Thoughts about Wisconsin and Florida...

[Sancho]

My wife and I worked in non-union jobs in SC and GA before moving to Florida 20 years ago. We learned about unions working our way through school in textile mills and starting out by teaching in non-union schools.

Here are a few of the reasons I would never work without union membership again in my experience in Florida:

1.) My union has negotiated partner benefits.
2.) My wife's union successfully sued the school district for age discrimination; they were paying some teachers less than their contract salary based on relevant experience per state law.
3.) My union went to the state PERC board and arbitration to win a case that negotiated settlements with employees had to be enforced. Duh! ($50,000 in legal fees - cost the teacher nothing.)
4.) My wife's union successfully defended her and other employs who were threatened with being fired when the district lost their fingerprints and claimed the teachers had not complied with background checks. A contractor was at fault - proven after an investigation.
5.) My union enforced a policy that awarded extra pay and assignments (like summer teaching) by application and skills; not at the whim of administrators to pay off friends with bonuses.
6.) My wife's union successfully defended a teacher for 3 years (over $100,000 in legal fees) when they were fired because of a false accusation of a student - which was eventually proven to be the case when other students came forward.
7.) My union successfully supported five women who sued for gender discrimination when they discovered their salaries were less than men in the same department with the same qualifications - and also defended them against retaliation. An administrator (pig) was fired and sued for sexual harassment before the whole thing was over.
8.) My wife's union successfully forced the district to study and conclude that a school built on an old landfill was poisoning the faculty and students. It turned out that entire neighborhoods were affected.
9.) My union has forced a school to reinstated faculty fired who were fired arbitrarily when the contract negotiations were at an impasse.
10.) My wife's union has intervened when a principal who wanted to get rid of older teachers purposefully assigned them to locations and students who were most difficult - and the pattern was proven by union study.
11.) My union has successfully defended a teacher's intellectual property rights for materials they created; and the next negotiation included a clause about teacher ownership of things they invent, write, or design.

It goes on and on...if you work for a private company or school or administrator that respects you - then union contracts would not be necessary. Unfortunately, public and private jobs are often in the hands of politicians and corporate raiders and "professional managers" and all sorts of nefarious folks who represent the rich and powerful. Your only protection is a strong union. "Tenure" and "pay for performance" are bull-shit distractions. There are people out there who are immoral and unethical and crooked - and they want to take your hard-earned pay and benefits so they can be millionaires. They will do whatever they want that gets them power and money and they don't care if you suffer or end up in the street. We've never been part of a strike or been targeted for being union members, but we'll never work in a non-union job again.