By: Tim
I am certainly no slavering fan of unions. I would say that I generally tolerate them as a sometimes necessity. Sometimes, especially in the manufacturing industry (the auto industry specifically) they help to kill our competitive edge over other nations by over compensating low-skill labor. But this blind attack on teacher unions and other public sector unions has been disturbing. Do we really think our financial problems stem from over paying teachers? Are Republicans like Chris Christie crazy? Okay, so public sector employees have good health care that they don't pay much for while most private sector employees are seeing the health care get worse and more expensive. Take that fact by itself and you've got what looks like unfair conditions. Here's the other part: teachers' (and other public employees) salaries' suck. Especially when you divide up the workforce by education level, like this graph does for Wisconsin.
I agree that our education system has serious problems and unions are a part of this. They make it extremely hard to fire failing teachers and favor older teachers over younger teachers. Serious adjustments and curtailing of union power are needed to reform the education system. Significantly cutting the pay of teachers is NOT the answer. Do we really expect to attract better teachers by paying them less or cutting their benefits? Get real. Get back to me when you have a real solution for balancing the budget, Republicans.
I am certainly no slavering fan of unions. I would say that I generally tolerate them as a sometimes necessity. Sometimes, especially in the manufacturing industry (the auto industry specifically) they help to kill our competitive edge over other nations by over compensating low-skill labor. But this blind attack on teacher unions and other public sector unions has been disturbing. Do we really think our financial problems stem from over paying teachers? Are Republicans like Chris Christie crazy? Okay, so public sector employees have good health care that they don't pay much for while most private sector employees are seeing the health care get worse and more expensive. Take that fact by itself and you've got what looks like unfair conditions. Here's the other part: teachers' (and other public employees) salaries' suck. Especially when you divide up the workforce by education level, like this graph does for Wisconsin.
I agree that our education system has serious problems and unions are a part of this. They make it extremely hard to fire failing teachers and favor older teachers over younger teachers. Serious adjustments and curtailing of union power are needed to reform the education system. Significantly cutting the pay of teachers is NOT the answer. Do we really expect to attract better teachers by paying them less or cutting their benefits? Get real. Get back to me when you have a real solution for balancing the budget, Republicans.
Well, it would make a serious dent in the budget deficit, would it not?
ReplyDeleteThose teachers make more than I do, and I don't feel as if asking them to contribute toward their benefits is asking too much.