Union Tactics Killing Teaching Jobs, Raising Taxes

For all you 16th century war buffs, you know a petard was a miniature bomb used to blow breaches in gates or walls.  But because technology wasn’t so hot back then, bombs were prone to detonate in the hands of those who made them.  The idiom “hoisted by your own petard” comes to us from Shakespeare who used it in Hamlet to describe a plot that ended up blowing up in the face of its creator.

So what’s that have to do with Pennsylvania, you ask?  Well, the PSEA and those who support it are being hoisted by their own petard at Central Dauphin School District as reported in today’s Patriot News. 

Through decades of disregard for fiscal realities, teachers’ unions have insisted on negotiating contracts for salaries and benefits that were simply not sustainable.  The result at CDSD came at a school board meeting last night as officials announced they must cut 84 employees, including 74 teachers and raise taxes another 3.3 percent just to make ends meet.

“Salaries and benefits make up 70 percent of the budget,” Board President Ford Thompson said. “The payroll is unsustainable.”

Sadly, as we’ve been warning for quite some time, it’s only a sign of more bad news for teachers and taxpayers across the commonwealth, who have been led down a path of destruction by unions all too happy to sacrifice them on the altar of their own self-interest.

While unions continue to hyperbolically demonize those critical of their tactics while telling educators these criticisms are anti-teacher, one thing seems painfully clear: Teaching jobs and tax dollars are a precious public commodity that must be protected through sound fiscal policies, not strong-arm tactics.  Now, boards across Pennsylvania are waking up to the reality that bills are coming due, there is no money left in their coffers and the only other things the unions will be hoisting in the future are higher unemployment rates for teachers and higher taxes.