Since George Will has weighed in on the conflict between the mayor and Chicago’s Teacher’s Union and the possibly impending strike, I may as well, too. Mr. Will hits most of the high spots of the in the discussion in his column: the mayor’s desire for a longer school day and school year, the teachers’ corresponding demand for 30% more pay, that Chicago has the shortest school day among major urban school systems. Unmentioned, however, is that Chicago also has a short school year compared with other urban systems and higher pay compared with other such systems.
There are several other factors that I think bear mentioning. Mr. Will is right that the mayor’s responsibilities and the head of the Chicago Teachers Union’s responsibilities are not the same. However, teachers are, at least nominally, professionals which means that they have a responsibility to the community that they serve not shared by, say, truck drivers, auto workers, or busboys. If the teachers disagree with the mayor’s plan for improving the schools, that obligation requires them to respond with their own plan, something not yet forthcoming. The adversarial relationship between industrial unions and management is not an effective model for the cooperative relationship that should exist between professionals and the city government.
Additionally, as I have previously pointed out, the Chicago median wage and the present median wage of Chicago teachers means that teachers are prominent in the city’s top 10% of income earners. Add police officers and firefighters, who will almost certainly demand their own wage increases if teachers receive a substantial wage increase, and it’s an even higher percentage. The constrained character of Chicago’s finances, already running a sharp deficit, and its present taxes, already high among major cities, means that any attempt to raise revenues will be like giving a blood transfusion from arm to arm.
If I were the mayor, here’s the deal I would strike: if the teachers curtail their wage demands, I wouldn’t crack down on the Chicago residency requirement.
I’m confused by the assignment of broader responsibility. If CEOs of major corporations have no responsibility other than to deliver a profit to shareholders, why is a teacher not equally entitled/obligated to pursue their own self-interest? Am I obligated to the community or can I (and I am a CEO of sorts) pursue my own narrow agenda without regard to anyone else?
Dave is using the legal concept of a professional, someone who by virtue of unique skills or training has duties beyond those of the immediate commercial transaction, such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, and accountants. I’m not sure teachers are a profession, as opposed to a skilled trade, but I told this to my wife once and she advised me never to mention that belief to my mother-in-law, a retired teacher. I think teachers want “professional” status as some sort of justification for higher compensation, more respect, and incentives for more and more degrees and certificates. Inquiring minds want to know, is there such a thing as a cause of action for teacher malpractice?
” Inquiring minds want to know, is there such a thing as a cause of action for teacher malpractice?”
More inquiring minds want to know, are you asserting that the possibility of being exposed to a malpractice suit is a necessary condition for being a professional?
FWIW, I was a book editor for 20+ years. Does that count as being a professional?
sam, I think someone who writes, instructs, plays a musical instrument or has sex, can be a professional or amateur, depending on whether doing so is a source of gainful employment. By most accounts I am an amateur at these, but that’s a different usage of the word “professional” than I believe Dave is using here.
To me, a professional is someone has extrinsic, unspecified duties they cannot violate. A professional teacher would be required to disregard the school administration in certain circumstances, and public policy would say, of course, he/she is a teacher, they can’t do that.
Would that necessarily imply the existance of a malrpactice lawsuit? To me it would depend upon what those extrinsic, unspecified duties would be, and who would have standing to claim injury if those duties are breached.
Michael
You mixed apples and oranges right out of the box. The deal that runs between a CEO and the shareholders is explicit and a fiduciary one. A good CEO will steward the company accordingly, even if it may or may not be in his or her naked self interest. There are employment contracts and law that lay this out. Then you switched gears, ignoring Dave’s point, inquiring why the teachers don’t have the right to exclusive naked self interest, even though they are public employees entrusted with a public education system, and negotiating with other public employees for compensation, whom they tend to vote for. It’s the public duty equivalent of a fiduciary duty.
“inquiring minds want to know……..”. Given the status of the trial lawyers and public unions as totally in the tank for politicians, especially Democratis ones, fuggettaboutit.
“FWIWT I was a book editor….is that a professional?.”
I don’t know sam, when you read “Run spot run.”. Did you correct the capitalization? (Relax, just a joke. Slow week.)
So conveniently CEOs live under a system they created to justify self-interest (No, please don’t try to tell me the CEO and his corp have different interests) while the teacher is somehow confined within a system she has not designed or explicitly chosen which just by amazing coincidence places her at a disadvantage.
Professionals operate under an explicit code of ethics and retain certain prerogatives especially autonomy. The traditional professions include teaching, the practice of law, and the practice of medicine. Over the last several decades the lines have blurred as professionals surrendered autonomy in exchange for higher pay.
Writers are artists. Busboys are laborers. Electricians are craftsmen. People who work for companies that make and/or sell things are in trade. I think these distinctions remain useful.
