Unions: The Ally of the People.

The only “attack” I see is #1? #7 could possibly be, but look at what the arbitration process was for teachers, i.e. the “rubber room” thing and the 23+ step process for trying to remove a lousy one. (Btw, they eventually removed the rubber rooms but the union did “little to change the arduous process of firing teachers, particularly ineffective ones” according to the NYT.)

As for the remaining six points, what’s the problem? The fact that #4 – payroll deductions – is even being highlighted as “union busting” is a joke. Payroll admin is a significant company expense. Why should it be something that a company pays for yet has to provide free of charge to the unions, especially if they’re adversarial? Why should the union be entitled to that? Besides, if the unions are so “organized”, then they should be organized enough to collect checks from their own members with their own administration and on their own dime.

I agree that the excuse for the bill is lame and disingenuous (saying it’s entirely because of “fiscal restraint” is like us saying Libya is for “humanitarian reasons”), but to call it simply “union busting” is just as lame and disingenuous as well, in my opinion. Anyone who seriously thinks that “big union” power shouldn’t be reigned in just as much as “big business” power should be is drinking union kool-aid. Case in point, I don’t see how #2-#8 are unreasonable (again, except for maybe #7), but when they all get lumped in together and dismissed as “union busting” it sounds like the same sensationalist crap as when the right calls Obamacare “socialism” or the left calls anyone against Obama’s Libya policy “racism”.

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“Honestly, if it is so hard to fire a teacher, negotiate for different terms.”
Ha! Have you ever negotiated with a union, or been in the room when they’re negotiating with a company? Unions make that FAR easier said than done, especially public ones. Part of the reason for that is their ties to federal politics while they are adversarial to state politics. They’re not stupid, and they’re certainly not victims 99.9% of the time. They get their rubber rooms and job banks specifically because of the power they yield behind the “we’re the victims and we’re powerless” facade they constantly promote in front of the cameras.

Again, I refer here to overreaching abuse of power. You make it sound like the only way higher wages are achieved are through a union. The non-union market regularly proves that this is not true. Wage increases are discussed and agreed to in every non-union interview before a job is ever accepted. Furthermore, teachers in DC were offered significantly higher wages if they gave up ridiculously easy and often undeserved job security via tenure. Guess what? The AFT wouldn’t even allow a vote on it. Shocker. You don’t think higher wages would have brought better teachers into DC? I think Rhee was bang-on with what she tried to do there, and the efforts of people like Canada and Kipp highlighted in the “Waiting For Superman” film show there is a better, proven way that – let’s face fact here – unions are TOTALLY against.

Or let’s take Wisconsin. Average teacher compensation at retirement is $100k. That increased substantially over a 10-year period, yet over that same 10-year period students saw little to no improvement. They have an only 68% graduation rate. What was the justification, then, for the increase? Cost of living? My ass. The real answer? Entitlement alone.

Find me any job in Wisconsin in the private sector where you can earn $100k (average teacher wage in Milwaukee = $86k for 9 months of work), get free health care and a pension for life, and work the same hours that the teachers do. Show me a private sector job where employees currently don’t have to pay ANYTHING towards their own health care and pension costs. It’s not a bad gig that they have right now, and it makes sense that they’ll do anything to protect what got them that gig, but at what cost to everyone else? And, btw, the right to negotiate beyond cost of living increases and so forth still exists, it would happen by citizen vote rather than a union forcing it.

As for the pensions, look where many of the union-forced wage and pension increases have led to (add ridiculous union-negotiated disability benefits as well). I’m not going to go as far as to say they’ve bankrupted any state, but it’s obvious that the cost is both unjustifiable and unsustainable, and who FORCES them regardless? Unions do. I’m not necessarily anti-union, but I’m anti-special-treatment, especially right now in our current economic times.

“Nothing like trying to attract the best and the brightest to educate the future generations of Wisconsin people”
Again, you make it seem like the only way the best are attracted to a job is through a union. If the school boards need to attract better teachers then they can make wages and comp packages attractive to them just as any small business would in order to compete. Fortunately, small businesses have far more ability to cut loose the dead weight and free up that capital to spend on good people rather than being forced to keep that dead weight on. Does this happen in public unions? Does the dead weight get removed? Of course not, and they pride themselves on it because it’s “protecting jobs”. Right there proves that a unions’ #1 concern is NOT the economy, nor is it truly education in the case of teachers. It’s about protecting power.

I’m all for a fair medium in these public union vs. state negotiations, no matter where they are. I’m also for their contracts being fully disclosed for the public to decide upon on the merits of the contracts themselves, not simply backing a teachers union because “I happen to be a unionized plumber so whatever the union says must be right” kind of mentality.

I’ll point out that I’m also not a big supporter of the State in this, either. Check out Bill Gates’ TED talk on State budgets, and how the numbers are manipulated. It’s sickening. It doesn’t, however, mean that unions should have the power to thug-negotiate whatever the hell they want, everyone else be damned in the meantime. Both sides of the equation need to be changed, and blanket support of unions is not the way to do it.

How state budgets are breaking US schools: Bill Gates on TED.com

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