot measures exceeded $5.8 billion. The first-place NEA spent more than S56.3 million, $12.5 million ahead of the second-place group. That's not all. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the smaller of the two national professional education unions, ranked 25th in campaign spending, with almost $12 million, while NEA/AFT collaborative campaigns spent an additional $3.4 million, enough to earn the rank of 123rd. All told, the two national teachers unions distributed $71.7 million on candidate and issue campaigns from California to Florida, Massachusetts to South Dakota. Millions more went to policy research to support the unions' agenda. The teachers unions outspent their union peers by a large margin. The next highest-spending public sector union is ranked at number 5: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) contributed some $35 million. The AFL-ClO's largest member union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), at less than half the size of NEA, spent about $21 million and ranked 11th. A Long Arm With such large sums of cash in hand, NEA can involve itself in a wide variety of campaigns in many states without diluting its efforts in any single one of them. During the 2008-09 school year, the national union sent a total of $17.3 million to 24 state affiliates, both large and small. In the case of the large affiliates, this money merely supplements what the affiliate raises on its own. According to a 2010 report by the California Fair Political Practices Commission, 15 organizations spent a combined $1 billion on state campaigns and ballot measures from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2009. The California Teachers Association (CTA) was the biggest political spender over the period, disbursing nearly S212 million. …
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