Who decides the terms of the pension plans? Do the unions participate in negotiation of the terms? A longer vesting period is, in isolation, obviously worse for teachers. However, I can imagine longer tenured teachers (who compose the majority of union votes) preferring to trade a longer vesting period for higher payouts in retirement or other concessions. Unions have a tendency to entrench guild-like tenure based compensation and this could be an example.
Yep, pension plan rules are set by the legislature, and the unions obviously have a lot of pull there. Some of the states with 10-year vesting periods are heavily union, Democratic states like IL, MA, CT, NH, NJ, and NY. You're also right about the guild mindset--I have heard teachers defend these types of policies along those grounds.
But my rebuttal is that pension plans aren't actually changing career trajectories in the way that they want. Instead, all they're doing is penalizing any teacher who doesn't stay for 20+ years.
Who decides the terms of the pension plans? Do the unions participate in negotiation of the terms? A longer vesting period is, in isolation, obviously worse for teachers. However, I can imagine longer tenured teachers (who compose the majority of union votes) preferring to trade a longer vesting period for higher payouts in retirement or other concessions. Unions have a tendency to entrench guild-like tenure based compensation and this could be an example.
Yep, pension plan rules are set by the legislature, and the unions obviously have a lot of pull there. Some of the states with 10-year vesting periods are heavily union, Democratic states like IL, MA, CT, NH, NJ, and NY. You're also right about the guild mindset--I have heard teachers defend these types of policies along those grounds.
But my rebuttal is that pension plans aren't actually changing career trajectories in the way that they want. Instead, all they're doing is penalizing any teacher who doesn't stay for 20+ years.