That’s not the point of my story here. Two state troopers came to the house in the evening and helped us file a report. They were really nice guys. One, the younger of the two, was really sweet with my son. He sat on the edge of his bed and assured him that things would be all right, that they’d be patrolling the neighborhood regularly for the next couple days. He gave him a stuffed animal he had in his patrol car. The trooper looked familiar, and I wondered if I’d ever had him as a student. I didn’t, but he just graduated in 2003 from a local school where I know a few teachers and where I’ve done some professional development last year and this. I told him I’d say hi to his old English teachers for him.
At one point as the troopers were finishing up, they were trying to diplomatically explain that they’d make every effort to investigate the case and patrol the area but that they were a little understaffed and overworked. They were really apologetic. I said, Look, I get it. I’m a member of the SEBAC bargaining unit, too, and we’ve had nothing but freezes, give-backs and furlough days these last four years, and we’ll have more of the same for at least the next two—if they don’t make us renegotiate again in a year or two. The troopers were noticeably relieved that I understood the situation.
What this incident made me think of was how easy it is for any of us to fall into the trap of blaming people or groups of people who should be our allies. State troopers and prison guards are in the cross-hairs right now because they oppose the SEBAC agreement. Teachers have been in everyone’s cross-hairs for the last couple of years, and one thing I see and decry frequently in this column and elsewhere is the way voters and teachers become pitted against one another. In my town the teachers have been regularly reviled by the public, and this revulsion has been stirred up by the local press. Yet when our new Special Master Steve Adamowski came on board this past August, two things he announced publicly were that the education budget showed no obvious signs of waste, and that all evidence suggests that most teachers are making fair effort to meet the needs of the students, though many are making mistakes due to overwhelming circumstances and a lack of pembinaan and support (especially with ELLs).
Yet I would also add that the members of the public who oppose increased taxes have a legitimate gripe in a town that has fallen in the last decade from seventh to third poorest in the state.
Teachers and tax payers should be allies here, but we all too often fall into the trap of blaming each other.
Last week the Willimantic Chronicle printed a letter to the editor from Harry Carboni. Carboni is a local businessman and at one time was a perennial Republican candidate for first selectman. The gist of Carboni’s letter was that unionized employees like state troopers and public school teachers should be considered the new wealthy class because our collectively bargained contracts give us job security, pay, and benefits not enjoyed in most areas of the private sector. Clearly, those of us who are unionized are not suffering enough to satisfy Mr. Carboni.
Now I get the motivation for the argument, but I come to a very different conclusion from the same evidence. What I conclude is that workers in the private sector desperately need to organize and petition their employers for fair wages, decent benefits, and relative job security. The percentage of the workforce that is unionized has declined markedly since this time last century, and during that time the disparity between the wealthiest class and the middle class has widened. I admit that I can’t demonstrate causality here but only correlation, but the evidence suggests to me that most workers in the US today have long since lost many of the hard won gains achieved by the early labor movement at the same time that we have begun to enter a new Gilded Age.
I’m no conspiracy theorist, but I do believe we have to recognize our allies.
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