Teachers deserve right to fight for fair, livable wages

Re: “Forcing public employee unions not the ‘Colorado way’,” March 29 commentary

The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce president recently wrote a guest column opposing the still-unintroduced bill in the legislature that would make it legal for public employees to join unions and bargain collectively. In one example, the author argued that if community college employees teaching in towns such as Sterling or Lamar had the right to join unions, they would negotiate wages based on Boulder or Vail’s housing and labor markets, leading to higher education costs, which would hurt parents and students.

This hypothetical is absurd for many reasons, but the main one is this: State policies — not local decisions or powerful employees — have driven teaching wages down and tuitions up. The Associated Press reported that in 2017, “Colorado was the fourth-lowest in spending on higher education per student ... according to he College Board.”

AP also reported that after the Great Recession, “tuition in Colorado jumped 44%, while the typical household’s income increased just 18% ... while state spending dropped 15% annually from 2008 to 2012.”

Today, higher ed has been “privatized,” and students and parents foot the ever-increasing bills. Not coincidentally, the majority of college teachers are no longer tenured professors, but instead, most are “casual” employees — many with low pay, poor or no benefits and no job security.

Every worker deserves the right to join a union, and that includes government workers.

Leigh Campbell-hale, Lafayette