The comparison between CEO of companies are individual teachers is not appropriate. The proper comparison, as Will makes in his column, is between CEOs and union presidents. The president of the CTU has a primary responsibility to the teachers, not the city or even to the students. The teachers, however, do have such responsibilities.
I’m very uncomfortable with unions for professionals. I don’t think the ideas are compatible. However, here in Chicago even the physicians working for County have their own union (or, at least, used to—I’m not really sure).
BTW, my favorite example of a craft trying to bootstrap its way into the professions is journalism. They’ve implemented a code of ethics (that they pretty freely ignore) and cited their First Amendment rights as professional prerogatives, something I think is laughable.
@Drew
… The deal that runs between a CEO and the shareholders is explicit and a fiduciary one. …
A Corporation is a legal entity, and it is accorded special treatment. In addition, all contracts and other legal documents are enforced under a public legal system. CEO’s do not operate in a separate dimension. As such, corporations and their officers have a public responsibility to the system which created and protects them.
… A good CEO will steward the company accordingly, even if it may or may not be in his or her naked self interest. …
A creature as elusive as the fabled Bandersnatch. Jesus, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa did not operate “in his or her naked self interest”. I would not include CEO’s in this group, but that’s just me.
… negotiating with other public employees for compensation, whom they tend to vote for. …
As opposed to paying lobbyists to obtain special carve outs from the same politicians, whom they tend to donate to.
“Do the Hustle”
(No, please don’t try to tell me the CEO and his corp have different interests)
But they do have different interests. It’s even got a name – the Agency Problem. A great deal of effort has been put forth to align the interests of one with the interests of the other. Or rather, consultants have claimed they have put a great deal of effort into trying to fix that problem while in reality they’re just trying to drum up business.
When exactly does a new teacher swear an oath and assume the responsibilities of a “professional?” Doctors do the hippocratic oath, but I wasn’t aware of a parallel in teaching.
The word professional is meaningless in practical terms. Are teachers accorded the respect and deference give doctors? Please. They’re employees and union members. They’re effectively factory workers. Except of course when it’s politically useful (on either side) to designate them as professionals.
Another subtle rigging of the system. CEOs — who are of course often in control of their board, and who participate in profit sharing and stock options etc… — have a magic exemption from any responsibility to the world beyond the corporation which they own at least in part. Gosh, isn’t that convenient?
Let’s name all the other occupations that are exempt from morality and decency and ethics and concern for anything beyond themselves, shall we?
1) Drug dealers
2)
By the way, I love that we have discussions on the need for a virtuous citizenry, while at the same time solemnly agreeing that corporations are people, entitled to any degree of political expression their money can buy, and yet exempt from any requirement for virtue.
Virtue is for the little people, the ones who only have the one vote and one small voice. Our masters are exempt.
Corporate CEOs have fiduciary duties to their shareholder, which is similar to many professions, but there are no special education or training requirements.
I also think unionization is inconsistent with professional status. At least under the National Labor Relations Act, the traditional professions do not have rights to collective bargaining because they utilize “independent professional judgment.” There are doctors, lawyers and engineers that are in government unions, but AFAIK they are serving in job descriptions in which they are not exercising “independent professional judgment,” and most likely are in regulatory capacity. For example, a union P.E. won’t be designing and stamping building specs , but they might be reviewing the work of a P.E. for compliance with technical regulations they are in charge of. I think lawyers who appear in court, where they would have extrinsic duties to the court system, are not organizable.
Don’t look at me for defense of the rights of companies. I would curtail them more than the courts have done. For example, I would ban lobbying and political contributions on the part of all artificial persons.
However, I’m curious about something. Is the animosity to artificial personhood limited to for-profit companies? Or does it extend to all artificial persons? I.e. not-for-profits, labor unions, associations, etc.
Michael, as a matter of practicality how is the city to pay the teachers what they’re asking? A 150% increase in property taxes would be needed. That’s confiscatory. My wife and I might be able to deal with it. Barely. Our property taxes are pretty high already and holding even as our house’s value declines. Property values in Chicago are continuing to decline.
However, I think that for most people a 150% increase would not be payable. It would hollow out the city.
But, as I said in the post, this would essentially be like giving a blood transfusion from one arm to another. A lot of the people paying the increased taxes would be teachers. By law they’re bound to the city as are police officers, firefighters, and other city workers.
Dude, I completely agree. The demands are unrealistic (to use a bit of understatement.) And just as you don’t want to defend corporations per se, I don’t want to defend teachers. Numerous individual teachers are stellar and should probably be making far more than they do. But as a class, me and teachers do not have that great a history. (Within the school system librarians are my people.)
I’m just objecting to a secondary issue, the disparity in expectations between our corporate overlords and a bunch of 75K a year teachers, the notion that it’s morally reprehensible for a teacher to ask for a raise, but fine for a CEO to write himself u a golden parachute and take an opt-out of common decency and morality. If greed is good is for a CEO then it’s good for a teacher, and if a CEO has no responsibility other than to line his pockets, then neither does a teacher.
