Although solidarity in Poland ushered in a certain multi-faceted renewal, not all was pink and rosy. Weigel idealized view of Polish unions is unrealistic and narrow in scope.

It is indeed worrying that the public sector has significantly increased during Obama's presidency. A growing government will discourage private business initiatives and will lead to a sovietization of the state if current trends continue.

In utilizing his freedom and intelligence, writes John Paul II in Centesimus Annus, man fulfills himself. A well-ordered exercise of freedom and intelligence leads to a healthy creativity and prosperity in the market economy.

Thankfully, Harper's Conservatives in Canada hope to cut over 19,000 government jobs over three years in Canada. The state does not fulfill its purpose if it becomes a make-work agency.

I'm a big believer in the right of workers to organize, but, working for a quasi-governmental entity as a manager these 20 years or so, I have seen first hand how the union's principal concern is defending the incompetent. Allied with every libertine cause, they have also been complicit in the violations of the right to free assembly and in the absolutely false notions behind special protections for people who engage in certain destructive, immoral activities and for those who can't accept their God-given gender. They are not primarily interested in working with management to make the organization better serve its customers. It'sa sad state of affairs. †

Mr Weigel should compare the wages and benefits of unionized public service workers in the USA to similar professions (also unionized) in other countries. I, for one, was profoundly shocked at the extremely low wages paid out to school teachers in the USA---and wondered how teachers were able to support their own families. No wonder the best and the brightest avoid teaching!

And that no-pay mentality goes on right into the buildings themselves and their upkeep. No wonder the kids can't learn.

And I would not blame the unions for that! The real pity is the erosion of unions in the private working force---that they have been pushed back into the only sector that does not try with every thing it has to eradicate them---is not a good thing. And unfortunately Mr Weigel is just as anti-union as any boss in the private sector that likes his workers cheap, their benefits low, his profits high and tax burden too low to cover social costs.

I'm for the status quo in Catholic teaching on this one. Wake up USA! You are one of the richest countries in the word and squandering it.

Well, gee, unions are ok except for the one's you don't you don't like. Public employees are ok until they actually have the gall to want what I'm sure you can take for granted at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. "Good government" requires that ordinary and common political opinions are the right of everybody except those lucky and overwhelmingly blessed people who actually keep government running and possess direct knowledge about what it actually takes to serve the public. And the public can't be expected to be disabused of the notion that public services (unlike any other service you might find out there) can be improved by paying less for them: that if you demand that the people who deliver them to do "more with less" frequently enough you can browbeat them until they finally earn their keep by doing everything with nothing. And, of course, they can't rebuke the gasbags who make very nice career out of tellin people that they will protect the poor tax paying public by forcing teachers, firemen, policemen, and clerical workers to show their Christian commitment to the imitation of Christ by walking on the water and feeding multitudes out of a single basket of bread and fish.

Have I got that straight?

"does any serious student of American elementary and secondary education doubt that the immense and humanly tragic failures of America’s K-12 public schools have something to do with unions’ resistance to performance standards for teachers?"
Many do, in fact. Possibly because many people (myself included) teach in districts that are both unionized and highly successful. The correlation between unions and failing schools only holds where the districts are poor or the community lacks interest in education. Our union insures a decent wage for employees (not great for professionals with masters degrees, but livable). This brings better teachers to our districts, which keeps quality high.
Unions are frustrating and do keep lame teachers in place too long. But connecting unions with failing schools just doesn't hold up, at least where I work. We are fully unionized and can compete with any school, public or private, in the world.

Weigel nails it again! Just perfect! Public sector unions should be outlawed. The Public Choice theorists have masterly documented the distortions and corruptions caused by these government rent-seekers.

I've been on both sides: management and labor in public enterprise (schools and government) and management & labor in private industry (UAW, UNITE-HERE). Public enterprise management is the worst employer in our economy and the reason workers are in need of protection. Public employees are currently and in the past subjected to massive retaliation for minor offenses, placed in harm's way for management's convenience and in no position of power. Public unions are the only thing standing to keep workers save from foolish public enterprise managers.

The church needs to support public unions as one of the only bullwarks against politicized crony capitalism and cooruption.

