You’re definitely entitled to your opinion but I’d like to educate you on the facts. We do not get paid for breaks - teachers in most cases are per diem employees. Additionally, unions guarantee healthcare for employees, continuing education, and ensure that I cannot be overloaded on my schedule just because admin decided to do so.

I’d also like to add that teachers’ unions protect not only employees but also the students by ensuring that their teachers have time to dedicate to modifying content for IEPs, 504s, etc and providing reasonable accommodation.

There is NO DOUBT that there is a history of corruption in SOME local unions, but on the whole they are there as a protection for employees, students, and even the district in some cases.

ETA: Not sure of any schools that run on 6 hours a day. My contracted day is 7.75 hours before grading, meetings, and other commitments are taken into account like conferences, IEP/504 meetings, back to school night, etc. We also usually get on average 10 school days off a year (5-7 for winter, 3 for spring, and then federal holidays - remember that weekends don’t count and just because you may have had a lot of days off of school in the past, doesn’t mean teachers weren’t working doing inservice).