Wisconsin teachers

[ryoder]

I'm sorry but these teachers need to live with their eight percent cut in pay and get in line with the real world. They are trying to make it out to be a civil rights issue but I guess they don't care about the kids education and only care about their pay.

I'll probably consider homeschooling my kids if and when I have them. The entitlement mentality is crazy.

These teachers have Cadillac healthcare plans that cost twenty-four thousand per person that has a family. They are being asked to pay around ten percent of that cost and they call in sick and go picket.

They are holding up signs with hitler on them. It's getting ridiculous.

[MA2]

All civil service workers seem to think their elite for whatever reason... we can't afford to pay someone's pension for 40 years if they only work for 20.

[williamfrancais]

It is not about the money but eliminating collective bargaining. Also the Wisconsin Gov. refused to negotiate, consider higher taxes or anything else he went straight for teachers pay. We say we need more teachers, I imagine we just lost more potential teachers.

[blu2blu]

Yankees and their unions will be the end of us. Keep on striking comrades Lenin and Stalin would be proud (in theory anyway, in practice Stalin would have them all executed!)

[ryoder]

Here in Tampa a firefighter is well paid and after 20 years of service is eligible for a 1 million dollar lump sum pension!

[ryoder]

Check out this town, their pension is worth even more. There truly are two classes here, the govt/ union class and the private class. Those of us in the private sector pay for everyone elses free ride and retirement.
Average Schaumburg Firefighter Pension Increased to $2.5 Million Per Employee

[burbuja0512]

I'm extremely torn on the issue of unions and see both sides of why the teachers are fighting.

I've worked in the corporate world both in the US and out of the country, and I can tell you that large companies will chew you up and spit you out. They will lay you off and outsource your job to India without a thought or care. There really does need to be some protection for the worker.

However.. for a brief stint early in my B2B career, I was in a union environment and I thought it was horrible. The department wasn't making their sales goals, so we all had to come in on Saturdays until our group numbers were up. I was WAY over plan and asked my boss why I was forced to come in to make up for poor performance when I wasn't having problems. She told me that due to union regulations, they couldn't single people out. Are you kidding me? In sales.. ummmm that's dumb... punish your top salespeople? Needless to say I didn't stay there long and they lost one of their top sales people because of the union environment. Oh, but the mediocre folks stayed and didn't mind working Saturdays..

So, I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I wouldn't want us to go back to pre-collective bargaining days, but on the other hand, corporate employees get laid off typically rather than getting the option to take a pay cut, so it's nice that the teachers do have a choice. However, even the mail room clerk at a large company makes more than many teachers do and in many places teachers are required to have Master's level education. No clue as to how some of them pay off student loans on their salaries.

[MA2]

Unions cause unemployment. Sure it's great to have a union job, but GM can't afford to pay some idiot $40 an hour to screw in headlights just because he's worked there 30 years. No wonder they went under... but it's ok, we bailed them out, and paid their CEO's a big bonus.

[burbuja0512]

Unions cause unemployment. Sure it's great to have a union job, but GM can't afford to pay some idiot $40 an hour to screw in headlights just because he's worked there 30 years. No wonder they went under... but it's ok, we bailed them out, and paid their CEO's a big bonus.

So we would probably agree that something needs to be done, but it's tricky. On one hand we have unions breeding mediocrity and wages that could be too high to keep firms competitive. And it brings the taxpayers into the equation once it's the govt employees being overpaid.

About the CEO's... that's just an unrelated issue making the entire country angry. I'm pretty sure that management can't be part of the union. It just proves the point that large corporations are shady. They will lay you off in a heartbeat if it means a few more bucks in their CEO's pocket.

When I complain about politics, I usually have an idea of what I think should be done. But in this situation I don't. Some way to make things fair for the workers (basic human/work rights) without people feeling entitled to make more money than the rest of us.... not sure what that is.

I will be studying for the ECE Labor Relations after I'm done with Finance. I must admit that I was dreading it and now I'm actually looking forward to it!

[skybirds]

The Ontario Teachers Union in Canada is a pamperred bunch. They
make 90K a year with a 60K pension. The dollar is on par. The union
had an uprising a couple weeks ago. The Canadian International Developmmeny
Agency stopped funding their summer volunteer work vacation overseas
The teachers received full salary as well as a stipend, free housing and
airfare.