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Corey85 wrote:My wife is a chemistry teacher here in WI, and I can tell you she puts in 10+ hour days and spends several hours each weekend correcting papers. Those awesome three months off she has? Spent researching new course curriculum and designing labs to help students understand very complex concepts.

She has had students go on to Yale and Stanford.

No one is denying that some teachers are not great people, who honestly are doing what they love, and want to teach. No one is saying that all teachers are just leeches, but some are. It's wonderful that she's succesfull enough to send students to top rated universities, and she is undoubtedly one of those good teachers in the system.

I am all in favor of getting rid of teacher's unions (though I do think Wisconsin's governor is going a bit too far with his zeal to fight the unions). While there are some good teachers, a system based on seniority as opposed to merit is just a failure. Teachers like your wife who work hard, and try to do their jobs should be rewarded with higher pay, more prestigous positions, more control over their course etc. while those who are just lazing around at the top, happy with their tenure should be kicked off to make room for decent teachers.

Making the educational system competive again, and rewarding continued success with students (not just time spent in office), is the way to improving the educational system.

Note: I am Californian in spite of the Union Jack by my username....I should really get that changed....

She has also broken down once or twice since this has started and apologized to me for choosing this career and putting us in a position where we are going to have to drastically cut our spending, or risk loosing our house.

My friends, this broke my heart... My wife was the first in her class in High School and spent her summers off working in a factory to pay for college. She could have gone into any science related field, but was so inspired by her teachers that she wanted to follow in their footsteps.

I still don't quite have words for the rage that I felt for Walker while holding my sobbing wife.

Appeal to emotion. While touching, this isn't really a valid argument. It may be why you personally dislike the governor, but it isn't a reason why everyon else should.

The problem with government unions is that the power dynamics are imbalanced. In a standard business, the capitalists want to pay as little as possible to protect their wealth while the workers want to make as much money as possible for their labor. If they are unable to agree, unions supposedly provide an avenue to tip the scales on behalf of the laborer, such as threatening to shut down the business if the capitalist doesn't agree. The capitalist then decides if it is worth losing his business over. Sometimes it is.

In a government, the workers aren't going against a capitalist, but against an agency that receives their money by forcefully taking it from the populace. There is no relationship between services rendered and wealth generated by those services. Therefore, when the union demands more benefits/wages, the government can merely raise 'prices' without fear of being driven out of the market by the non-unionized state next door (unlike capitalist businesses).

So the union strikes, the state caves, union gets more money, the politician gets more votes, and everyone is happy. The only people who get screwed are the taxpayers, and what are they going to do, move?

It works until the taxpayers get fed up and vote for someone who will take a principled stand on their behalf. Hopefully this happens before the union gets too strong and can force the government's hand.

Don't people in unions vote and/or pay taxes then ?

reds8n wrote:Don't people in unions vote and/or pay taxes then ?

I seem to have ignored a mod somehow. Soeey. Not sure how to fix this, will address once I get off nmy blackberry.

But yes, union members get to vote. Consider this: would you wupport a 200 dollar (pound) tax increase if you would get a 300 dollar (pound) raise? That is what the union does. So long as there are non-[i]unionized taxpayers, any tax that pays for an increase in union salary is supportable.

biccat wrote:Consider this: would you wupport a 200 dollar (pound) tax increase if you would get a 300 dollar (pound) raise?

It would depend entirely upon else was going along with this policy. If, for example, it meant there would be no schools or hospitals or whatever then no, I don't think I would.

I'm suggesting more that it's a little more complicated than just "unions bad !" and artificially separating them from the rest of the society or culture they are in, isn't really a realistic or sensible way to debate or think about things.

I'm sure that you, indeed most of the fine folks that make up the hardy Dakkanaut denizens of this fine forum, know this really, I just think it's a point worth remembering.

Ultimately it's about people and society, not rhetoric and numbers.

reds8n wrote:It would depend entirely upon else was going along with this policy. If, for example, it meant there would be no schools or hospitals or whatever then no, I don't think I would.

Nope, nothing else. It's a tax that everyone has to pay, but only people in your sector gets the benefits. Everyone pays 200, you get 300. Nothing else is affected.

So would you not vote for this? Because that is (essentially) what unions ask for.

I am also not simply saying "unions are bad." but the counter to my argument why they're bad politically and fiscally seems to be "unions are good.". If unions are objectively good, then I'd love to hear why.

I really don't think I would unless I was already very underpaid to begin with.

It's not as simple as you make it out to be.

Melissia wrote:I really don't think I would unless I was already very underpaid to begin with.

