I'm not sure holding up any other profession, much less "just about every other profession" as a model of how we should organize our employer/employee relationships is a good idea.
The kind of relationship you describe has created a general environment in which wages are depressed and working conditions continue to deteriorate. Every time unions lose power, workers' working conditions--including compensation and intangibles--deteriorate.
Most professionals -- which teachers desire to be treated like -- have done quite well over the past 34 years despite fewer and fewer organizational defenses of their conditions. Unskilled labor is another story.
Unless teachers should be treated and protected like factory workers. Usually teachers object to that characterization, but if you want to argue for it, okay.
The kind of relationship you describe has created a general environment in which wages are depressed and working conditions continue to deteriorate. Every time unions lose power, workers' working conditions--including compensation and intangibles--deteriorate.