I Was anti-Union

Yep, if you had asked me just a few years ago, I would have said, "Hey....unions are dinosaurs that were necessary to battle the post-robber baron era. They were an effective weapon against capitalism run amok to the extreme. But....people have legal options now to protect themselves and the union costs just aren't worth what little they do"
Now, as a shareholder of many publicly traded companies, I'm no anti-capitalist commie. I am, though, anti-CEOs-making-300-times-more-than-workers. Am I to believe that CEOs work 300 times harder than a welder? A secretary? A teacher? I'm gonna say no.
So, while I am not necessarily pro-union, I am anti-obscene salary.
Likewise, similar to labor unions vs. private industry, I felt that the legal options available to teachers were also more than adequate to make the need for unions...well....not needed. Teachers could protect themselves, if needed. Besides, who would attack teachers?
I couldn't have been more wrong. This weekend I attended the spring NEA-NM conference and learned, not from the association reps but the from the politicians, that merit-pay had been blocked as a result of union actions. Lobbying representatives, marching in Santa Fe, emails, snail-mail letters, and more ALL resulted in changing this heinous idea that I, and other teachers, have somehow been withholding our best teaching because of money. This idea fails because teachers are not motivated by a profit-incentive, something the corporate Rheeformers cannot possibly ever fathom. Preachers don't preach harder in the hopes of making more incentive pay. Soldiers don't fight harder for their country thinking that if they kill more enemy, maybe there will be a bonus in their salary. No, these jobs of civil service and others, like teaching, are built on awards that gluttonous corporate raiders will never experience: honor, commitment to an ideal, and personal sacrifice for the achievement of others.
And without unions, without our strength in numbers, the raiders win. So, if you are a teacher and you thought as I once did, you have a choice. You can continue to believe that your voice doesn't matter, and that the powerful are just TOO powerful and nothing you do will make a difference. You can continue to watch as those with little to no teaching experience completely gut American education in the name of Rheeform. Or, you can put down your foot and stand together to fight those destroying education in the name of profit and high-stakes testing. You can clinch your fist, and proudly exclaim, as the REAL commies did... "Not one step back"