It may well be that legally corporations (profit and non and even foreign) are entitled to spend millions and even billions dominating political campaigns through lobbying, contributions and PACs. But it is bad for the country. And it is certainly bad to have a system where a corporation can have ten thousand times the political force of an individual and yet exempt itself from the virtues we demand of individuals. It’s self-destructive to propose that hugely powerful corporations have a right to dominate American politics while they have no obligation to patriotism, and even an obligation to avoid consideration of patriotism. It’s madness.
For example, I would ban lobbying and political contributions on the part of all artificial persons.
I would go farther. Only registered voters should be allowed to contribute to political candidates, and those people should be limited to ONLY being able to donate to candidates they can actually vote for. You can donate to them iff you can vote for them. Yes, this would require a constitutional amendment. No, it will never happen.
This wouldn’t end shenanigans (nothing will end shenanigans) but it would be nice to know that the assholes we’re voting for are actually being supported by
assholescitizens whom these ‘representatives of the people’ allegedly represent.As for lobbying, how are you going to stop that? What constitutes a lobbying effort?
@Dave
… Is the animosity to artificial personhood limited to for-profit companies? …
I have no animosity towards corporations. The legal fiction has advantages. I do have great animosity towards the attitude that corporations operate in a vacuum except. When it is advantage, the corporation is suddenly part of the structure that created it. The corporation is responsible to its shareholders, but it uses the legal framework to enable its continued existence. This legal framework is of the people and for the people, and any entity using it should have some responsibility for it.
This would be applicable to any entity afforded artificial personhood. Unions also are afforded special status that other of these entities are not.
If teachers want to have a special status because “it’s for the children”, they should be held to that standard. A pay raise should not be required to teach “the children”. If they choose to strike, they should follow Gandhi’s example and stop eating. Union bosses, politicians, authors, bloggers, and TastyBits are protecting our ends. We will do good things, but ain’t none of us doing the poverty thing for anybody else.
“some people will rob their mother for the ends”
I think Mayor Emanuel should stick to his guns and let the teachers strike if they want. He should do want Rendell did in Philadelphia. Get the local newspapers to run a bunch of series showing side by side comparisons of public employee pay and rules, with private employees and public employees from other cities.
Steve
Ice:
I like your amendment. So that’s one vote in Florida and one in California. Shouldn’t be too hard with that start.
I actually keep meaning to sit down and write out an entire constitution. This would be for clarifying my own thoughts, of course. But that is a awful lot of work for a little bit of clarity.
Incidentally, that is only a part of my idea for campaign finance reform.
Also, people (under the restrictions listed above) would be able to donate as much as they wanted. All donations would have to be made public before they were spent. All fund-raising to cease four weeks before the election – absolutely no fundraising afterwards. Campaigns can only spend money they have – no loans. Candidates cannot loan their campaigns money, although they can spend as much of their own money as they please.
(Those last three sentences are to prevent people from hiding their contributors from public scrutiny. I don’t like that politicians are bought, but in reality they are. Let’s have a public accounting of that process before the elections. This way a candidate can’t loan his/her campaign a ton of money, spend through it, and then have fat cats who wanted/needed to remain anonymous before the election pay off the loans AFTER the election. Fund-raisinig ends before the election PERIOD. To that end …. )
Each election cycle is its own fund-raising cycle. Any money left over at the end of one campaign must be given back to the contributors. (Haven’t decided how this should be done. Perhaps excess money should just go to the treasury department.) Fund-raising for a new cycle must begin anew.
Additionally, any campaign that does manage to spend more than it takes in will be penalized by having the candidate responsible for all debts incurred, and that candidate will be forbidden for holding any federal office for ten years. The one exception is that the candidate may be allowed to serve the term they were elected for no more than two years. (Perhaps that should be one year.)
Forcing the candidates to stay on budget is an attempt to cut down on shenanigans.
I might think about that for my epitaph. It’s right up there with “Did not live up to expectations”
I might think about that for my epitaph.
I’m going to stick with something a friend said back in our youths:
Beautifully incomprehensible to this day. Even he doesn’t know what it means, but we all agree it suits him to a ‘T’. I’m going to steal it regardless as he doesn’t want a marker, but instead desires a Viking funeral, thus leaving me free to steal his words.
So what happens when states have to come up with the 10% cost for the Medicaid expansion? More layoffs/reduced services in other areas followed by calls from the PPACA’s biggest supporters for more federal aid to the states to raise public sector employment?
Wow, I haven’t heard that since the 1980’s. We never understood it either.
BTW, the military is probably the poster-child for Dave’s definition of “professional.” Not only is there an oath and professional ethics, but those ethics are enforced by a profession-specific criminal code.