I fully agree with Dr. Weigel's analysis! He could not have put the Roman Catholic Church's position on unions and the need for reassessing it in light of contemporary realities in better context. I would add that this same updated reassessment is needed on uncritical Church support of welfare and such expensive and unjustified federal programs as farm subsidies and the increases in food stamp eligibility. It is difficult to imagine St. Paul agreeing with dependence on an illusory free lunch for able-bodied adults. Even Benjamin Franklin, the epitome of American civic-mindedness, a leader in the nascent abolition movement, and a supporter of many public benevolent societies, warned of the disincentives of putting poor people on the public dole rather than training them in a trade. Public employee unions have covertly brought back a spoils system that corrodes Americans' beliefs in the right of labor to organize. Politicans pandering to public unions--basically buying votes with generous salary and benefits granted to public unions--have made the average nonunion working person very cynical about politics in general. The Church needs to re-educate its conservative head before following its liberal heart on union issues and social justice issues in general.

I recently retired after 30 years of teaching mathematics and physics: 15 years in private high schools, followed by 15 years in public. (I also taught part-time for 10 years in a university.) My conclusion: Public-school teachers' unions are a DISASTER. A complete and unmitigated disaster. American society, including teachers and their family, would offer a far, far better life to its citizens had NO TEACHER EVER JOINED A UNION. I would wager that that goes for ALL public-sector union, but that would only be a guess because my experience has only been with two education departments, one in prosperous, all-white suburb of Boston, the other in a poor to middle class, 99% minority system in the United States Virgin Islands. It may seem surprising, but the suburban Massachusetts system was WORSE when it came to providing students with a decent education. By contrast, the private schools I worked in, even though they routinely paid AT LEAST 25% less than public schools for comparable experience and education, were ALL marvelous places to work. Some useful advice: If any so-called teacher, here or anywhere, tells you that lack of money has ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the problems in American education in the USA, do yourself a favor and STOP READING IMMEDIATELY. You are dealing with a UNION HACK and will be wasting your time.

Teaching is a profession. It cannot thrive, indeed, it must actively putrify when it adopts the values and attitudes of the industrial working class. As a young man worked in a very large steel mill for two years, so I'm quite familiar with those particular values and attitudes, which certainly have their place -- just not in the classrooms of American schools nor anywhere near them.

Thirty years of experience have taught me the following as unassailable fact: A good teacher is possessed of (A) thorough knowledge of his field, (2) a desire to communicate what he knows.

A good math teacher, in other words, is, first of all, a fan of mathematics. He enjoys it immensely an as a result has devoted himself, like any fan, to learning as much as he can about mathematics; and not only does he enjoy it immensely but he wants to tell others about it. Remove either of those factors, and you do not have -- indeed, you CANNOT have -- even a mediocre teacher. Students will only LEARN a subject from someone who is (1) knows the subject and is (b) ENTHUSIASTIC about it. They can spot your typical normal-school drudge who knows all about setting up multimedia presentations of mathematics, drawing up syllabi, and possesses a wealth of similar worthless accomplishments but COULD NOT CARE LESS about what it is he is presenting. Worse, he often has only a teachers-college acquaintanceship with his subject, which obviously is related to his not caring much about it.

Teachers unions actively strangle both requirements. Comparing 15 years of sitting in private-school common rooms with 15 years of sitting in public-school faculty lounges what stands out is this: NOT ONCE in the the public-school systems where I taught, neither in suburbia nor in the ghetto, did I ever have or even overhear a conversation about any academic subject that revolved around the subject alone, the thing itself. No public-school english teacher in my hearing ever discussed with a colleague a book he enjoyed and why. NEVER. NOT ONCE. No public-school science teacher EVER brought up with me or, as far as I could discern, ANYONE ELSE what the latest ideas in physics were or what was particularly interesting about the subject he was teaching in and for itself. By contrast, in private-school lounges I had literally hundreds of such conversations over the years.

What do teachers talk about in the public schools? It's simple: Working conditions, endless grumblings and complaints about wages and hours and course loads and, wait for it, GRIEVANCES, the kind you file against management with a shop steward, the exact same trash talk that you may hear in any steamfitters' locker room on any construction site in America.

At a minimum, no one should be allowed to teach, say, history, who does not have at least an AB in history. The same should be true for all the academic disciplines. Ten-thousand garbage credits from an ed school should not be allowed to substitute for a hard-earned degree. Teacher certifications? Put them in stacks in toilets where they will find good use.

