Idaho lawmakers advance last-ditch effort to limit teachers unions after hot debate
Idaho lawmakers seek to put restrictions on how teachers unions can work with school districts in a last-ditch effort to revive a controversial bill that has circulated in the Statehouse for the past few years.
The bill, which supporters said was intended to bar taxpayer funds from being used for teachers union activity, spurred tense debate Wednesday on the Senate floor. Some senators grew emotional as they spoke about the importance of teachers and unions, while others called for teachers to spend their time focusing on educating students.
The bill passed 20-14 and awaits a decision in the House.
Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa, who presented the bill on the floor, said Idaho unions collect millions in dues that run through taxpayer funded payroll systems. Some of that money, he said, goes to the National Education Association. He quoted a 2021 editorial from the Wall Street Journal, titled “The Teachers Unions Go Woke,” which called the organization “the ideological and institutional vanguard of progressive politics.” The article claimed the union was promoting “invasion of progressive politics in their schools,” through advocating for issues such as training on implicit bias, anti-racism and trauma-informed practices.
Lenney said the bill wouldn’t prevent teachers from joining unions or engaging in collective bargaining. Under the bill, school districts would be barred from deducting dues or fees from employees’ paychecks; requiring or “coercing” an employee to meet, communicate or interact with a teachers union; distributing communications on behalf of the union; and providing any kind of compensation or paid leave to employees to engage with the teachers union.
“It simply does one thing. It answers the question about whether Idaho taxpayers should be forced to fund the administrative operations of a private Washington D.C.-based political organization,” he said. “And if this bill passes, what we’re basically saying is that you can’t give away taxpayer resources to do … their work for them.”
The Idaho Education Association rejected the claim that taxpayer dollars are supporting unions. Idaho Education Association spokesperson Mike Journee told the Idaho Statesman the union has been around for over a century and isn’t going anywhere. This bill, he said, is the “capstone” of a long effort to undermine public education through attacking teachers and unions.
Sen. Ben Toews, R-Couer d’Alene, said the measure isn’t an anti-teacher bill. But now more than ever, teachers need to focus on the basics of teaching kids reading and math, he said.
“Not lobbying, not working on social issues,” he said, “but working on the hard and good work that they do of teaching the next generation.”
Other lawmakers, though, raised concerns about the negative repercussions.
Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, made an impassioned plea against the bill. Ward-Engelking, a longtime educator, said unions are positives for school districts, and the bill raises serious questions about what educators can and can’t do.
“I have a year-long contract, so what does that mean?” she said. “I can’t talk to my neighbors about an education bill? I can’t be involved in the political process?”
The Idaho Education Association, she said, is made up of local teachers who volunteer their time to advocate on education issues that matter to Idaho kids.
“When your children walk into our classroom, they become ours, and we listen to their fears, we dry their tears, we celebrate their successes, and yes, we find a new way when they fail,” she said. “And as you know, throughout this country, teachers have stood in the line of fire to shield your children, and they would do it in a heartbeat, because those kids in that classroom, they’re ours. They’re ours, too.”
She warned that this proposal would drive teachers away. She called it a punitive bill that perpetuated the feeling that teachers aren’t valued in Idaho.
“In just two days, I’ve heard from hundreds of teachers who say we can’t take it anymore. Why does the Idaho Legislature hate public education and public school teachers?” she said. “I don’t have an answer for them.”
After her testimony, referencing teachers who have risked their lives for their students, Sen. Josh Kohl, R-Twin Falls, stood up and said children don’t belong to teachers or teachers unions. “Children belong to their Idaho families, their parents, those are the ones who have the final say,” he said, arguing the bill is about using taxpayer dollars on an outside organization.
Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, stood up and began naming unions, saying he has been a proud union man for over two decades and has seen the benefits firsthand. A union represents camaraderie and teamwork, he said.
“Examples of that right here on this floor. We’re all senators. We’re a team. We disagree at times, but we’re certainly a team. Look at the military, look at sports teams. And why is that? There’s strength in numbers. There’s energy in numbers,” he said. “It’s true. This bill doesn’t say that the teachers can’t have a union, but for all practical purposes, it guts it.”
At one point, as tensions ran high, Sen. Kelly Anthon stood up and said the body had a longstanding tradition not to “impugn the intentions of another senator.”
“And I’m hearing a lot of that today,” he said. “We need to stick to the bill.”
IEA: Bill an effort to undermine public education
Journee said the teachers union is “the most important force standing up for public education in this state, and that’s why lawmakers are going after it in this way.”
“And our members are going to continue fighting for their students and for public education, and nothing that the Idaho Legislature is going to do is going to change that,” he said.
The bill will essentially prohibit teachers from organizing in their workplaces, he said, and will “short circuit” productive relationships educators have with their administrators. It also strips away local control from school districts to determine how they work with their local unions.
“It’s a direct attack on any influence that … educators might have in creating better learning environments for their students and working conditions for their colleagues,” Journee said.
Senators late Monday night completely rewrote House Bill 516, replacing the bill’s previous language, which focused on instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation, with entirely new content on teachers unions. A similar bill on unions previously stalled in the Senate. Other versions have been introduced unsuccessfully in years past.
Lawmakers weren’t able to get this bill to the floor through normal legislative processes, Journee said, so they had to “resort to this tactic.”
“I think that this was, in part, a desperate move on behalf of people who don’t like public education, because our members are beginning to organize around elections,” he said, citing the upcoming May primary elections.
“I think that, in particular, has a lot of anti-public-education lawmakers scared that they’re not going to be able to come back to the Legislature next year.”
