Posts tagged education
5.9% of Washington Workers Are Union Members, 6th Most in the U.S.
June 9, 2025 // Union membership in the United States has declined to its lowest point in decades. In 1979, unions represented 24.1% of the American workforce. By 2024, that share had fallen to just 9.9%, according to figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and UnionStats. In absolute terms, this represents a drop of roughly 6.7 million members—from a peak of 20.9 million in 1979 to around 14.2 million in 2024.
Cuomo’s education plan filled with goodies for powerful teachers’ union — as he tones down support of charter schools
May 21, 2025 // “Cuomo is definitely playing ball with the teachers’ union,” said a longtime political insider. His plan does promote other initiatives backed by the UFT and public school teachers, such as more early childhood education programs and “community schools” with wraparound health services. He also backed implementing the UFT-backed class size reduction law with adequate state funding.
Hopkins postdoctoral researchers file to unionize with United Auto Workers
May 14, 2025 // While Hopkins-PRO provided opportunities for its members, it could not collectively bargain with the administration for improved conditions. By joining with UAW, a national union representing over 100,000 academic workers, postdocs hope to gain greater administrative leverage. Tonelli Cueto elaborated on the significance of this step in an email to The News-Letter.
Chicago school board OKs $139M to fund new teacher contract, launches equity initiatives
April 27, 2025 // “We’re doing everything we can to shield as much as we can, as we plan for the upcoming budget season,” said Ben Felton, the district’s chief talent officer, in a presentation touting the CPS teacher recruitment process to board members. “But maintaining staffing levels will require additional revenue, and there’s no disillusionment around that.” To address disparities that persist between Black students and other student groups in terms of discipline, academic achievement and access to rigorous academic courses and extracurricular activities, the school board passed a resolution codifying its Black Student Achievement Committee, chaired by board member Jitu Brown, of District 6, on the city’s West Side.
Commentary: Groomed by the System: How a Colorado School Betrayed a Family’s Trust
April 24, 2025 // A child, driven by an inappropriate relationship with a teacher, felt compelled to falsely declare herself homeless. Yet not a single adult entrusted with her safety — not the counselor, not the teachers, not the principal — acted responsibly. When the child’s mother confronted the principal about the inappropriate relationship, the principal defended the teacher, saying, “Ms Kearney takes interest in helping kids navigate their sexuality.”
Commentary: Teachers’ unions should not get special access to teachers
April 21, 2025 // He kept looking back at the teachers' union lobbyist to answer questions for him. I knew more about his bill than he did. I realized at that moment he did not write the bill at all. The teachers’ union did, and he simply took responsibility for it. Eventually, the committee chairman eliminated the middleman and allowed the union lobbyist to sit at the table next to me instead of the legislator.
Two Freedom Foundation-Backed Bills Pass Arkansas State Legislature, Await Governor’s Signature
April 15, 2025 // HB1724 will work to improve local schools and strengthen communities rather than allowing union influence to control the election cycle, and SB402 will protect Arkansas educators and public employees from high-pressure union organizing activities during the school day. Both bills represent a critical implementation of new boundaries, which will encourage responsible taxpayer spending and a more accountable system for unions to abide by, preventing the left-wing union agenda from continuing to be inappropriately pushed into Arkansas schools.
Idaho teachers union plots campaign to target conservatives in 2026 primaries
March 29, 2025 // But while the IEA may be nonpartisan in the sense that it doesn’t care about party labels per se and will happily back candidates running as Republicans if they support the IEA, there’s no disputing that the union’s ideology places it on the far-left flank of Idaho politics. As a Freedom Foundation analysis of the IEA’s political activity in 2024 previously documented: “The IEA behaves exactly as one would expect of a far-left advocacy group in a conservative state. The union attempts to curry favor by endorsing Republicans running in safe elections when the outcome isn’t in doubt, though rarely do such endorsements come with meaningful financial support. In GOP primary elections, the IEA focuses its resources on defeating select ideological adversaries and, as soon as the general election rolls around, it switches gears to prioritize electing Democrats in competitive races. Overall, 93 percent of IEA-connected PAC spending in the 2024 general election supported Democrats.” Also, as the Freedom Foundation reported last year, the IEA paid $25,000 in members’ dues to the Idaho Progressive Investor Network in the 2021-22 tax year.
Freedom Foundation-Backed Bill to Ban Captive Audience Meetings Passes Arkansas Senate, Moves to House
March 24, 2025 // Under the Biden administration, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) affirmed that forcing employees to attend anti-union presentations infringes on their constitutional rights, stating: “forcing employees to attend captive audience meetings under threat of discipline discourages employees from exercising their right to refrain from listening to this speech and is therefore inconsistent with the NLRA.” This same principle should apply when employees are coerced into attending pro-union presentations.
Hackers Ransom 500,000 Union Members’ Personal Information
March 23, 2025 // The attack targeted the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) and impacted more than 500,000 individuals, including public school teachers and support staff. During the breach, hackers accessed individuals’: Date of birth. Social Security numbers. Driver’s license numbers. Passport numbers. Bank account information, including account and routing numbers and passwords. Credit and debit card information, including card numbers, PINs, and card expiration dates. Health insurance and medical information. Why does the PSEA have access to all this information, especially since most have nothing to do with work or union representation? Simply put, unions often obtain personal information to contact employees about political causes and union organizing outside the workplace. They also send unpaid dues to collections.