It's not as simple as you make it out to be.

Yea, it really is. Thats why FDR was against them. When you can effectively vote your own pay raise you're like...Congress.

..you don't think workers rights are important ?

But, briefly : unionised workers ( generally) earn more than non unionised workers, this of course gives them purchasing power which is after all what drives the economy.

They're also largely responsible for the attainment of such things as paid healthcare and pensions.

Then there's also such things as legal representation and similar...

.. you don't really need me to list the good things that Unions can/have/will/are responsible for do you ?* I assume that you have studied or covered some social history right ?

I apologise if you haven't, I'm assuming you're above/past ..err.... "college"/uni equivalent age from tone and so on.

Nope, nothing else. It's a tax that everyone has to pay, but only people in your sector gets the benefits. Everyone pays 200, you get 300. Nothing else is affected.

So, I pay 200, my working spouse pays 200 and I can get back 300 ? No, again if it was exactly that simple then I wouldn't vote for it.

But of course as part if the union I would actualy push for the really rich, under taxed bastards to get charged more, whilst everyone else got more ,money.
Go figure !


* and, no doubt, lots of crappy things too. It is people after all.

Frazzled wrote:Yea, it really is.

You simply saying taht without qualification doesn't make it true.

Taxes aren't simple (in the US anyway), why should a tax increase or decrease be?

Melissia wrote:I really don't think I would unless I was already very underpaid to begin with.

It's not as simple as you make it out to be.

So are you voting against your own interest, or are you acknowledging that the right to vote entails a responsibility not to use it for personal gain?

Or you could value your vote as worth more than $100, but I am assuming you are more principled than that.

If it's the former, than I find it hard to reconcile with your post on page 1 re: direct interests and half-baked ideology.

If it's the latter, then I hope you understand where people are coming from when they vote "against their interests."

reds8n wrote:..you don't think workers rights are important ?

I think everyone should have equal rights. I do not think that equal rights are compatible with unions, especially in the public sector.

Anything you cite of the benefits of unions can exist in a free labor force. I am not unionized, yet I get healthcare benefits (paying for them myself), I don't get a pension, but I have a transferrable retirement account (that I pay for), my comppany will provide me legal representation (if related to my job) or I can purchase it myself if I need it.

By not having to bear these costs (including administrative/union overhead), my company can pay me morer so that I can get them myself. Further, the company doesn't have to pay for nonproductive workers or deal with union bureaucracy, and saves money on that end too. As such, they can offer a better product (firing ineffective workers) at a lower price (lower administrative overhead) and pay their workers more.

Sounds like a good thing. And I don't have to worry about the next generation having to pay for my pension benefits, since I am the one responsible for it.

I'd be lying if I said I knew for sure what all was being discussed here. I can give my experience and hope it means something. I've worked nothing but crap jobs. I have some college down and have been in that constant loop of "once things get financially stable I'll go back to school." Guess what hasn't happened yet? Clearly if that's going to happen I need to be doing something differently, but that's a side point. Every job I've worked at I do my best, am generally on time, have NEVER broken a dress code (private schooling did teach me a few things, apparently ), have always had good rapport with customers, been more knowledgeable on product that MOST of my supervisors, always maintained a professional attitude (I hate work drama), etc. I've been in instances where I work harder than other people yet they get better raises or promotions, and I've been in cases where I felt like someone else deserved it more than me. Basically, whoever said the American dream works is a raging donkey-cave. It doesn't. I'm in my first union job, earning 10 cents above minimum wage and have hoops to jump through to get full time, though I'm doing my damnedest to be a model employee so I can earn that even though I know I'll likely get screwed out of it near the end anyway because some middle manager decides so. The union benefits I have basically guarantee that I get scheduled for at least 4 hours at a time, I can not be scheduled less than 15 hours a week, I have to be written up for the same thing 4 times before I can be fired over it, along with some basic healthcare and stuff I can opt in to. This job has treated me better than any I've had so far and the employees there have been there much longer than any previous and consequently know what they're doing. My wage may be practically nothing, but at this job I actually feel like a person and I feel like if I choose to stay with the company I can instead of them pulling some "let's fire everyone and get a new wave" bullcrap.

I think it's fair for workers to have protection in their jobs as long as the government is going to tax said people for breathing air (which they do, which is slowed and another point entirely). The employers then get screwed because of people trying to abuse the system, so the employers who previously screwed try to counter screw and it all just turns to crap. I'm not sure what the answer is, though lazy people deserve not to be paid as much and harder working people deserve more and that's not what this system gives. Unions at least pretend to equalize things.

