Public Sector Union Beatdown Bloodbath Legismania 2011 Wisconsin-style

[Sasaki Kojiro]

The backlash threatens to undercut one of the Democratic Party’s most stalwart backers — and upset a mutually beneficial relationship where the unions provided financial support and foot soldiers for Democratic campaigns, in return for political cover to protect their prerogatives in the U.S. Congress and state capitols across the nation.

The National Education Association, the largest teachers union, spent $40 million on the 2010 elections alone, making the union one of the largest outside funders of Democratic campaigns.

Oh yes, I remember now. The unions don't contribute so much directly as they use their mobilization ability to go out and drum up support. But I think unions can be allowed to do that. I mean, would you rather they strike?

Obama’s education secretary Arne Duncan sounded surprisingly like the Republican governors when he told teachers unions and administrators at a conference Tuesday in Denver, “Clearly, the status quo isn’t working for children.”

Clearly the children aren't working.

This is a critical point in American history. We can either bow to the unions, or take our fiscal future back. The GOP and the Obama Administration must work together to destroy the union stranglehold on America's children.

Stranglehold on America's children?

It's just a union. What exactly is it that's been passed that shouldn't have been?

[Devastatin Dave]

Stranglehold on America's children?

It's just a union. What exactly is it that's been passed that shouldn't have been?

The "just a union" that brought their students out of the classroom to assist in the protest? Yes, a stranglehold on the children is an appropriate term for this issue.
I'm a product of public education. One year in history in my junior year our history teacher let us watch "Cops" every day. My government teacher in my senior year did the same thing. In fact, I could have skipped senior high all together because it was a complete waste. Sure, some of responsibility is on me but when a "professional" teacher offers you the choice of watching TV or protesting over actually learning anything, what is a teen going to choose...
Its time to stop this notion of the "honorable" profession known as the public school teacher. The majority are no less than you average welfare leach except they go to work half the year, recieve an offensively large pension paid by the tax payers, and still the US goes lower every year in tests compared to other countries. #### the public school teacher.

[Strike For The South]

Throw in the FD & PD but allow the union to continue to negotiate for everything, not just pay.

I think that will make everyone sufficently unhappy

I can't help by shake my head, these "demands" by the govener are putting no one over a barrell and are certainly not untennable. Sure no one likes tax increases or a pay cut but we are facing a serious budget shortfall and we are facing it everywhere.

I thought everyone was going to cut teh fat?

Asking these people for a pittance is not a big deal, granted it's more about the power than it is the money. There is always a power play somewhere. Granted it's hard to conjure up anger for someone who makes 60,000$ a year and who pays NOTHING in benifits when the average American makes 40,000 and has to pay both those things

Granted most of the teacher hate in this thread is lol, but at the end of the day this is something that needs to be done and can be done relatively painlessly

Edit:granted

[a completely inoffensive name]

I think this article tells a lot about what is going on. Watch the embedded video for the full argument.

http://www.politicususa.com/en/rache...isconsin-truth

[Fisherking]

This is about more than teacher pay.

It is about collective bargaining and Unions.

Allowing Police and Fire Fighters to bargain and not other public sector employees to do the same is unfair.

None are actually permitted to strike, though it is usually ignored.

Without some organization to represent employees they only have the rights to employment that the government says they have.

While I am dubious as to Public Sector Unions announcing support for political candidates, I don't think this whole plan is a good move.

[Husar]

The market is going to fix all the problems, reduce teachers to minimum wage, there are still enough people who have no education but would be willing to teach your kids for minimum wage.
If you can't find any, then look to Mexico, they should have some, think of all the tax dollars you can save!

