"The Chicago Teachers Union is asking for raises amounting to 30 percent over the next two years, the opening salvo in heated contract negotiations with school officials who are implementing a longer school day across Chicago Public Schools next school year."
NO public employees, including teachers, should be allowed to unionize, period.
ReplyDeleteHowever, so long as it funnels money from the taxpayers into the Democrat campaign funds, it will always be allowed, and always be painted as a 'good' thing.
And how you nasty, hating conservatives could possibly be against we poor little unionists (who generally make more from your taxes, and certainly FAR better benefits, than you) is just totally beyond my poor ability to understand.
Amen.
DeleteA group of us sat down recently with an entrepreneur who is building a software product for public schools. Just reviewing the sad state of education with him gave us the mads. Poor guy probably gets this a lot - prospective investors ranting about the poor state of public education. Not this guy's fault - he's trying to improve it - but if you are of the opinion that things are bad, and are interested in getting the straight dope from someone with a well informed opinion... yeah, things are bad.
The good news is that there are some school districts which actually give a shit about improving their teaching and their students' learning. Those that do, love this guys product.
The bad news is that it isn't clear that this market is big enough for this guy to expand his user base.
Dances ... public employee unionization is not the problem per se. It is the "rights" accorded them by politicians in government. No public union should have the "right" to strike, negotiate wages and salaries, nor determine benefits. As taxpayer funded units, the wage/benefit responsibility belongs to legislative branches. Period. The public union does collectively bargain, and can and should act, to assure safe and sound working conditions and work rules. That's it. period. For the public union.
ReplyDeleteFederal GS and WG grade employees have an AFL-CIO affiliated union, and they do NOT have those rights I proscribed above, nor is dues deduction automatic ... although it can be elected if the member so chooses. Membership is NOT mandatory, either, although the union is required to represent all GS employees member or not within a bargaining unit.
This whole public and service industry union rights debate crap began with the take over of union majorities by unions like SIEU. The AFL-CIO honcho today, Trumka, and has NO dirty fingernail experience, although he "claims" mine worker in his resume ... oddly his time as a mine worker coincided with his full time college attendance, including law school, after which he went to work as a lawyer for the UMWA (mineworkers). No more a mine worker than James P. Hoffa (the son) was a truck driver.
Trust me, their only real concern is political and is the collection of dues ... when it is not a mandatory deduction, they go bonkers and say it is for "collective bargaining" reasons, when it is really entirely over mandatory dues collection.
Unions like the SIEU, et al., do NOT have apprenticeship programs, where beginners can earn while they learn (what a concept!), and subsequently meet requirements for Journeyman certification ... a necessary and worthwhile function for the skilled trades. When a job opening requires "experience", they have it. You do not want plumbers or electricians to be home schooled using the Reader's Digest Home Handyman Book ... even more important for iron workers, riggers, millwrights, machinists, et al. where lack of skill, and experience, can get somebody killed. The experience comes from the apprenticeship and supervised on-the-job mentoring.
The public unions that have lost certain rights they never should have had do not want to compete for membership or rely on member voluntary dues payment. Least of all do they want to provide a service to their members let alone government.
The current "news" vis a vis AFGE, the federal employee union, is that they are "upset" with an 0.8% increase in their pension contribution. Well, that they may be, although I've not heard it and I am in daily contact with plenty of Feds. Fact is, the AFGE does NOT have bargaining rights over pension contributions and Congress can do as it pleases in the matter. In other words, all media smoke, no fire.
DeleteNever mind that about 75% of federal pensions now are social security and whatever proceeds there are from 401k's...and have been that way for anyone hired in the 25 years or so. Somehow that little fact never makes in to the news, electronic or print.
What is ludicrous is that the 0.8% increase is allegedly to offset the 10 month continuation of the "tax holiday" for the Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes for everyone. Human nature makes it something a federal employee might question, eh? Still, they have NO influence over it. None. Nada. Zot. The union cannot, by definition, do anything but complain. Period.
A temporary tax of such short duration is nothing more than a bribe for the upcoming election. It will engender no new jobs or investment...it's coming back as sure as sunrise. Never mind the nonsense of such a "holiday" on a system that is allegedly going broke ... why sure, cut the revenue, go broke faster.
Gobsmacking idiocy that will soon ruin us ... now tell me again who pays their "fair share" of taxes? And who doesn't.
ReplyDeleteimgw:"http://weaselzippers.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CDA-2012-index-dependence-govt-chart-1_732-552x1024-550x1020.jpg"
H/T Weasel Zippers
From a source I could not verify, I should note that about 16% or so of the 49.5% is purportedly retirees living solely on Social Security stipends ... which are payments from a fund (alleged ... though nothing but paper IOU's today) that is accumulated by taxes on PRE-TAX income (taxed twice, once for SSA/Medicare and once again for Adjusted Gross Income including the money paid in to SSA) over the years...e.g., you need to make it to about 89 years of age to start receiving any "net gains" on your prior deposits. Until a gain is realized, the SSA payments should not be taxed.
DeleteNow, if the feds want to adjust my monthly SSA "returns" for inflation from 1955 prices ($0.29/gal gasoline, $0.18 per loaf bread, $0.03 first class postage, et al.) we can talk about me paying additional taxes on such "gains." As it is, outside of SSA stipends, I still pay 10+% income tax on average, depending upon what net distributions I take in a given year. Trust me I am hardly "rich" and no longer anywhere near (not even remotely) the magic $250K level the Jug Eared messiah seems to adore.
Sadly, it is also worthy of note that the biggest rise occurred in the Bush 43 years. Obamameister will not make any changes, however, so it is what it is ... shitty.
Deleteimg:"http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y117/floranista/Obamataxplan.jpg"
ReplyDeleteGood one.
DeleteCalling help-desk! Has something happened to the picture embedding code? I saw florrie's picture yesterday but today all I'm seeing is the line of html. Is it me or you?
ReplyDeleteAlso I used to be able to subscribe to a post's comments by email, (i.e. get an email if someone commented on a post) but I can't see the check-box any more.
ReplyDeleteannie, I'll check the picture codez in just a second - but there is a "subscribe" link (not a check box) below the lower right corner of the comment posting box.
Delete...aaaand it's fixed.
DeleteIndeed there was a very small change to the HTML which blogger used for the comments. This was throwing off my picture-hack javascript - very easy fix, though.
(Comment bodies are now wrapped with a "paragraph" element as opposed to a "blockquote" element, if you must know. No idea why blogger suddenly changed this).
Good thing we outsourced QA to the Israelis! This way we can escalate, fix, and deploy the patches overnight so the US doesn't see any downtime. Awesome! Thanks annie!
You know I'm really just a hobby programmer but having even a tiny bit of code "in production" makes me totally respect those people who not only write stuff but keep it working 24x7...
LOL Lewy! I am very happy to serve as the Kitchen's QA, crawling through the mangled undergrowth of botched html, fighting off aggressive spatulas and malicious egg-beaters, all for the greater good of my Kuisine Komrades. :))
DeleteAnyway, thanks for the fix. (Hmm, that sounds sort of wrong..). I may be the overseas outsourced QA dept but you are really on the frontline! Although I didn't understand a word of what you wrote. Why is blogger's comment widget so complicated, or is that only because of the pictures?
Re the subscribe link - I discovered it only appears if I'm signed in to google. Otherwise there is no subscribe link besides Atom which I don't understand how it works and don't use.
Delete