Regarding Rachel's comments:

I, for one, was profoundly shocked at the extremely low wages paid out to school teachers in the USA---and wondered how teachers were able to support their own families. No wonder the best and the brightest avoid teaching!

In my Masters program, I was shocked that highly trained engineers at Qualcomm who were in the program with me were paid substantially less than school teachers in San Diego. And for only 10 months of work. Numerous studies have debunked the "underpaid" teacher mantra. My wife works at a school, and none of the teachers there are hurting for money.

If the best and brightest avoid teaching, it is probably due to the fact that the unions stifle innovations, that the last hired are the first to be let go (even in the case of award winning teachers), that it is almost impossible to fire incompetent teachers, and that pay is not related to performance in the vast majority of cases, but only to seniority. As Frederick Hess, a long time author on education and reducation reform states in "Common Sense School Reform":

"Teacher unions and the edcuation schools have fought to erect stiff baffiers that control who may enter the teacher workforce. The result is that we attract too many clock punchers, alienate many of our best teachers who are frustrated that their efforts are not compensated, and make it harde to either reward or punish teachers for the work they do."

A study not too long ago pointed out that the LA Unified School District had one administrator for every teacher. In the Archdiocese of LA Catholic Schools, that ratio was one for every seven teachers. Yet, whenever there are budget problems, it is always the teachers that are let go, not the (often) highly paid administration types who do not add to our children's education.

Union rules and collective bargaining agreements in many locales mean that former teachers are managing budgets and human resources, rather than more qualified professionals in those fields, leading to outrageous spending. IN teh 1999-2000 school year, overtime spending was 228% over budget, and auditors later found that much of this was not even approved.

For clarification, teacher salaries in NJ: starting salary= less than 40000. Average salary= 60,000. 1.6% of the public school teachers make more than 100,000. Most of the teachers make between 40000 and 60000.

This is the pay is in one of the highest teacher salaried states in the US.

Despite crazy notions of "teachers get paid so much," what one is looking at is very very modest salaries for college and master's prepared individuals.

Real numbers are needed to counter "Qualcomm engineers were paid less!" craziness. Social workers and teachers are low-end reimbursing college-educated roles. For comparison, in the same state, nurses-RN's- (who practice after a trade/associate's degree that takes 2 years) routinely start at 60 and are on average 80000.

These are for clarification and comparison.

Weigel uses the "public schools are a mess" short hand which is untrue. Some schools have intransigent problems. They are located in the same places as Catholic schools that are likewise failing- which is the inner city.

Teachers are not overpaid, they are actually more dedicated than they are paid, are under-appreciated, and there are many many great public schools in NJ as a consequence of the dedication of these teachers. I am a product of these public schools and am proud to be a product of these schools.

Mr. Weigel does, for once, present a respectable argument without the routine insults and bigotry. His point, which is the conservative line that public sector employees shouldn't be unionized, which matches the anti-union bias of conservatives in private sector arrangments too, is tragically predictable though.

Why is that?

I recently attended my 30th high school reunion and encountered three 48 year old guys who are retired and receiving pension and medical benefits. Meanwhile, my mother, a retired secretary living on a fixed income, pays $12,000 per year in property taxes in a working class suburb of Newark, NJ. She can thank the public sector unions and their (mostly Democratic) politician puppets to thank for this.

Working class parents are defacto forced to send their children to the state/union run schools that go with their home zip code. Most of them can't afford to pay New Jersey's outrageous property taxes and also pay private school tuition. If the parents don't think the school does a good job educating children or if they don't like the values taught in their local pulic school (and there is no such thing as a value neutral education), too bad. More than one Progressive friend has actually said to me...."well, they can move". Of course we can't have tax money going to a top flight Catholic school such as Saint Peter's Prep in Jersey City, that charges roughly half of what Public high schools charge, because Saint Peter's teaches the kids that the earth is flat, don't they? The current state of public education is an absolute disgrace. We have the teachers unions, their (mostly Democratic) politician puppets and the judges to thank for this. Who the hell do working class parents think they are that they should be the ones to choose where kids are educated. This decision properly resides with the State.

Finally, Public Sector unions spend millions and millions of $$ supporting pro abortion, pro gay marriage and pro big government political candidates.

