I may be confused about unions

[PurgedVoter]

9. I agree entirely

I paid into the TSTA for years. Since Texas does not allow for collective bargaining if you are a public employee, by law the TSTA is a bit crippled. In addition, Texas conservatives are well represented in education. The folk that control text books to the local school boards and teachers, are conservative more often than not. There are a lot of intelligent and compassionate educators in Texas who vote straight Republican.

A conservative Texas teacher is quite capable of being fair and supportive in class and still vote for someone who wants to reduce funding to the branch of education they work in. As a result, if Texas teachers were to vote on what they wanted their union to do, the odd are good that the result would end up shooting them in the foot.

The expectation for a teacher to start early, work late, take work home and support after school activities, makes it hard for them to get involved unless the administration strongly supports the teachers getting involved.

Pity the Texas educator, they are forbidden to serve on the school board even after retirement and their administrators most likely have criminal science degrees and have never taught a class. They may not strike and collective bargaining is not an option.