Collective bargaining will disenfranchise citizens and harm kids

By Daniel A. Brubaker

On Tuesday, August 13, the LCPS board will vote on whether to finalize unionization of our Loudoun school system, which already eats up roughly 2/3 of the county budget.

Are the union people doing it for the kids? No. The teachers? Actually, no.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt once wrote, “All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people …”

Unionization of our $2 billion-a-year Loudoun County school system is a political and financial power move. We know it. They know it. They know we know it. They are moving to disenfranchise Loudoun citizens and place us into a stranglehold. And yet, they continue to pretend to push the nonsense that it is “for the teachers.”

Once the LEA and NEA get their foothold in LCPS, citizens should expect the following to occur:

LCPS as a workplace will become more negative and adversarial
LCPS as an organization will become very political
A culture of fear will ensue (NOTE: We are already finding that LCPS teachers are almost universally afraid to voice opposition)
Teacher voices will be silenced as union contracts will bar them from discussing certain topics with administration
LCPS personnel will not find it safe to oppose Democrat religious doctrines
Quality of education will decrease (Remember COVID lockdowns? These were pushed by the NEA)
The LCPS budget will increase, as will Loudoun property taxes
Legal costs, bloated administration, and implementation of leftist social engineering experiments will drive cost increases

In addition, unionization will force Loudoun residents to pay for advancement of a political agenda with which they may not agree—and there will be nothing they can do about it.

FDR claimed that unionizing a government agency or operation is a fraud against the taxpayers and the voting citizens. Why?

It is simple. The citizens are owed efficiency and accountability—because they (and not some third party union business) are the owners of the franchise. It is the citizens, and only the citizens, who have the power to set pay rates, working conditions, hours, calendar, policies, hiring practices, and every other aspect of the operation of our schools. We exercise this power by delegating it temporarily to the elected members of our school board. The school board is the extension of the citizens authority over our government—in this case, our schools.

The school board does not, however, have the right to give away our powers to a third party. They do not have the right to limit our powers or our range of options when it comes to the operation of our schools. And, this is why FDR observed that collective bargaining has no place in government.

Loudoun residents should call or email their views to Chair Melinda Mansfield (melinda.mansfield@lcps.org), At-large member Anne Donohue (anne.donohue@lcps.org), and your individual school board member (find contact details at lcps.org).

Also, please sign up to speak on Tuesday. Signup is online at lcps.org. The LEA folks typically wear Communist Red to these meetings, so I recommend others wear some other color.

Speaking time will likely be one minute. Reading is OK. There is no need to overcomplicate things: “I oppose unionization of LCPS and I demand not to be disenfranchised” is enough to say. If you want to add personal thoughts or opinions, all the better.

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Daniel Brubaker is a postdoctoral researcher, professor, and author. He lives in Lovettsville.