The headline of a Linda Borg article in the Providence Journal a couple of weeks ago might be “Parents air worries over student safety in Providence schools,” but it’s mostly about the problems that labor unions cause for students.  Asked, for example, how the city intends to avoid bus strikes in the future…

[City council member Sam] Zurier promised that there will no longer be language in the contract that includes bus strikes as “an act of God,” which allowed the bus company, First Student, to avoid responsibility for getting students to school.

Therein we see the basic lesson that one should always call things what they are.  The proclamation of a strike by a union is not an “act of God” and, even if one can’t foresee the consequences, should not be treated as such.

If the city is finally acknowledging its unions’ lack of divinity, members of those unions appear to be learning that they can’t wield their power omnisciently:

[Providence Teachers Union President Maribeth] Calabro also described a heated conversation with a parent who was furious that teachers would no longer be writing letters of recommendation for high school seniors. Calabro thought about how she would feel as a mother. Then she told her members to write those letters because, “This is a kid’s dream — to go to college.”

“If we don’t write the letters,” she said, “who are we hurting? Not the mayor. The kids.”

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How is it that a teacher required soul searching to realize that harming children in order to hurt a politician would inevitably… harm the children?  And how is it that the practice ended only because the union president issued a decree, rather than bending in the face of pressure from the rank-and-file union members?

These aren’t lessons that should have to be learned.  They should be understood already.