Cheri Gensel: Pa. union bills would give teachers back their voices
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When I traveled to Harrisburg recently to testify at a public hearing on labor reform bills that are important to me as a teacher, I was nervous about some of the questions I might get from lawmakers who disagreed with me.
What I didn’t expect was that they wouldn’t even listen to what I had to say.
Before I had a chance to say a word, Rep. Gerald Mullery, D-Luzerne County, minority chairman of the House Labor and Industry Committee, read a prepared statement and walked out of the hearing. None of the other Democratic lawmakers — including Pittsburgh area Reps. Ed Gainey, Sara Innamorato and Nick Pisciottano — even bothered to show up.
As a teacher in a unionized workplace, I have often felt voiceless, and I know many other teachers who are afraid to speak up about concerns they have with their unions. This hearing was an opportunity for me to tell my side of the story, and to have my voice heard. When the Democrats walked out, I felt voiceless all over again.
After the hearing I reached out to the Democratic lawmakers who did not attend, including Mullery, and offered to meet with them one-on-one to discuss my concerns. None of them emailed me back.
Are my opinions so disturbing to these lawmakers that they couldn’t even stand to hear them? Here is what I was there to say: I believe that unions should be accountable to their members. I would like unions to be less political, and more focused on making our schools a better place for teachers and students. I don’t believe that is what they are doing right now.
I came to these conclusions based on years of personal experience as a teacher. For example, I shared with lawmakers — the ones who stayed to listen — how I received letters from the Pennsylvania State Education Association telling me to change my political affiliation from Republican to Democrat so I could vote for Gov. Tom Wolf in the Democratic primary. The letter also insinuated that I could not be a good teacher and a Republican. Another letter was sent to my husband, telling him he should also vote for Wolf — like his wife planned to. That was not my plan.
I found these letters deeply insulting. In the United States, we value our political independence. No one should tell me who to vote for, or what party I should belong to, especially not my workplace union.
After Mullery walked out of the hearing, he held a press conference in the hall with an official from the teachers union. This further reinforced to me how in sync the Democrats and the unions have become. The line is blurred now between the activity of a political party and the activity of the union — they act in lockstep. But the unions have many members who are either politically independent or who are Republicans. What are these members to assume after seeing this collusion?
There is a better way. The bills that were discussed at the hearing would force the unions to pay more attention to their members and what they want, instead of focusing on politics. One of the bills would give public employees the opportunity to periodically vote on which union they want to represent them, or whether they want union representation at all. This would put the responsibility on unions to show their members that they have their best interest in mind. As it stands, teachers and other public employees keep concerns about union misbehavior to themselves, for fear of reprisals at their workplace or even in their homes.
My colleagues and I deserve better. The bills before the Pennsylvania House would go a long way toward righting some of these wrongs, and I hope lawmakers will support them. This is a chance to give teachers like me our voices back in our schools and classrooms.
As a social studies teacher, I try to impress on my students the important role of civility and respect in government. I hope for my students’ sake that Pennsylvania’s elected officials can have productive and civil conversations on the merits of these bills instead of retreating to their partisan corners.
Cheri Gensel is a teacher in the North Pocono School DIstrict and a member of Americans for Fair Treatment.