Just How Potent Are Teacher Unions?

[Geee]

National Review:

Hostess Brands is set to liquidate its 82-year-old company because it was unable to meet the salary demands of its unionized employees. Roughly 18,500 workers will lose their jobs because 5,500 members of various bakers’ unions can’t appreciate that a tightening economy, stiffening competition, and an increasingly health-conscious America mean fewer Twinkies for all.

Hostess is doing what other private-sector organizations (such as the auto, airline, and steel industries) have done in response to fiscally unsustainable contracts with — or contract demands from — their unions: either throw in the towel and quit altogether, or use drastic measures such as bankruptcy proceedings to reboot the terms (and costs) of employment.

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Private-sector firms can do things like that. But what happens when one’s core business is educating 55 million young Americans via the public schools? They have unions, too, unions that typically make demands that are as damaging to educational quality and affordability as those of their private-sector counterparts. But public-sector endeavors can’t just shut down — or declare bankruptcy.