Again, hopefully this relates.

reds8n wrote:..you don't think workers rights are important ?

But, briefly : unionised workers ( generally) earn more than non unionised workers, this of course gives them purchasing power which is after all what drives the economy.

They're also largely responsible for the attainment of such things as paid healthcare and pensions.

Then there's also such things as legal representation and similar...

.. you don't really need me to list the good things that Unions can/have/will/are responsible for do you ?* I assume that you have studied or covered some social history right ?

I apologise if you haven't, I'm assuming you're above/past ..err.... "college"/uni equivalent age from tone and so on.

Nope, nothing else. It's a tax that everyone has to pay, but only people in your sector gets the benefits. Everyone pays 200, you get 300. Nothing else is affected.

So, I pay 200, my working spouse pays 200 and I can get back 300 ? No, again if it was exactly that simple then I wouldn't vote for it.

But of course as part if the union I would actualy push for the really rich, under taxed bastards to get charged more, whilst everyone else got more ,money.
Go figure !


* and, no doubt, lots of crappy things too. It is people after all.

Much of that would be correct for private workers. These are government workers. their higher than market (for worse service) salaries and massive benefits/pensions are major drivers for state deficit spending. They make nothing. They improve the economy in no manner whatsoever.


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Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Yea, it really is.

You simply saying taht without qualification doesn't make it true.

Taxes aren't simple (in the US anyway), why should a tax increase or decrease be?

Its not. But your initial statement was simple as well. Just a reply in kind.

So you're really paying people should pay more in taxes so that lazy unionized government workers can make salaries and ancillary benefits significantly better than those paying the taxes? Why should I have to pay for the government elite? them.

ChrisWWII wrote:
Appeal to emotion. While touching, this isn't really a valid argument. It may be why you personally dislike the governor, but it isn't a reason why everyon else should.

Neither is the presence of an undefined number of poor teachers indicative of an inherent problem with the presence of teacher's unions.

Frazzled wrote:
They make nothing They improve the economy in no manner whatsoever.

That's false. Even public sector employees are wage earners, and therefore consumers of goods. They provide various services in exchange for those wages, and those services contribute to the economy in a similar, albeit not identical way, to those provided by private sector workers. The only people that do nothing to improve the economy are the unemployed.

The idea that state employees do nothing to improve economic performance is utter nonsense.

dogma wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:
Appeal to emotion. While touching, this isn't really a valid argument. It may be why you personally dislike the governor, but it isn't a reason why everyon else should.

Neither is the presence of an undefined number of poor teachers indicative of an inherent problem with the presence of teacher's unions.

Frazzled wrote:
They make nothing They improve the economy in no manner whatsoever.

That's false. Even public sector employees are wage earners, and therefore consumers of goods. They provide various services in exchange for those wages, and those services contribute to the economy in a similar, albeit not identical way, to private sector those provided by private sector workers. The only people that do nothing to improve the economy are the unemployed.

The idea that state employees do nothing to improve economic performance is utter nonsense.

They provide nothing. At the state level budgets must be balanced there, every dollar they get is a dollar stolen from someone else, who on average makes less and receives worse benefits. Most government entities literally produce nothing but paper work and red tape. they don't make one shoe. They don't heal one sick person.

Now I'll grant you teachers educate, firemen stop fires. The good ones should be paid for their good work, and the poor ones fired. That doesn't happen. further, their beneifits are severaly out of whack with the rest of the workforce. Why do I have to subsidize mouth breathers working in local version of the DMV?

Deleted to agree with Fraz's edit.

biccat wrote:I think everyone should have equal rights. I do not think that equal rights are compatible with unions, especially in the public sector.

.... err... so presumably then, if non Govt. workers have the right to form unions ( which I'm assuming you're alright about) then govt. workers should too then ?

Anything you cite of the benefits of unions can exist in a free labor force. I am not unionized, yet I get healthcare benefits (paying for them myself), I don't get a pension, but I have a transferrable retirement account (that I pay for), my comppany will provide me legal representation (if related to my job) or I can purchase it myself if I need it.

Good for you.

Others can't, oft through no fault of their own either.

I will also point out that the presence of unionised labour forces directly influences non unionised ( sp ?) companies and situations as well, as it "forces" -- so to speak -- them to offer improved or comparable terms so the unionised ones don't snap up all of the bestest people.


... wow... it's like market forces or something eh ?

The worse service thing.. well.. yes and no. I'm sure we all have horror stories about public sector workers and so forth, but in all honesty in my experience I genuinely have found next to no difference atwixt levels of competency of the twain.

