All of my friends that are teachers do admit their union has flaws, but also are very grateful to have strong contracts, benefits, and people willing to fight for them when the school system tries to screw them over.
I have a pretty simple litmus test for them: are they opposed to H1B hiring, and would they have defended James Damore when he got ousted from Google for basically being autistic? I think the answer for many of them is a resounding no.
On opposing H1B as they are implemented now I agree with you, but in a hypothetical world with tech unions James Damore would still be advocating for large swathes of fellow union members to be removed. He was being misogynistic not “basically being autistic”.
But whether or not you agree with him, you should agree with the idea that one of the primary jobs of a union would have been to give him a fair defense regardless of whether the union leadership likes him or not. I don't think any of the tech unions would do that.
edit: Let me put it this way. Suppose you make an post in an internal politics discussion forum saying that you oppose the H1B program as it is, and then get fired because people claim that you hate immigrants and want your fellow coworkers to be deported. Do you think these unions would defend you?
In the real world case of long standing Teachers Unions in Australia (they vary by state) it is literally impossible to answer such a question on the basis of such a shallow construct.
The answer is both Yes and No - in any specific case the individual circumstances would be looked at - eg: as laid out Yes, they defend, however in most IRL cases the circumstances on the ground are far more complex, and it wouldn't be uncommon for a bunch of fellow peer union member coworkers to speak up in favour of not defending.
Yea. But if I made a claim that h1b holders were biologically disinclined to not be as capable of doing software, I wouldn’t.
Damore was just a misogynist.
Further, I posit that existence of such Unions serves as an incentive for voters not to simply assign more pay and benefits to such servants directly. Mayors and Governors know that it's always going to be a "Union game" and all they can do is negotiate - even when they're Progressives who actually want to pay teachers well.
It just gets worse when it's Cops instead of State School teachers.
Big assumption about "interests" lead to bad analysis, in my experience.
