Teachers Strike. Seriously? Teachers, feel free to chime in here.

The BBQ Pit
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Teachers in this far Chicago southwest suburban town went on strike. You hear about this all the time, but this just struck me wrong somehow, so here we are.

So what I’m left to wonder is, who the teachers think they are? Strike? Are you kidding me? You work 9.5 months a year, (after summer break, spring break, winter break and various other ‘institute days’) you have weekends and holidays off, and work in a simple, lilly white, nearly crime-free suburb. You don’t work in the sweltering heat, the freezing cold, or any other element for that matter. You rarely, if ever have to work overtime because your relief didn’t show, and if you’re sick, they have at-will part-time personnel to cover you. OK, so maybe you’re not making 60k a year after all that schooling, and maybe your benefits suck, and sure, some of you have to deal with outdated texts, substandard supplies, and shrinking budgets, and let’s not forget that you’re on the side of the angels here, you’re molding young minds, after all… :rolleyes:

Bollocks to all of it. ALL OF IT. You knew it was going to suck when you signed up. If you didn’t bother to research the salary and benefits packages when you made your choices, that IS NOT MY PROBLEM, it’s YOURS.

You (and I) are servants of the public, we’re guardians of the public trust, the public pays our salaries, and taxes fund each and every thing we do. So I’m asking, how is it that you think that actually walking out on the students you’re entrusted with is an OK thing to do? You think it’s a comfort to me knowing that I’m running my fat ass into a burning building with protective equipment made by the LOWEST BIDDER? I mean Jesus Christ on a Trampoline people, the taxpayers depend on you to take charge of thier children so they can go WORK, you see, and make money to pay both my, and your SALARIES. I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with you academic, elitist, union shitbirds; fuck you, you tweed-bound tenure sponges, get back to work.

note: I have no kid in the district, this just pisses me off

2

You don’t know shit about teachers.

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And neither do you apparantly or you’d tell us.

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Gee. That was illuminating, wasn’t it Dio? Rather than offer a counterpoint to the points buttonjockey308 made, you play the dismissive card, as you’re so far above us all. Fuck you, pal. You couldn’t carry his tools, :wally

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OK, Dio educate me. Since I “don’t know shit” set me right.

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A group of laborers who have wisely formed a union, and as per the most basic tenets of the free market are increasing the value of their labor?

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True enough, but also they’re an essential group of state and locally funded employees who ought to have a no-strike/no-lockout clause in their contract.

FYI, I’m not anti-union, in fact, I’m a union shop steward.

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Sorry, I don’t buy it. If the public were so concerned with teachers, the public could stop cutting school budgets and expecting them to work without reasonable compensation. The public could offer a decent contract that would assure themselves of teachers and the teachers of jobs that wouldn’t evaporate when some politician decided to cut the budget.

If teachers are walking out on students in classrooms, it’s because some idiot wrote a contract that terminated in the middle of the school year. They aren’t under any obligation to stay at a job they’re not being fairly compensated for. And trying to use the kids as bargaining chips is cheap. The teachers have to negociate their contracts when the old ones are up. If they choose to strike, that’s their prerogative. And while you may piss and moan about the summers off and the early afternoons, you don’t get to decide what fair compensation means. If it were as cushy a job as you say, I imagine more people would be lined up to do it.

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If you truly believe that teachers only work 9-5, and don’t work weekends and holidays, then you are sadly, sadly deluded.

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Educator here chiming in:

First off, it’s a job. Yes, it’s an important one. Yes, educating children is a sacred duty. But, no, I don’t have to take a vow of poverty in order to be a teacher. Nor do I have to refrain from asking for more money during my time teaching. Nor do I have to continue working if I believe it to be unfair.

Second, your insinuations that due to vacation hours and such teachers do some ‘lesser’ sort of work while students’ parents are doing the real work in order to pay us, is somewhat distasteful.

So yeah, I work where I want, as I want, and I’m free to ask for however much money I want. If you do not like the fact that teachers aren’t second class citizens, ah well.

P.S. Teaching is a very hard job, and many of the teachers I know are amongst the hardest working people I’ve ever met.

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I’ve done it. have you?

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Are they kidding you?

Are YOU kidding US? No overtime? You’re right, they don’t get overtime, they work after hours on their own time and on their supposed “breaks” they are frequently in the school taking care of business while the students are having fun. They buy supplies out of their own pockets. Not work in the blistering heat or freezing cold? Ever try standing outside during recess listening to the deafening shrieks of the devilspawn that is today’s youth at 105 in the shade? Have some brat puke on your shoes? (not me, some other poor sub), try to control 30 bored 2nd graders?