This might be a cultural thing/similar however -- no that I'm holding up us or "dissing" you here I hasten -- it was on an episode of "The Apprentice USA" not long back that I first heard the phrase "Good enough for Govt. work " which, I am told, is a common sentiment your side of the pond.

*shrugs*

They improve the economy in no manner whatsoever.

Well, again, yes and no. Aside from mortgages, utility bills, food etc etc, i think it's wrong to say that, for example, teachers don't contribute to the economy. Sure they might not .. I dunno... panel beat or flip burgers, but a modern and viable economy requires a certain minimum level of educational attaintment and learnin and ... stuff... , so I'd argue the toss here.

But I take the general point and (broadly) agree, and let's not get bogged down in an exact analysis of who/what where. let's just say that there contribuition is indeed often harder to quantify.

Frazzled wrote:
Most government entities literally produce nothing but paper work and red tape. they don't make one shoe. They don't heal one sick person.

Those things are necessary, to some degree, in any given society. You can't run an administrative unit without a bureaucracy, not one that's even remotely close to democratic anyway; rendering what they do a form of service.

Frazzled wrote:
Now I'll grant you teachers educate, firemen stop fires. The good ones should be paid for their good work, and the poor ones fired. That doesn't happen. further, their beneifits are severaly out of whack with the rest of the workforce. Why do I have to subsidize mouth breathers working in local version of the DMV?

That's a perfectly legitimate position to take, and I don't even really disagree with it. All I'm saying is that collective bargaining isn't the root cause of the problem here. The issue is that politicians have been unwilling, or unable, to negotiate aggressively with unions due to the absence of political support for such actions.

dogma wrote:Deleted to agree with Fraz's edit.

Ayah I sound way harsher than I really am, but just pushing a point, and of course eating barbeque!


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dogma wrote:That's a perfectly legitimate position to take, and I don't even really disagree with it. All I'm saying is that collective bargaining isn't the root cause of the problem here. The issue is that politicians have been unwilling, or unable, to negotiate aggressively with unions due to the absence of political support for such actions.

and the incredibly massive amounts of campaign contributions they get from government unions. Don't forget that part.

Well I do teach a special education class. I work mostly with students who have an Autism diagnosis. It is tough and I can cite so many times where I put forth more effort than the teacher across the hall. I feel like I should be paid more than her. I deal with problems that she will not even look at if they happen in the hallway outside of her class. Merit has always been an important aspect of being a person to me, yet the collective bargaining rights in my school system and state refuse to acknowledge anything of the sort.

I admit, there are plenty of baby sitters out there, people who are leeching off of the system. Something needs to be done, but I have no idea what the solution could possibly be. Unions have done a great thing for us in the past. If it wasn't for them, we would be greatly underpaid, no benefits, long work days, etc. However those days are over. They have did their part and now they leech the system themselves.

I will say this, I do not get a 3 month vacation during the summer. I am unemployed during the summer, so make sure you take that into consideration. A lot of the teachers I work with think they should get paid more. Personally I think we should, but we should work more like everyone else. We usually put in a 180 school days, not counting our Instructional Support Days. My friend who works at Wal-Mart puts a lot more time into work than I. Unions are always asking for more money, but no one is willing to work more to make the money. That doesn't make much sense to me.

Ok, rambling is off. Back to looking at the painting & modeling forum.

biccat wrote:
In a government, the workers aren't going against a capitalist, but against an agency that receives their money by forcefully taking it from the populace. There is no relationship between services rendered and wealth generated by those services. Therefore, when the union demands more benefits/wages, the government can merely raise 'prices' without fear of being driven out of the market by the non-unionized state next door (unlike capitalist businesses).

So the union strikes, the state caves, union gets more money, the politician gets more votes, and everyone is happy. The only people who get screwed are the taxpayers, and what are they going to do, move?

How does the removal of collective bargaining rights change this dynamic, though?

So public sector employees can't unionize in the traditional sense, that doesn't stop them from forming a particular sort of PAC designed to vote against any particular official that refuses to alter the standardized pay scale or increase non-fiscal benefits. Sure, they can't strike, but they can still significantly manipulate the electoral outcomes in the constituency in question; perhaps to a greater degree than an official union would be able to.

The larger point being that, from the perspective of any given politician, the motivation to agree to the demands of public sector workers is unchanged; the group represents an readily served body of eligible voters.


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Frazzled wrote:
and the incredibly massive amounts of campaign contributions they get from government unions. Don't forget that part.