The private sector unions are a different breed, especially the Building Trades, where there are some of the most beautiful souls you could ever want to meet. And this is true of course for the cops and fireman as well, but their unions and the rest of the pubic sector unions are in very serious need of reform. We need politicians like Scott Walker who will force this reform. The working class people are the biggest victims of public sector unions. The well to do can buy their way into great neighborhoods with great public schools, afford private school tuition and otherwise bear the burden of the high taxes that are driven by the ever expanding state beaurocracy. The working class people can not.

The simple difference between good unions and destructive ones is that good unions will focus on the Biblical "anawim"...i.e....the weak (the isolated worker), the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger in your land. Long ago, the Catholic Church saw the anawim were being uplifted. Today, the Catholic Church is being assualted by unionized Leftism which has reduced helping the anawim to a simple, corrupt formula of Big Government money laundering.

I am happy to provide clarification for Dan C, and will cover two areas, teacher salaries and the supposed common failure of Catholic and public schools in poor areas such as the inner city.

The average teacher's salary for San Diego is $55,000, which means that there are teachers making 75K to balance out the entry level ones at 36K. During the time period I was referring to, 65K was not uncommon (as was reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune at the time), and the engineers in my class were making salaries in the 40's.

Even bastions of liberal doctrine such as the New York Times have published articles that raised the question as to whether teachers are overpaid. "In the private sector, people with SAT and GRE scores comparable to those of education majors earn less than teachers do."

Research "has shown that public school teachers receive salaries about on par with private sector workers who score the same on the SAT and other standardized tests of cognitive skill. But fringe benefits — in particular, generous vacation time, pensions and retiree health plans — push total compensation for teachers roughly 50 percent above private sector levels.

"Of course, formal tests like the SAT do not capture all of the skills needed to be an effective teacher, or a good worker. But if teachers are being underpaid for their noncognitive skills, like communications or organization abilities, we would expect that teachers who shifted to private sector jobs would receive a significant raise. This does not happen. The average teacher suffers a slight decrease in salary upon leaving the profession, and likely a greater reduction in fringe benefits. Simply put, the average teacher would not earn more in a private sector job."

So much for the so-called "craziness". The current system must be changed. The best teachers must be paid for being the superstars they are, and low- or non-performing teachers should be paid less, and not locked in to the rigid seniority systems prevalent today.

The Catholic schools that serve poor black and hispanic students in CA have a much better record of success, at a lower cost per pupil, than their public school counterparts.

"New research shows that poor and marginalized students attending Catholic schools have remarkably higher retention and graduation rates than their peers in public schools.

"The pilot study, conducted by Loyola Marymount University’s School of Education, focused on a particular set of L.A. Catholic school students who received tuition funding from the Catholic Education Foundation (CEF) between 2001 and 2005. Surveys were conducted with the students, their families and the principals to understand what is it that makes a difference in a Catholic school for those most “at risk.” The study followed 603 students from eighth to ninth grade and 205 students from ninth grade to high school graduation, at nearly 30 different schools throughout Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Of the 603 eighth grade students, 100 percent continued to ninth grade. Of the 205 students who continued with CEF tuition support into high school, 98 percent graduated.

"This was the first time the Catholic Education Foundation opened their records to a university and provided the Catholic school data in such detail.

"Of the 205 students tracked throughout high school, 98 percent graduated with a diploma. Based on these results, CEF’s Catholic school graduation rate is almost 35 percent higher than graduation rates for public schools in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara from that same year.

“This research indicates how essential Catholic schools are to the future of Los Angeles,” said Shane P. Martin, dean for the School of Education at LMU and co-author of the study. “The CEF and Catholic schools provide a model for effectively educating marginalized students and improving graduation rates, two critical issues for our L.A. school-age children.”

"All students selected for this study were considered “at risk” because of low socioeconomic status, which included a cohort of SOS students (Save Our Students) considered the most “at risk” of all Catholic school students. All students in the study compared by zip code, ethnic background and income levels to students in local public schools located primarily within the LAUSD area. A subgroup of the 205 students were part of the SOS Program, which was considered the most “at risk,” and remarkably, 100 percent of the SOS students graduated from high school.