Just the fact that they have to deal with the ill-behaved delinquents that seem to make up a good percentage of American children in this day and age is enough that they should rate hazard pay.

Heck, I was only one of those at will substitutes you speak of. And only for a very short imterim period before I moved back home from Texas. It is NOT an easy job. It’s so far from easy I can’t think of a venomous enough reply to that bit of idiocy.

Look, in my normal job? I DO work in the freezing cold, and brave bears in remote uninhabited areas of Alaska, among other things. And it is GOOD, and fun, quite fascinating at times. It’s sometimes dangerous too, I’ve been in charge of removing hazardous materials from fire-damaged structures, like say a gas cylinder. Kinda unnerving to wrap your arms around that baby while steadying it for the crane lifting it from the burnout wreckage.

But I’ll tell you what, as physically and mentally demanding as my job can be from time to time, it hasn’t 1/1000th the stress factor of teaching. My job pays worth what I do, and it’s reasonably prestigious and interesting, I have NEVER had someone look down their nose at my job, as you have here at teachers, and assume that they knew what I was worth, or what my job entailed. And I’d stand out in 60 below weather up in Prudhoe inventorying safety and spill equipment in a HEARTbeat before I’d take the relatively low-paying and extremely stressful job that is teaching.

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**
I disagree. “The public” isn’t cutting budgets, the budgets are being cut, in many cases, because the tax base is sliding, as a direct result of the economy. Politicians do not cut budgets, most school districts are taxing bodies and run by groups of people (i.e. school boards) rather than one politician. And you’re right, no one is forcing them to stay, they can leave whenever they’d like, but they damn sure ought not punish the kids and inconvenience their parents by striking. informational pickets? Damn right. Strike? Bollocks.

I’m not pissing and moaning about any benefits i’m not getting. I knew the job was dangerous and lowpaying when I took it, but if we’re comparing work environments, I’m pretty damn certain that no one standing in front of a classroom will trade places and stand in my size 15’s on a structure fire in the middle of January.

Agreed, and I’m sorry if that’s what you took away from my rant. It was never my intent to paint teachers as second class citizens. In fact, I know a few teachers, and realize how dedicated they are to the kids, but the fact that they can impact 1700 families by walking off the job is shitty and weak, especially when they’re as important to the public good as any other public servant. Not to mention that this group has been without a contract since June, which means they’ve had ample time (both the district AND the union) to hammer this out. Shame on both of them for that.

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  1. Weekends off? I don’t know one of my teacher friends who has a “weekend off” during the school year.

  2. Isn’t it nice to attract quality people to teaching? Isn’t nice, too, to retain those quality people? Good contracts (ie good pay, good benefits, etc) does just that. If we made it clear to those holding the public purse-strings that the education of our children is of the utmost importance, maybe they would earmark more public funds for our schools. It’s about priorities. These workers are coming together to make sure the kids are a public priority.

  3. You’re a fireman, I respect that. You do a job that I couldn’t. You’re also most likely in a union. And thanks to the collective bargaining you and your fellow firefighters employ, you have the benefits and pay that you do. You may not be able to strike at a negotiation impasse, but as public servants, you-- with the support of other labor groups-- can put political pressure on those holding the purse strings. You can’t strike, but you can lobby. And if your union is worth anything, you damn well better believe it’s doing just that. And if it’s not, it’s up to you and your co-workers to change that.

  4. Strikes are always the absolute last resort. It costs the workers money, so they don’t want to do it. It costs the union-at-large money, so the leadership doesn’t necessarily want it to happen either. No one makes the workers “walk off.” They, after much deliberation, vote to strike. These people who just voted to strike in this school district are dedicated to these kids, and whatever the sticking point in negotiations is, must somehow be jeopardizing the well-being of the continued quality education of these kids. (See #2 above)

  5. The sticking point in this instance is most likely health insurance, as I know of several teacher negotiations that have had that as a problem in the past couple of years. Most likely, the teachers are being asked to pay more for their benefits. They shouldn’t have to. None of us should. If you had the choice, would you pay more for your health insurance? Health care in this country is a joke right now. If more people collectively made a stink about it, the government would have to do something about it. Right now, the largest health care lobby in America consists of the insurance companies. And lord knows they ain’t gonna lobby to lower costs.

And 6.

The taxpayers also depend on their elected officials to properly allocate funds to public servants, in order to attract and retain the best people to perform their duties-- in this case educate kids. If the teachers just laid back silently and took cuts contract year after contract year, how does that help anyone? Good teachers would leave the district-- or even the profession-- if their take-home kept getting smaller and smaller.