Well, there is that. Fortunately its ultimately about votes, not money, and if there's enough public antipathy towards union workers (or government spending) then all the money in the world won't make support for unions worthwhile; at least insofar as the pols are able to finance themselves in a novel fashion.

dogma wrote:The issue is that politicians have been unwilling, or unable, to negotiate aggressively with unions due to the absence of political support for such actions.

That's because there's no incentive for politicians to negotiate strongly with unions. Taxpayers until recently didn't care about spending or deficits, and as we are seeing now, unions can raise massive opposition to spending reforms. Plus, a substantial portion of the electorate has no problem taxing those Richers to get theirs. And the Richers don't get a say, since they're greedy and all.

reds8n wrote:the presence of unionized labour forces directly influences non unionised ( sp ?) companies...

Well, in part it does influence non-unionized shops because then those shops can offer better terms to good workers by not having to pay bad workers. Of course, then the union shop goes out of business (having lower quality and being unable to compete) and some people lose their jobs, but that isn't the union's fault, it's the fault of the greedy execs.

The equal protection issue arises because public unions give disproportionate weight to union votes. They can elect themselves a governor who will take from non-union taxpayers and give the money to the union.

This is, in fact, the story of why unions took over the Democrat party in the States.

Frazzled wrote:So you're really paying people should pay more in taxes so that lazy unionized government workers can make salaries and ancillary benefits significantly better than those paying the taxes? Why should I have to pay for the government elite? them.

If you were paying attention, Frazzled, you'd have seen that all I said is "it's not that simple" and "I don't think I would do so".

I made no such claim, and it is disingenuous to imply that I did.

Whether or not someone needs or deserves a raise is, to me, something which has to be determined on a case to case basis, not simply a blanket statement. Certainly I think that about my bio professor, who does so many things for the school-- at the request of her dean-- that it actually gets in the way of her teaching because she rarely gets any sleep deserves one. But I'm not so sure about some of the adjuncts here who have one class and then go back to their day jobs, so to speak.

dogma wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:
Appeal to emotion. While touching, this isn't really a valid argument. It may be why you personally dislike the governor, but it isn't a reason why everyon else should.

Neither is the presence of an undefined number of poor teachers indicative of an inherent problem with the presence of teacher's unions.

True, of course. I don't have any statistics in front of me to quantify my positon, however I do firmly believe that unions installing tenure, and basing pay off of how long one has been in the job is a problem that needs to be fixed. Maybe the problem isn't the unions themselves, however I view the teachers unions and the problesm with education as heavily tied together.

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:So you're really paying people should pay more in taxes so that lazy unionized government workers can make salaries and ancillary benefits significantly better than those paying the taxes? Why should I have to pay for the government elite? them.

If you were paying attention, Frazzled, you'd have seen that all I said is "it's not that simple" and "I don't think I would do so".

I made no such claim, and it is disingenuous to imply that I did.

Whether or not someone needs or deserves a raise is, to me, something which has to be determined on a case to case basis, not simply a blanket statement. Certainly I think that about my bio professor, who does so many things for the school-- at the request of her dean-- that it actually gets in the way of her teaching because she rarely gets any sleep deserves one. But I'm not so sure about some of the adjuncts here who have one class and then go back to their day jobs, so to speak.

And you can't get that with a government union.

Yes one can, if the government union is formed in such a way.

Unions don't need to be abolished so much as they need to be reformed.

Damn government workers wanting to be paid money and have reasonable health benefits, because everyone knows that teachers are some of the highest earners in the country and represent the rich and wealthy.

(of course the whole point of this is to remove the union so that the state can lower pay to the teachers that haven't already lost their jobs, just healthy far right politics to lower spending no matter how vital it is even if it does mean a lower education standard)

Melissia wrote:Yes one can, if the government union is formed in such a way.

Unions don't need to be abolished so much as they need to be reformed.

They have no interest in doing so, thats why there are baszzilions on union people bussed in and protesting there now.
Don't mend it, end it.


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Gibbsey wrote:Damn government workers wanting to be paid money and have health benefits better than anyone else with their experience and education, because everyone knows that teachers are some of the highest earners in the country and represent the rich and wealthy.

Corrected your typo

Well, as soon as they fire all the teachers and cut all of their salaries to nothing, we will barely have any teachers left and we will take another important step towards idiocracy. Art/music/theatre classes are all already pretty much cut, but who needs that crap?

Who needs teachers, everything you need to learn is in the bible, right? :sarcasm:

Frazzled wrote:Don't mend it, end it.

Which makes for a nice sound byte, but that just makes me want to disagree with it even more.