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Institutions, Trust, and Our Union
- laurajf5
- 57 minutes ago
- 7 min read
By: Dylan Craig, Teacher at Garnet Patterson STAY, running for VP of High Schools on the Educators Taking Action Slate
We are currently experiencing a milieu in which public institutions are under attack. The Trump administration and his allies are attempting to discredit and dismantle public institutions that have existed for decades, all to serve an agenda that is focused on privatizing and transferring more wealth to the top.
The current havoc being wreaked by the Trump administration can be seen everywhere, but to understand our power and response as the Washington Teachers’ Union, we must understand what Trump means for institutions and the role democracy plays in their strength.
What Institutions Represent
In a general sense, “institution” is a slightly broader term for an organization with rules and structures that organize and shape behavior, all with a sense of sustainability or continuity. Because of this focus on continuity, institutions protect – they can protect values, philosophies, ideas, and desired outcomes. These protections are one of the main reasons public institutions are such a prime target for the Trump administration – public institutions, at their best, can be used to protect the interests of the public over the competing interests of profit. Not all public institutions live up to this under the forces of American capitalism, but in the end, they are meant to function as a public good.
This is why the work of organizing and institution building for the public good is so important and stands in the way of authoritarianism. A strong institution has structures that allow for the longevity of ideals, so building institutions around values such as human rights, equality, well-being, and democracy is crucial for building an equitable society.
Our union is not a ‘public’ institution such as those currently being dismantled by the Trump administration, but, as a union made up of public-sector workers, it is an institution that protects a public good, and an institution, according to our Washington Teachers’ Union website, that is, “dedicated to social and educational justice for the students of the District of Columbia and to improving the quality of support, resources, compensation and working conditions for the public servants and proud teachers who educate our students in D.C. Public Schools.” This is a noble vision based on values and philosophies worth protecting and expanding through institutional measures. Unions, as a whole, are institutions built on the idea that workers hold their power collectively and deserve decision-making capabilities in their workplaces and society at large, another very worthy vision worth protecting and expanding through institutional measures.
What Makes Institutions Vulnerable: Distrust
I spend the time outlining what institutions stand for in order to show what is lost or at stake when those institutions that serve the public are attacked, and why they are under attack currently for private profit. But how have these institutions, built for longevity, become so vulnerable? The culprit is distrust.
Currently, trust in many institutions is at a major low. Distrust in institutions can come from a variety of factors, but two have had a profound impact. One is misinformation, which we see has been a powerful force in the rise of Trump and aided by the new ways in which misinformation spreads on the internet and has been co-opted by private interests, hindering our ability process and understand reliability in the new medium.
Distrust also comes when an institution fails to deliver on its purposes. We also see this in the backlash toward many of our public institutions currently being attacked by the Trump administration. A segment of the population does not see these institutions as living up to their ideals, making them open to the idea of being scraped. We also see this when union members leave, feeling disillusioned with the lack of progress toward stated ideals, or even decisions made that feel opposed to stated ideals.
Both distrust through misinformation and distrust through failures to deliver have roots in something else - the disconnect between leaders and those within or served by the institution itself. When those who interact with an institution do not see themselves within it, as a part of the institution’s body and a part of the institution’s decision making, trust falters. However, there is an antidote to this distrust – expanded participatory democracy.
What Makes Institutions Strong: Democracy with Vision
Institutions, especially unions, become much more vulnerable when those who legitimize their power (the people) are not actually involved in the institutional decision making. Democracy creates power – even authoritarian governments need the guise of democracy to legitimize their power (hence the Trump administration’s repeated claims of a mandate from the people).
When democracy is authentically expanded, structures inherently become more transparent, debates become open, and decisions are made as a collective, not in a closed-door meeting. The transparent and participatory nature of democratic structures is an antidote to cynicism and mistrust, as those involved get a voice and a front row seat in the action. Thus, when those institutions do come under attack from outside forces, or even from within through seeds of mistrust, it is not an abstract organization under attack, it is “us” and the ideals with which we built these structures to uphold and fight for.
Democratic structures don’t just support an institution’s defense, but they create a stronger offense as well. Democracy creates buy-in and involvement. Once a decision is made in a truly democratic manner, it hasn’t been ‘passed down,’ it has been made by the people themselves, bottom-up, and there is an eagerness to implement. Democracy taps into the passions and ideals of the people, the same passion and ideals that the institutional measures were created to protect in the first place. Is democracy always easy? Of course not. It can be messy, tensions can rise, and meetings can go long, but bottom-up democracy empowers stakeholders and builds trust through involvement.
When discussing the distrust of experts in current popular discourse, David Moscrop argues how democratic participation can bridge the gap between experts and the populace, writing:
…this healthy public assumes and requires mass democracy such that the people, as a people, are truly and deeply involved — not as mere objects of governance, but as active participants in self-government. The public nonetheless retains the right to plug its ears. It then becomes the duty of others to persuade them otherwise. There’s something frustrating and beautiful about that. And thoroughly democratic, too.
The distrust that has been aimed at experts is the same distrust that has been aimed at many institutions, and the antidote is the same: expanded democracy.
What Does This Mean for Our Union?
Unions are already structured as democratic institutions. However, the nature of this democracy varies, and there is great room for improvement within the Washington Teachers’ Union. How can we foster a more participatory democracy to build our strength as an institution that can withstand the current institutional attacks while fighting for our ideals? I implore you to see the ideas promoted by the Educators Taking Action Slate (of which I am a part) running for WTU office in the upcoming election.
Our platform for expanding union democracy:
It is not enough to hold leadership elections every 3 years. Rank and file members must be directly involved in union decision-making on all important decisions. Not only will this ensure that those decisions are in the best interest of all members, it will allow our union to take on more actions and issues.
How to expand democracy
Update and Follow the WTU Constitution and Bylaws: The current Constitution and Bylaws already allow for the WTU Representative Assembly (made up of WTU Representatives and Delegates from every school) to set the policies of the WTU. But this is not happening. There are almost never any votes at all at the Rep Assembly level and when a voting member brings a motion up for a vote, it is often a fight to even be "allowed" to vote. To fix this we are campaigning to create updates to the bylaws before taking office so that the Rep Assembly can be better respected.
Activate the Committee Structure: Committees allow interested members to have the opportunity to propose, discuss and create policies, actions, statements, and more for the WTU to act upon. This is where the real work can get done. By spreading committee leadership to rank and file members and supporting their development as leaders, not only can we get more done as a union, we can nurture and grow the next generation of dedicated union leaders. The WTU has a robust committee structure already in place, and more can be proposed through our existing bylaws. Unfortunately for the past three years, most committees have not been meeting regularly and only a few people are invited to lead the meetings, making them hard to schedule and putting too much work on too few shoulders.
Bring complete transparency and active communication to all aspects of WTU decision-making:
WTU Members should have easy online access to all WTU Minutes, agendas, meeting notes, calendars, financial reports and more.
But that is not enough, the WTU must do more to break down and actively communicate what has happened in the past and what is coming up into easily accessible bites of information.
Calendar invitations, agendas and relevant documents must be prepared and widely published well in advance of all meetings so that members are aware of what is being discussed
Further, members must be invited and allowed to attend any WTU meeting - including all WTU negotiations over the Collective Bargaining Agreement through Open Bargaining.
If we want the Washington Teachers’ Union to be an institution that is prepared to fight both offense and defense, we need the trust of all those who build our institution, and Educators Taking Action has a plan to foster this trust through greater participatory democracy.