The collective bargaining rights of teachers should be removed

In my opening argument I explained that teacher unions have strong political power and the ability to fire a teacher is quite difficultbdue to teacher unions. He has not refuted these claims. It would also be unfair to refute them in Round 3, since this is the last round I will defend my thesis. However he attacks the moral framework of utilitarinism (w/out providing an alternative framework), believes unions have value, and does not believe teacher unions are to blame for education reform. I refute this. Utilitarianism: CON makes many incorrect assumptions about utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is simply maximization of happiness. It is not an arbitrary morality system such as ‘prostitution is wrong’. It does not benefit just the few, but seeks to bring happiness to many. CON believes that “it forces the morality of some to govern all” No. Utilitarianism can be obtained by volunteer transactions. Let’s say I have 100 sandwiches and you have 100 water bottles. With the initial distribution of goods, I will die of thirst and you will die of hunger. However, if we trade so that the final distribution is that we both have 50 sandwiches and 50 water bottles, we are both better off, a utilitarian arrangement is made, and there is no need of centralized planners. In fact economists have a term for this. Pareto efficiency, all persons are made better without anyone else worse off. There is also a term known as Kaldor-Hicks efficiency in which a policy or new technology might benefit some and harm others; however the wealth created from the policy or technology is so immense that the wealth can in theory compensate those harmed. My policy is mathematically proven to be Kaldor-Hicks efficient. I will not go into the mathematical technicality of it since it will be too long to explain. The proof is shown under efficiency and monopolies in this article[1]. I will give a more intuitive example. A teacher union is basically a monopoly on the supply of a labor. One can obvious see why this is a problem, If for example, all the telecommunication companies decide to form a monopoly, the price of cell phones would skyrocket and would be taking wealth away from consumers. The same applies to unions. Also, teacher unions are rent-seekers, obtaining perks without creating actual value. They are able to do this because taxpayer money is obtained not via voluntary action but by force. Getting something for nothing is obviously not a Kaldor-Hicks improvement and a misallocation of resources. CON other contention is that utilitarianism creates ‘tyranny of the majority’. No, A ‘tyranny of the majority’ occurs if a majority creates a policy that benefits the majority a little, but harms the majority quite a bit. For example, a policy that allows discrimination is indeed a ‘tyranny of the majority’ yet not utilitarianism. Hence why limited government is ideal and we are given certain inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and property. Ironically, CON agrees that limited government is good, yet collective bargaining in the state sector expands government. Furthermore, collective bargaining is not recognizes as an individual right, since collective bargaining would not exist without government intervention. People are forced to pay dues in unions. Furthermore, employers cannot fire an employee for joining a union or cannot design a contract that states an employee cannot join a union, even if voluntarily. This goes against individual liberty. CON accuses me of using an ‘all or nothing’ approach. What does that even mean? Why should there be a middle ground? That’s like me arguing that ‘Blacks should not be slaves’, and accusing me of taking an all-or-nothing approach. Or does he mean we should increase welfare of the nation but only increase it by a little bit? Why not maximize it? He is committing the argument to moderation fallacy [2] The Value of Unions: CON uses anecdotal evidence about his wife, which should be discarded since it is bias and can be faked. CON makes a fallacy that an employer can simply cut back wages to increase profit margins and lower the standard of living for an employee without unions. This is false. To see why, let’s give an example. Let’s say there are two companies, A and B. Company A can hire employees less than their productivity and make a bunch of profits. However, Company B can also hire employees at a higher wage than Company A, still making a bunch of profits, and employees flock to Company B instead of A. This process continues until both companies hire employees at the level of their productivity. With this process, Supply and demand determines the salary of labor. The real salary of labor can only increase if supply of labor decreases or demand of labor increases. Labor unions can achieve this by restricting the amount of workers or using political power to increase demand for their product. Employers cannot simply lower wages at whim, since labor can find other areas of work or even start their own companies. Many labor contracts even disallow the employer from lower wages. If my opponent is still not convinced, I can show empirical evidence that labor unions do not increase standard of livings. The Gilded Age is known as the time in which America has the greatest amount of economic development, in which real wages dramatically increased. [3] Wages and wealth in America was greater than wages in Europe, even though Europe was much more unionized. This was possible because trade unions do not grow the economy. Only through investment in capital and technology can labor become more productive, and thus increase standard of living. Labor unions are only successful through strategies that are not pareto optimal, as explained earlier. Educational Reform: CON strawmans me, stating that I am selfish for not wanting to pay for education. This is incorrect, I see the value of “free” education. However, why should one pay more for education without improvements in it? CON and I both want educational reform. However, as I demonstrated, teacher unions block these reforms. The best way to create reform is to get rid of the source blocking it, teacher unions. My opponent wants to blame lawmakers, however this is like blaming an employer for increasing the salary of union workers, when the employer did everything in their power to stop it. Sure, the lawmakers and employers were the ones that made the final decisions, yet it is not as if the union had no play. I have shown how teacher unions have used political power to their advantage that my opponent has not refuted. CON says that the process of firing teacher is slow due to political reasons however the political reasons are because of teacher unions. [4] Next, CON states that merit pay is too subjective. Perhaps, there is some subjectivism, however is that better than a system that awards seniority over merit? This is almost as absurd as stating that students should not be graded because it is too subjective. Many of the problems of merit pay can be tweaked, for example judging student performance before and after the school year. Teacher Pay: The information about teacher pay comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not John Stossel. If teacher pay is too low, why was there a surplus of teacher applicants during an economic boom? Most professions have to work extended hours, go to meetings, and bring their work home just like teachers. Teachers can also come up with solutions to work more efficiently and avoid working at home such as showing educational films in class, giving work in class, sharing lesson plans and exam formats between other teachers and other sources. Exams that are multiple choices are easily graded. The amount of hours a teacher works outside of the school hours is up to how much effort the teacher wants to put into teaching. . http://tinyurl.com... [1] . http://tinyurl.com... [2] . http://tinyurl.com... [3] . http://tinyurl.com... [4]