They are all bullshit consumerism . <| sep |> That ' s nearly 3 , 000 cubic miles , by the way . A mindboggling quantity . <| sep |> having worked as a teacher in NYC and a union member because I had to be . I wouldn ' t say evil as much as overly cumbersome . But yeah looking from the outside in they don ' t seem that great . Having been a teacher , and knowing the number of laws read not regulations , rules , but LAWS that a lot of the schools break in regards to under serving ESL and students with disabilities I wish they had more power to change things . I AM NOT SAYING THE NYC UNION IS GOOD , but let me explain some of the working conditions they have to deal with . I also am not a fan of the Union though , but do think there most be one . In NYC the Principals are like little Kings and Queens . They have the ability to rate a teacher whatever they want , put them on a teacher improvement plan and fire them if they do not ' improve '. Some principals just go after the licence of teachers that don ' t do everything they say meaning the teacher would be unable to teach anywhere in the future . This is why you might hear about a teacher getting paid that hasn ' t been fired yet . The union stepped in and stopped the firing process until the Principal can prove to the city that the teacher should be fired . One of my old Principals was like this . Did it successfully twice , unsuccessfully once and the teacher was transferred . My first year teaching schedule was as follows . I had no control over this . I was an ESL teacher ESL super beginner Dominican FreshmanCoteach US history Mix ESL and normal students Juniors . ESL Intermediate level , Sophomore and Junior Co teach Global History Mix Beginner and intermediate ESL students freshmanEconGov SeniorsEveryday I taught that , that ' s 25 different lesson plans a week , and they gave me literally no materials , outline or anything for ESL , or Econ and I had to make the time after school to co plan with my two co teacher . oh and I was doing a full time Grad program at night . My former Art Teacher Principal did not understand how I might not have the time to literally create 3 class curriculum from the ground up . At one of my friends school they had an assembly . Right after the assembly everyone went back to class , there was about 15 minutes left in the day , so you know not enough time to teach , so everyone hangs out and chats . This is when the Principal decides that she wants to go around and rate the teachers . She catches all these teachers not fully engaging their students ! They aren ' t all having deep conversations about educational material . They all get rated poorly . The principal knew this , they just wanted a bunch of the teachers they didn ' t like to have poor ratings for their first rating . That means that unless those teachers suck up to her she can rate them poorly the next couple of times and they are risk of loosing their jobs . Last one but I have many more . The last school I taught at had a new principal . Why ? Because the old one had retired read ' fired ' but not . She had been principal for a while and was known as a bully . What she did that was wrong was the schools in NYC get more money for the students that are classified as SWD students with disabilities . That is so that the school can provide the services for them . Well she was taking that extra money and spending it on ' cool ' things that made the school look better to parents but never hired any newextra trained teachers to assist with these students . The new Principal that we got fixed this kinda but shut down the honor Chem classes as she didn ' t want to school to be so science heavy and started some art classes . Well out of about 40 ish teachers 15 left that year , myself included . TLDR YES the union is terrible and awful and annoying . But there are times when it ' s the only thing between you and admin that could care less about you . I always voted against the current leadership . P . S . to meet the legal minimum requirement for ESL services in the city the city needs about 10001500 more ESL teachers . I taught ESL and treated me terrible . They didn ' t care , I didn ' t get paid more and treated different even though they needed me to stay and help . Nope , so I left . I miss my students , but man . talk to any NYC teacher who teaches outside of the rich white public schools and you ' ll hear a lot about how bad it really is . EDIT they changed a lot of the tenure rules in the last five years so if you are a new teacher like I was it ' s real easy to get fired even after you get tenure . If you have been teaching for 20 years , you have different laws that apply to you .