Читать книгу The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools онлайн

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New York is not an “open shop” city, and so the teachers have a union. Its leaders suffer discrimination when it comes to promotion, but that does not break the union down. As part of the campaign against it, the authorities maintain a “yellow” union; that is, an organization which is supposed to represent the teachers, but can be controlled by the gang. The name of this is the “Teachers’ Council.” It purports to be a representative body, but the teachers do not vote directly, they vote for delegates from all organizations recognized by the board of education; and the insiders will belong to as many as ten or a dozen organizations, and will have a vote in each. The machine has its henchmen in all the key positions, and the surest way to promotion in the system lies in the rendering of this kind of Judas service. This “Teachers’ Council” is accustomed to attack the reputations of union teachers, and never give them opportunity to reply; the slander, whatever it is, will be quoted in the “Times” as representing the opinion of “twenty-five thousand organized teachers.” We are in New York now, not in Los Angeles, but you note that we still have our “Times,” and it is exactly the same kind of “Times”—it will publish any falsehood about an independent man or woman, and will give the victim no chance to answer.