No, it isn’t completely different. It is a semantic distinction. The public should have some say in whether or not the public employees in the union go on strike, because that is a question of how the public institutions are run. The public institutions are what they are striking against.
Teachers are paid for their time out of public funds, and they are paid to teach. They can protest on their own time, and a strike is not on their own time, and is not teaching.
Regards,
Shodan
That’s not a question of how public institutions are run. The public does have some say in whether or not the employees go on strike: they can (via their elected representatives) make it illegal for them to strike.
ETA: You do realize people who are on strike don’t get paid while they’re striking, right?
Does this also apply to police unions?
Yes, why wouldn’t it?
Hopefully you don’t teach civics because you seem to have ignored the fact that the citizens of a democracy are the State.
Yes, you work for us just as police and other public employees work for us.
And what power does that grant you exactly? Do you have any say whatsoever regarding any individual public employee’s job? Saying that public employees “work for” each and every citizen in that state may be something that can be argued to be technically true, but it sure seems like a meaningless declaration. What are the practical effects if we accept your claim? What does that mean in your, mine and Saint Cads actual real life? Is it just something you want to say that you can hold over public employees’ heads to make yourself feel superior? I’m finding this insistence to be pretty odd to say the least.
Also, the argument at hand here is whether the citizens of the state get a say in what the Union does. Do you feel that they do? If so, why?
I was asking Lance because IIRC, he made some extremely strong comments about actions taken by police unions.
Hopefully, he’ll give his explanation.
If I’m wrong and Lance never made such comments and thinks the citizens of say New York, Baltimore, or Chicago should have any say in the actions taken by the police unions of said city.
Also, I’m a citizen of Illinois, and I’m a member of the Chicago Teacher’s Union (as mentioned before though, I’m not actually a teacher. I take care of the tech). Does this mean that I work for myself? That I’m self-employed? I better tell my boss!
Like I said, seems like a pretty meaningless thing to get hung up on.
There’s a difference between “The Police” and the “Police Union” though. Just like there’s a difference between “the schools”, and the “teachers union”.
Citizens can certainly agitate for change in the police or in the schools, but non union members have no say in what the union itself does.
Do you disagree with this? If so why?
Talk to Lance, he’s the one who made comments about police unions not me. Or at least I think he did, if I misremembered, my apologies.
I’ll assume that you were disgusted by people’s comments about the actions take by the New York City police unions.
I generally agree with Sam Stone’s earlier post and merely responded to a couple of fairly foolish posts.
The whole “citizens are the state” thing is really dumb. Citizens are the state AS A WHOLE, but not individually. Therefore, public officials work for those who have been elected as representatives of that collective, not each individual schmo who has an opinion.
So two things:
No? Then I don’t work for you. I am responsible to the public as an aggregate (not YOU personally) that I perform my job according to the professional standards set forth by the State Department of Education and follow the policies set forth by the District Board of Education but being responsible to the citizenry as a whole through such indirect means is not the same as working for a particular individual.
ETA: What ISiddiqui said.
As a non-member, one can certainly disagree with the actions that a union is taking, but that is very different than believing that you actually have a say in what those actions are.
Can you see the difference?
But every individual schmoe has every right in the world to express his or her opinion, in hopes that the elected representatives will correctly direct the union and its members. So people who tell the schmoe “no, this is none of your business” are wrong.
Regards,
Shodan
My, someone had a sore spot that got hit. Sorry, but you do work for the people of Chicago just like the members of the NYPD work for the people of New York.
Sorry if that hurts your ego and their’s. I don’t see why it should though nor why you’re getting so worked up about it.
Why are you talking to me not Lance? He’s the one who stupidly proclaimed that “it’s none of your business” regarding what teacher’s unions did while making it clear he felt it was his business what police unions do.
I would merely say people have as much right to complain about both whether this is criticizing unions for “disrespecting the Mayor of New York” or launching a “strike in Chicago”.
I for one have vastly more sympathy for the former than the latter.
Based on Lance’s logic “no, this is none of your business” and that’s both wrong and childish.
Guys, nobody here has said that you can’t have an opinion on what the unions do.
You do not get a say in what the unions do. You are not a member, so you do not get a vote.
Can you guys really not see the difference in these things? Who has said that you can’t have an opinion? Where did that idea come from? Can you cite the post where anyone said that you can’t have an opinion?
Talk to Lance. He’s the one who rather obnoxiously proclaimed:
And rather childishly insisted:
And this was after he had been telling another union “what it should do.”(again sorry if I misremembered)
And you should talk to Saint who put up a post that is somewhat reminiscent of a young child’s temper tantrum while also showing a rather ironic lack of understanding of civics.
You’re trying to rewrite what both said making more compelling and mature arguments than they are. However you are not making the arguments they made or that I objected to.
I’m speaking for myself actually and responding directly to the things that you, D’Anconia and Shodan have been saying.
Those guys can speak for themselves. But “you have no business telling the union what to do” is pretty much the same as saying that you have no say in what the unions do. You may prefer my less confrontational way of saying it, but its the same thing.
As for Saint Cad, he was replying to D’Anconia asserting that he “works for” D’Anconia. This has been very thoroughly shot down as a very silly and meaningless assertion to make.
So again, who said that you can’t have an opinion on what unions do? All I see is people saying that you are not in a position to tell the union what to do, and that its very silly to think that the average citizen is the boss of every public employee. Which of these two things are you arguing against? Do you think that non-members should get to vote on what unions decide to do? Do you literally see yourself as the actual boss of every public employee in your state? You just keep asserting that you do get to have an opinion on union actions, but that doesn’t seem to be relevant to either of the things being discussed. Nobody has said that you are not allowed to have an opinion. I still don’t see where you are getting that idea.
That’s a rather impressive amount of straw you’re gathering. Anyway, as mentioned I was responding to Lance and Saint Cad’s arguments not your’s.
Start making the arguments that they made and then perhaps we’ll have a discussion. Until then, not much point since no one was making the straw men you’re trying to construct.