"SOS students may be under the care of guardians, have incarcerated parents, live in shelters and come from abusive family situations. The Catholic school experience is what keeps them focused on the future and provides the environment to learn in a safe, gang-free and drug-free environment."

Like Dan C, I was also the product of a public school education (high school valedictorian), but also saw first hand while a student the destructive effects on our schools as the teachers becames unionized. One last item. Here is the Mission Statement of the American Federation of Teachers. Note the things that are important to them.

"The American Federation of Teachers is a union of professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do.:

In 2010 the New Jersey Education Association reported that the median starting pay last year for someone with a B.A. was $46,413, a 3 percent increase from the year before. The "median" salary overall was $61,700. That is for working less than 10 months a year with full health insurance and ability to retire at 55 - 58 years old. Master's degrees are another Red Herring. The system is set up so that teachers get paid more for completing additional higher education, usually with a stipend from the school district and completely uncoupled from any effectiveness in teaching. My Illinois high school district has more than 25 teachers (out of 67 total) making more than $80,000 per year. The average teacher salary is higher than the median income of the district (which is an upper middle class district) and 10 teachers making more than $100,000. The Catholic high schools do way better with much less.

Public sector workers doing more with less? When was the last time you saw a public sector highway work that didn't have 1 guy working a back-hoe and 3 to 10 guys standing around looking in the hole?

I made the mistake of starting my own business 23 years ago. Most of my interactions with federal, state and local workers have been exercises in frustration, stupidity and little men who lord their power to block or approve. My friend from high school who choose to be an air traffic controller is now retired. I have another 11.5 years before the government allows me to touch my SEP-IRA without a penalty.

Every facet of government continues to grow and also restrict freedom of property, freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Unfortunately, the Catholic church in many cases continues to side with larger government when its best interests are best served by a smaller government.

"But times and social realities change. The developing social doctrine of the Church has had to take account of new economic, demographic, and fiscal realities—and that process has sometimes required serious rethinking of the Church’s approach to public policy and the positions the Church’s leaders habitually take on specific issues."

Not only a temporal moral relativist but a Cafeteria Catholic.

Being a Catholic means not just supporting the Church's moral teachings on sexuality, but all moral teachings.

Unions are an anachronism and ought to be done away with. The actual practice of unions in no way reflects the original purpose of unionization or the theoretical justification for it. Unions are top down labor monopolies at best and at worst they are wholly parasitical organizations that take from their members while giving nothing at all.

I was a member of the parasitical sort of union when I worked at a unionized grocery store. The wages and other benefits received were precisely the minimum required by the State of New York. For that protection us part time teenage workers were forced to pay 5 hours of wages per month to the union (probably about 10% of the total hours worked). Also there was an 'entry fee' to become a member of the union which was equal to about 12 hours of pay.

Obviously, the relation between the union and the member is unjust, with the union receiving a substantial reward for no services provided at all really (they did tell us we were receiving a benefit when they would send a couple of their activists to walk around with signs in the parking lot of our non-union competitor).

Ben H said

"Unions are an anachronism and ought to be done away with. The actual practice of unions in no way reflects the original purpose of unionization or the theoretical justification for it. Unions are top down labor monopolies at best and at worst they are wholly parasitical organizations that take from their members while giving nothing at all."

As you can see from my post above, I am not reluctant to criticize unions. But I am personally familiar with numerous private sector unions that provide their members with excellent representation. And when I'm walking down a NYC street beneath construction that is taking place 80 stories above me, I like knowing that the workers laboring above me (in all kinds of weather) emerged from Building Trades apprenticeship programs and are fairly compensated for their expertise. There's not a damn thing wrong with a NYC Ironworker making 90 grand a year with decent pension and medical benefits that are collectively bargained btw the employers and the union. I don't want some $11 an hour guy dropping a bolt on my head.

I experienced the stupidity of unions as a high school student. Working at a manufacturing plant as a shop helper, I encountered numerous occasions of stupid rules. If someone was on their lunch break or otherwise indisposed, I was prohibited from doing the job for that moment to help keep things going. It was not that I was not qualified to do a particular thing. It was that I was somehow endangering someone's job. The phrase, "only Joe is allowed to do that task", was a recurring theme. I can only imagine (actually, I have experience and knowledge of this too) what the teacher's unions do to our education system. Unions have outlived their former use. It is now the taxpayer who is being exploited by government workers.