Should Teachers be Unionized?

To me this is an interesting question, which has no simple answer.  There should or could be a much larger one, should any local, state or federal employee be unionized?  On that subject I am at best ambivalent.

Unions, as I understand them, were formed originally to protect workers from unreasonable demands from the company management, to provide workers with an umbrella of support for collective bargaining, and improve conditions for those whose singular voice was lost in the industrial revolution.

Many unions have become, again as I understand them, bloated self-serving organizations that foster their own position with at best a nod towards their original purpose.  They have, in many cases, been coopted by organized crime as a means to pressure businesses into what would legitimately be viewed as extortion and as a way to wash money for those crime organizations.

So what do unions do for those service employees working for local, state, or federal governments?  What do they gain for their employees and what rights should those local, state and federal employees expect from their employment?  Do unions serve the greater good when they drive industries or governments to failure?  I think not!

We have seen with the recent near collapse of the auto giants GM and Chrysler that poor management, coupled with self-serving interests of the union have at the end of the day probably cost thousands of American jobs.  I say probably because I am uncertain anyone knows the truth with regards to what management would have done if no union existed.  But we do know that the union negotiated terms with management that forced them into economic realities they could not afford, and consequently our tax dollars were used to take over payments the companies needed to divest.

From Huffington Post

Now we are seeing where State governments, saddled with those same kinds of fiscal burdens are attempting to follow a course mandated by their state constitutions and the union position is to vilify and condemn the politicians who have the responsibility to do so.  Of course those politicians who choose to run away from their responsibilities only feed the union arrogance.  Teachers, who are supposed to educate our youth, are showing they really aren’t much smarter than the longshoreman and teamsters we are used to seeing on the picket lines. 

I didn't see a copyright, not a fan, and just used to balance the other pic

Are these really the people who we want as teachers?  While I certainly understand the expectations of teachers to “retire” at 55 and find a second career I am not sure how we can actually come to grips with our aging population and shifting demographic if unions remain dogmatic in their demands that their previous rights are never to be renegotiated.