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Jewish World Review Dec. 17, 2001 / 2 Teves, 5762

Sean Carter

Sean Carter
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Consumer Reports


Teachers go to the pokey for playing hooky


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- IN the past, I have been slightly critical of public school teachers. OK! OK! I have been very critical of public school teachers. In fact, I have blamed them for everything from falling test scores to gum disease to the popularity of those annoying boy bands. However, I must now come to the aid of more than 200 striking teachers in New Jersey, who were recently jailed for defying a judge's back-to-work order.

The teachers, members of the Middletown Township Education Association, are involved in a labor dispute with the local board of education. The teachers are resisting a board proposal that would require them to pay a greater portion of their health care costs.

Although I am not an economist (or even capable of balancing my checkbook), I do not think that the teachers are asking for too much here. In fact, I would argue that these teachers should get free health care. Everyday, sick children expose their teachers to a constant barrage of bugs and germs (not to mention gunfire). In fact, with the possible of exceptions of landfills and my college dorm room, public schools are the most germ-infested places on the planet.

More importantly, it seems wrong that someone could be jailed for refusing to go to work. In this case, the teachers were released after serving only a few days in jail but only upon the promise that they go back to work pending resolution of their dispute.

This seems wrong to me. After all, this is still America, isn't it? Of course, I could be reading the Declaration of Independence incorrectly but it states, "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of a parking space at the mall during the Christmas season."

Surely, in a free country, free men and women should be able to exercise their G-d-given rights to sit at home on their duffs and watch Dr. Phil on Oprah. Strangely, under our current system of laws, this most precious of rights is denied to public employees.

Since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, private sector employees have enjoyed the right to form unions, strike and elect representatives with colorful names like Sammy "The Goldfish" Graziano. However, public employees do not have the same rights.

Public employees are free to form unions and elect any number of representatives with "reputed" ties to organized crime but they are not generally free to strike. This obviously reduces their bargaining power quite a bit. A union leader can only be so persuasive when he says, "If you don't meet our demands, we are going to … we are going to … go right back to work!"

However, this is precisely the position that many public sector union leaders find themselves in. Federal law only allows specified classes of federal employees to strike. These are usually employees that do not perform any essential services, such as Senators.

On the other hand, state law is even more onerous towards public sector employees. Only eight states allow public employees to strike and then only under narrow circumstances. However, New Jersey and 41 other states do not allow public employees to strike under any circumstance.

In these states, potentially striking public employees are given two choices -- continue working or go to jail. To the credit of the 228 Middletown Township teachers, they stood up for principle and chose to go to jail. This is despite the fact that the teachers could have taken the easy way out. Instead of striking, they could have simply gone back to work but not done any teaching. And given the sorry state of our public school system, no one would have noticed for years, if ever.

In fact, as I think about it, I'm beginning to suspect that many of my former teachers were actually on strike. However, rather than risking jail, they simply showed up everyday, read magazines and smoked cigarettes in the teacher's lounge. Who knew?

Considering this alternative, the actions of the Middletown Township teachers are even more remarkable. If more of our teachers and students were willing to stand on principle (as opposed to the current practice of standing on the principal), we could solve many of the problems of our public school system. In time, we could even improve to the point that our national test scores would surpass those of countries that have traditionally outscored us, such as Germany, Japan and East Timor.

Now, if we could just do something about those Backstreet Boys!



Sean Carter is a practicing attorney, stand-up comedian and humor writer. Comment by clicking here.

Up

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© 2001, Sean Carter