A teachers’ union is more powerful than a baristas’ union. Let’s examine this difference through the eyes of the Martins.
Mr. and Mrs. Martin live down the street from their son Danny’s school and a few blocks from their favorite coffee shop. Every weekday, Danny goes to school, and his parents go to the coffee shop for their morning cup.
Let’s say the baristas want a raise. To pay for it, the corporation would have to either cut its other costs or increase its revenue.
To cut costs, it would have to do things like use cheaper or fewer coffee beans or maybe use flimsy paper cups. To raise revenue, it would have to charge the Martins more for their coffee.
Doing either of these things might cause the Martins to buy their coffee elsewhere, where it’s better or cheaper. The Martins could even start brewing their coffee at home or just stop drinking coffee altogether.
If many customers did these things, the chain might sell fewer cups of coffee and risk going broke.
Think of it this way: A coffee shop can charge $20 for a cup of coffee and pay its baristas $100,000 a year, but, honestly, would you buy your coffee there?
The amount that the Martins will pay for a cup of coffee limits how much the corporation can pay its baristas and still stay in business.
This limits the power of the baristas’ union.
Now, let’s say Danny’s teachers want a raise. The school district, like the coffee chain, would either have to cut its other costs or increase its revenue.
To cut costs, the district might eliminate some school buses, use portable classrooms, reduce funding for field trips, or trim some elective classes.
The Martins might not like these cuts. As with the paper cups of watery coffee, the Martins might begin to look elsewhere.
But the school district isn’t a coffee shop chain. It isn’t pay-as-you-go. If it were, the Martins would have to pin about a hundred and fifty dollars to Danny’s t-shirt each morning.
The school district’s money comes, rather, from taxes. The Martins pay about a thousand dollars a month in property tax, the lion’s share of which helps pay the school’s expenses, most of which are teachers’ salaries.
If the Martins were to send Danny to a private school, they would still have to pay their property tax. So, in effect, the Martins would have to pay for Danny’s schooling twice; once with their property tax and again with the private school’s tuition. (Some of their income tax goes to districts with lower incomes and more affordable housing, so there may be a third time.)
A good private high school would cost about $40,000 a year. The tuition is higher than the Martin family’s property tax in part because their neighbors, the Johnsons, who have no children, also pay property tax, which helps fund Danny’s public schooling. In any case, the Martins, unlike some of their more affluent neighbors, can’t afford the tuition, so that’s out.
The Martins consider homeschooling, but decide against it because they both work, and neither understands calculus. They then consider selling their house and moving to a different district or state to find a better school. One of their neighbors did this, but the Martins feel tied down by careers, family, and friends.
So the Martins’ options are constrained. As long as they own their home, they are required to pay the tax that pays the teachers, as are the Johnsons. It doesn’t really matter if they are happy with the school or even use it.
Unlike selling cups of coffee, this indirect, diffuse, and mandatory revenue stream flows fairly steadily even when cuts are made. Moreover, even if the school district were to run out of money, it wouldn’t close like a coffee shop; the state would simply bail it out and take it over.
So the teachers’ union enjoys more leverage than the baristas’ union when it comes to cutting costs, but how about increasing revenue?
Sadly, increasing property taxes isn’t easy. Basic property tax increases are capped by law. Special property tax measures require a supermajority to pass, and the funds raised generally can’t be used for teachers’ salaries. In any case, most voters seem to think their taxes are high enough, so such measures usually fail. Even the Martins vote against them.
Fortunately, the teachers’ union has other ways to access revenues.
In the state, hundreds of thousands of teachers pay about $1,000 a year in union dues. This means the union receives hundreds of millions of dollars each year to ensure that teachers’ interests are addressed by the government at every level.
The union uses this money to influence who is elected, which laws are passed, how the laws are implemented, and where the state’s money is spent.
For example, due to effective lobbying by the teachers’ union, when contributions by teachers and the district to the teachers’ retirement fund are insufficient to cover the fund’s outstanding obligations, the state is required by law to use money from its general fund to cover the shortfall. This deftly bypasses the revenue bottleneck caused by the tightfisted voters in the Martins’ school district and keeps the teachers there from having to contribute that money themselves.
So this year, the state’s general fund paid over $4,300,000,000 into teachers’ defined-benefit pensions, about 14 times the amount the union collected in dues. Clearly, those dues were money well spent.
Another important advantage the teachers’ union enjoys becomes clear when teachers go on strike, and working parents have to find appropriate supervision for their children. The worst case in a barista’s strike? Instant coffee.
The power of the teachers’ union isn’t just used to access revenue, either. It is also used to ensure that teachers have good health insurance, working conditions, and job protection.
Meanwhile, the baristas working in the Martins’ favorite coffee shop: (1) are paid about a third as much as Danny’s teachers, (2) get a 5% matching contribution to their fluctuating 401k, (3) have health coverage with high deductibles and an hourly work requirement, and (4) can be fired “at will” by the corporation.
The inequity is as obvious as the solution. Ready?
Convert the coffee shop chain from a for-profit corporation into a state-owned, non-profit enterprise funded by a steady stream of property tax revenues. Yes, public coffee shops.
The existing coffee shops would be grouped into public coffee districts, each with an elected coffee board. Baristas would be certified by a state commission, and paid according to their training level and seniority.
The baristas’ compensation and benefits packages would be benchmarked against the contract provisions of the teachers in their respective districts.
This simple, systemic adjustment would dramatically reduce the inequity resulting from the disparity in power between these two unions and provide the baristas with a livable wage, good health insurance, strong job security, and a comfortable retirement.
Best of all, the Martins’ morning coffee would be free.
Scott Chambers is a cartoonist, author and songwriter in Encinitas.
