SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California’s teacher unions are once again demonstrating why Big Labor should not be allowed anywhere near our public schools.

The FresnoBee.com reports that three powerful school employee unions – the California Federation of Teachers, the California Teachers Association and the California School Employees Association – are all actively opposing legislation that would require the state’s K-12 schools to train some school personnel in how to administer life-saving drugs to children with unknown severe allergies.

A “Bee” editorial explains:

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“Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction triggered by a variety of things, from getting stung by a bee to eating just one nut. It comes on quickly and can kill a person in a few minutes.

“Kids are at special risk, as many have unrecognized allergies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as many as 6 percent of all children have a food allergy. Thanks to technology, however, we have medicines and medicine-delivery systems, such as epinephrine auto-injectors, that can counter anaphylaxis in just as immediate a fashion.”

Republican Senator Bob Huff is pushing a bill that would “require schools to keep a stock of life-saving epinephrine auto-injectors and train some school personnel to use them in an emergency,” according to the Bee editorial.

Children with known allergies are already allowed to keep the epinephrine auto-injectors in school, should the need arise to use them. The emergency procedures Sen. Huff is trying to implement are for students who have severe allergies but don’t yet know it.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

Not according to leaders of the teacher and school employee unions, who say it’s unfair to ask teachers to perform duties that exceed their training.

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That might seem like a reasonable concern at first, but it’s actually pure balderdash. Here’s why: The life-saving auto-injectors come with pre-measured doses of the necessary drug, and are very easy to use. They’re designed for kids to self-administer, after all.

Not only that, but medical professionals say it’s very easy to train average adults to recognize the signs of a severe allergic reaction, the Bee editorial notes.

Furthermore, Huff’s bill would only require some – not all – school employees to handle the auto-injectors. Certainly most teachers, classroom aides, secretaries, custodians and other school personnel would volunteer for the training, if it could save a child’s life. The vast majority of men and women in the education field are there because they want to help children.

Given those facts, it’s fair to ask what the unionists are really driving at with their objections.

We believe Big Labor is trying to leverage this concern about students with unknown severe allergies into more K-12 funding so schools can hire additional employees – which is to say, more unionized,  dues-paying, school employees.

School funding has been a very contentious issue in the Golden State, and this issue gives the labor groups another opening to make the case for more (and more and more) money.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the unionists put their financial interests ahead of the needs of children. Typically, the unions’ selfishness – for pay raises and generous benefit plans – just imperils students’ academic and after-school programs.

We can’t recall an instance where unions were putting their financial interests ahead of students’ physical health and well-being … but the Bee editorial writers can.

Three years ago, school employee unions came out against a bill that allowed “school personnel to give anti-seizure medication to children,” the editorial notes. “(The bill) passed, but the unions also opposed it on the grounds that it would be better to have nurses administer it.”

Once again, the unions wanted to parlay students’ medical needs into money for more dues-paying school employees.

It’s worth pointing out that California schools could probably afford more nurses to handle these medical emergencies if their budgets weren’t being picked clean in collective bargaining negotiations with their numerous school employee unions.

Like we said at the beginning, Big Labor is an obvious blight on America’s public education system.