FRAMINGHAM, Mass. – Unions play for keeps, and those that stand in their way often pay an ugly price.

But as the old saying goes, it’s not personal – it’s strictly business.

Leaders of the Framingham Teachers’ Association in Massachusetts were dissatisfied with the progress of contract negotiations with their local school committee, so they decided to turn the heat up on committee members.

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As EAGnews reported in March, the union announced to its members it had created a database to compile information on members of the school committee. Such information included where the committee members worked and exercised and their spouses’ employers.

Why would they need such information, except to intimidate committee members and disrupt their personal lives?

The Boston Globe reported:

In an attempt to make the town’s School Committee “feel the same stresses that we have,” the union representing Framingham teachers has urged its members to volunteer personal information they know about committee members, including what health clubs they belong to, and where their spouses work.

The move, perceived by school administrators as an escalation tactic in ongoing contract negotiations, initially unnerved some School Committee members and their families, including the wife of chairman David Miles.

“My wife was a little more alarmed than I was. She went into mother mode,” said Miles, whose son attends Framingham High School. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I was perplexed by it. Of course you can think bad thoughts right away, ‘What are they going to do with that information on my wife and kids?’ But of course I don’t think they would do something dangerous or harmful.”

In a memo e-mailed to some of the 1,018 union members, which includes almost 800 teachers, Framingham Teachers’ Association president Sam Miskin accused the School Committee of “trying to stay protected” by “distancing themselves from the issues.” He suggested a change in the union’s actions that would focus directly on the School Committee.

“Many of us have felt some degree of stress in coming to work due to the contract struggles and it is not right that the committee put this on us,” Miskin wrote. “For all of the stress we have felt, we owe it to the committee to return the favor. . . . The focus will now be on making the committee feel the same stresses that we have.”

Isn’t that nice? The union adopted the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy. Are school committee members really supposed to feel the same type of stress as full-time, passionate union leaders? These are simply citizens who basically volunteer their time to help govern their local school district, and they act in a manner that they believe is best for the district.

Their work should be respected, not ridiculed, even by those who disagree with them.

Obviously the union’s goal was to harass committee members and their families at different locations, but the plan was cancelled when it was exposed through the media.

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But the union clearly intended to inflict a great deal of emotional stress on families in the community. Such a plan is simply immoral.

To read more installments of “The Other Labor History: What Kids Won’t Learn,” click here.