This strike is a way of keeping the public officials accountable to the taxpayers, the public servants, and the kids. Because, you know what, without accountablity, public officials are apt to spend money on some pretty stupid shit.

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Sure, I made some crude comments about the teachers, mostly for comedy, really, but I’m not actually pitting teachers, I’m pitting the strike. If removing gas cylinders from burned out wreckage is your thing, dandy. If it sucks, you leave. Period. You don’t remove an essential government function because you’re pissed off about a low wage. Look, this whole thing boils down to community. If you think you deserve more money, you work toward putting a referendum on the ballot for a raise (as my mother did). If it doesn’t work, sorry about your luck. But to walk off the job, IMO, is tantamount to walking out on the trust the public placed in your profession to begin with.

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You are aware that many times school funding is put to a vote in whatever local district is affected?

Of course they do.
“The federal government will only allocate X dollars, rather than last year’s Y dollars.”

You shouldn’t have added anything else to that sentence.

Isn’t it not only possible, but much more likely that the teachers aren’t out to punish anybody? That, in fact, they care about their students greatly but had their backs up against a wall and took a harsh negotiating tactic?

So you expect the teachers to keep on doing their jobs, with a contract (or without one) that isn’t fair, with no actual ability to change their situation. But they get to carry signs.

Would these signs be paraded on a teacher’s free time? Such that they got slammed doing a job for less pay than it deserved, and then had to get off work and try to get people to see their signs?

And if you thought about it more, you might not be so ready to jump into an overstuffed and underfunded classroom of hormonal teenagers who have no desire to learn from you, let alone sit still or be quiet. Teaching is very hard work. Very frustrating. And it’s precisely the people who care about it the most who often have the hardest time.

You’re still doing it.
I’ll point that out in your next sentences.

Well, which is it? They can go and come as they choose as a first class citizen, or their decisions must be based on the will and the whim of 1700 families?

This is what irks me, I think. And the crux of a second-class view of teachers. Public servant does not mean public slave. One can choose, with no moral connotation at all, to stop a job or to ask for more money. Public servant, or not.

Well, shame on the union and district for not working it out… but if teachers have been without a contract since June, what other remedy are they to take? Evidently they’ve been unable to get what they want. They’re now taking the next step.

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Unless that one politican is the president, who gets legislation passed that mandates an expensive program like “No Child Left Behind,” with slim to no federal assistance, which threatens to withhold additional federal education funds until states comply with it. But idiocy at the federal level…
…Can be remedied with pressure from the state level. And I know states allocate their education funds differently, from shitty in some states to relatively decent in others. But that’s up to the politicians (or voters) to decide. But idiocy at the state level…

…Can be remedied with pressure from the individual districts. And a district administration will be moved to action when faced with labor shutdowns. If the individuals doing the day-to-day educating of the kids make a stink about their working conditions, the districts will make stinks on up to the state legislature and governor, who will make stinks on up to the federal level.

If no one ever makes a stink and does something to fix things, the people with the purse strings will never do anything to fix it.

There is absolutely no seperation of the two.

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Well, my job actually entials a lot more than that. That just happens to be one of the more dangerous aspects of it.

At any rate, way to miss my point. You say in your post to iamthwalrus:

And I was telling you that I prefer to do JUST that, or are firemen the only ones with jobs dangerous enough to be considered above reproach? Oh, and I am a woman, and would STILL prefer to work in remote wilderness areas, and other semi dangerous and/or difficult job types than do the supposedly “easy” job of teaching.

Furthermore, what is wrong with making complaints about your wages and benefits? Are you saying that what they start out at is what they should be satisfied to be locked into for life?

Give us a break, as a union foreman, you know YOURSELF that contracts change, that needs change, that seniority counts just to name a few things.

Whoopdedoo that you’re a big brave fireman (so was my dad, never heard HIM look down on anyone or think they were beneath the right to increase their benefits and wages), that doesn’t mean that only people who do “hard” or “dangrous” jobs (according to you) are allowed to bargain for better pay and conditions.

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As far as you know yeah, as I’ve offered as much proof as you have in this thread.

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A profession with a high degree of trust and responsibility should have a commensurate salary. The only way that teachers can gain some measure of parity in the situation is to take an action that will force government into action, because they sure as hell will not take action unless it involves their own salaries and pension schemes.

See many lawyers, doctors or stockbrokers going on strike? No? Ever wonder why that is, hmm? :wink: Do you consider them to be as valuable members of society as teachers or nurses, without whom you wouldn’t be reading this?