More seriously, I think it's a delicate subject and whether the teachers are doing well is very much up to anyone's interpretation of what makes a good teacher. If you pay too badly, then you will most likely run out of teacher, similarly to what I just said above, just not as extreme. The measure taken to get more then will be to lower the entry requirements, you can easily see what that leads to.
Merit-based pay just means the clever teachers who know that they're not supervised 24/7 will give the students hints as to what to expect in exams, everybody will love them but the students won't have learned a lot. I've had a teacher who asked us to grade ourselves, I think everybody got exactly that grade, it wasn't the most important course and his pay didn't depend on it but now imagine that it would...
Before that last crisis the banks had merit-based pay, which is why all the employees gave loans to people who didn't deserve them, just to get bonuses and benefits, right?
That's not to say it can't be useful, but one has to think of all the consequences this can have, you can't just claim it's a universal problem-solver.

[Lemur]

More seriously, I think it's a delicate subject and whether the teachers are doing well is very much up to anyone's interpretation of what makes a good teacher.

Side note: This is Wisconsin, so the schools are excellent on the whole. I have a very portable sort of career, and could live most anywhere. I choose to live here in large part because of the outstanding schools. We have the kinds of schools California used to have before they voted themselves out of them.

So some of the comments about how horrible and useless and outdated public education is ... well, they sound like they're talking about someplace else. WI still has a great eucation system.

[Hosakawa Tito]

From the Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Walker, elected last fall as part of a sweep that also gave the GOP control of both houses of the legislature, last week proposed a "budget repair" bill to address a deficit of $137 million in the current budget and a projected shortfall of $3.6 billion in the next two years.
The measure would limit collective-bargaining rights for most workers—except police, firefighters and others involved in public safety—and require state employees, who currently pay little or nothing toward their pensions, to contribute 5.8% of their pay to pensions, and pay at least 12.6% of health-care premiums, up from an average of 6%.
In exchange, Mr. Walker has pledged no layoffs or furloughs for the state's 170,000 public employees. He has said 5,500 state jobs and 5,000 local jobs would be saved under his plan, which would save $30 million in the current budget and $300 million in the two-year budget that begins July 1.

The math is simple enough. I don't agree that they must or should give up collective bargaining rights. Collective bargaining only guarantee's the right to negotiate terms "in good faith", it's not a gun held to either party's head. Blaming workers for using the system & rules that management bargained for and agreed to without management accepting their own responsibility and contribution to the crisis is typically political=deceitful. Management has the right to manage, however they have no right to mismanage.

Exempting Public Safety departments from the loss of collective bargaining is a typical "divide & conquer" management strategy. Hell, they try to do that within departments all the time. Try requiring different tiers of pay & benefits of management & politicians for doing the same job and listen to them howl.
There needs to be reform and true "shared sacrifice", top to bottom in state & federal government. Unfortunately, the top will try and take everything needed to cover the shortfall from the rest, and not give up anything themselves.

Pump That Irony: The lifeblood of the teaching industry is evaluation (A, B, C, etc.). In the history of teaching, there have been about 10 million 10 billion complaints by students that the grading was unfair, and virtually every single complaint was rejected, usually summarily. Now, U.S. News magazine, and a higher-education advisory group are combining to evaluate the 1,000 U.S. teachers' colleges, and it seems there is no indignation quite like teachers' indignation at being evaluated. The criteria are unfair, they say, and not relevant to excellence. Their solution: All evaluators need to go away until they can come up with criteria that are perfect.

Devastatin Dave
The "just a union" that brought their students out of the classroom to assist in the protest? Yes, a stranglehold on the children is an appropriate term for this issue.
I'm a product of public education. One year in history in my junior year our history teacher let us watch "Cops" every day. My government teacher in my senior year did the same thing. In fact, I could have skipped senior high all together because it was a complete waste. Sure, some of responsibility is on me but when a "professional" teacher offers you the choice of watching TV or protesting over actually learning anything, what is a teen going to choose...
Its time to stop this notion of the "honorable" profession known as the public school teacher. The majority are no less than you average welfare leach except they go to work half the year, recieve an offensively large pension paid by the tax payers, and still the US goes lower every year in tests compared to other countries. #### the public school teacher. They can "collectively" ...

Taking personal responsibility for ending up licking the rear window on the short-bus of life.