There’s no straw in that post at all. You are the one not addressing the actual arguments being made. As I illustrated in my last post, Its not what they are saying, its that you just don’t seem to like the way they said it. Also, I don’t know why I’m bound to argue on behalf of those other guys. I’m my own person, you can treat me as an individual, I’m not on a debate team with them. Really though, if you don’t want to debate me, and you’re more comfortable talking to those other guys then just say so. But don’t accuse me of being intellectually dishonest to get out of having to respond. That’s just lame.
The content of my last post is all 100% valid and relevant to this discussion. To just throw out the name of a logical fallacy and act like that ends the debate? Pretty weak sauce.
So long as the union has a monopoly on labor negotiations, and teachers are not allowed to opt out of the union, and teacher salary (taxpayer money) has to pay union dues, then the public absolutely has a right to oversee how the unions are run.
In this case, the unions are essentially being funded directly by the taxpayers. The current funding system is exactly the same as if you just paid teachers minus the dues, and gave the unions a big cheque from the government based on how many members they had.
If you want full autonomy in the union, make dues optional, and allow teachers to opt out of union support. Then you’d have a much stronger case for autonomy.
It’s already offensive that mandatory dues are collected from teachers and then used in part for political lobbying for causes they may not believe in. That should stop. Or at least, the teachers should be able to opt out of percentage of dues that goes into political lobbying.
This is a great wish list for you to ask your representatives to try to enact, but this is not the current state of the law. You may want this to be the way things are, but this is not, in fact, the way things currently are so … good luck I guess?
No, you didn’t “illustrate what they said” you rewrote what they said so what they said wasn’t stupid.
Anyway if it will make you feel better, I have no objections to the argument you wish they’d made and think it’s been obvious from the beginning.
For that matter, I actually don’t even disagree with the teacher’s union in this case and especially don’t understand Cad’e earlier hissy fit of a post because my mother was a teacher and never would have gotten upset by such arguments.
I have rephrased to the best of my ability the arguments that were made without the confrontational tone. The content of what I’ve been saying is the same. I don’t know how to make that any clearer.
As far the “hissy fit”. If some random person off the street came to you and said, hey I’m your boss. you work for me. What would you say? Probably something to the effect of “the hell you are!”. I’m sorry you were offended that they got offended by that.
Really? That’s not the way most professional unions operate. They have multiple mandates - to represent their members of course, but also to establish rules of practice, to guarantee minimum levels of competency to employers, etc. My brother’s trade union manages drug tests, mandates recurrent training, monitors safety and changes safety rules, does the HR work for the companies that use them, etc. In exchange for those services and for maintaining standards of quality, they negotiate higher wages for their employees than they could get for themselves, so people voluntarily join.
And that’s the big difference - in my province, no one is forced to work in a union, and businesses are not forced to deal with them. This puts the right checks and balances into collective bargaining. But of course, that’s in the private sector, where all sides ultimately understand that if you try to milk the company too hard, it’ll go out of business or stop dealing with you and absorb the pain of hiring independent contractors. And the companies understand that paying more for union workers can be beneficial because it guarantees a stable, high quality workforce and offloads a lot of management burdens.
All that goes out the window when you make the unions mandatory, and force people into them and force them to pay the dues whether they like it or not. Then you get bloat, corruption, and the union’s focus becomes more about electing politicians who will keep the gravy train going than actually helping the kids.
But if you want the union to focus only on the teachers, that’s fine by me. Let’s ban union lobbying and financing of political candidates anywhere above the municipal level. There’s no reason at all that teachers’ unions should be heavily funding federal political candidates - especially since they are ultimately doing it with taxpayer money.
Because every fucking moron with an agenda thinks they can tell a teacher how to do their job better because “You work for me.” or “I pay your salary.” or “You’re sucking off the public tit.” or other stupid shit. There is absolutely no way you can equate “public employee” with working for the citizens EXCEPT elected officials. Working for means that you as a citizen have some sort of direct oversight of what I do, have input on my job description, set my salary, can punish me if I do not follow your rules, etc.
Just curious why you think I work for you? Because I get paid out of taxes? Then do I work for EVERY PERSON IN AMERICA because most schools pay for teachers out of Federal education funds in addition to state funds. Oh and that means that just about EVERY EMPLOYEE of EVERY DEFENSE CONTRACTOR works for me because they get paid indirectly through Federal tax money?
So explain to me exactly why I work for you and D’Anaconia and when are you two going to give me a raise?
So does that mean you are willing to pay us for everything we do in regards to teaching which we currently do for free? Like the papers I correct on my time for free? Or the curriculum planning I do on my time for free? Or the test/project/etc. I write up on my time for free? Or the professional development I do on my time for free and often pay for myself? I have done things to help out my school to improve the level of education for free that - no lie - they pay outside people thousands of dollars to do.
Oh and we don’t get paid when we are on strike. You know people like you remind me when us teachers in LAUSD were thinking of going on strike at the same time the custodians union (private not school custodians) actually went on strike. The attitude was how dare us teachers strike for the tools to do our job (teaching) better but everyone supported the custodians getting $12/hr.
Is that because the public doesn’t pay the private custodial companies or is it just that people that mop up shit for a living are thought of as more deserving than teachers?
So, to be clear you feel that you and the Chicago police don’t “work for me” and I have no right to “tell you[or the Chicago police] how to do your job”.
Sorry, but you guys do work for us and we do have the right to tell you guys how to do your job.
Presumably you object to the idea that the police work for the people they police, but they do and hate “morons with agendas” who think they “have a right” to tell police “how to do their job.”
Is there a particular reason you’re so upset about the idea that you work for the people of Chicago?
Do you feel that you’re somehow better than them and that suggesting you work for them is demeaning to you?
Also, again, based on the arguments you’re putting forth, community activists in Baltimore who complain about police brutality and say “you work for us” “we pay your salary” and “we have a right to tell you how to do your job” are “morons with an agenda” who are “Poking their nose where they have no business”.
If you disagree then please explain why such complaints regarding say the Baltimore or Chicago PD are valid but they’re invalid regarding Chicago teachers.
Once again, my mother was an excellent teacher and she’d never have gotten angry about someone mentioning that she worked for the parents of her students. Why does it upset you so much?
Teachers’ salaries are not public money. They are paid from public monies. I’m especially surprised to hear this come from somebody on the “taxes belong to the people” side of the aisle.
It is in the US. Most unions here don’t operate as guilds or certifying bodies, though trade unions have apprenticeships and the like.
Going around saying “you work for us” is nothing but a nice platitude. It doesn’t actually have application in the real world.
No, teachers don’t work for you. They work for the principal of the school, who works for the school board, who is elected by you and millions of others or appointed by someone who was elected.
And, of course, that’s not the issue anyway. The issue is their union. The union sure as hell doesn’t work for you. It works for its members, who are the teachers.
So I don’t see how this convesration can go anywhere.
They can have an opinion about those actions, sure. They can certainly complain if they think the union is improperly interfering in the way the city is run. That’s a matter of the union overstepping its bounds, and that’s a legitimate complaint.
This conversation, though, was about a teachers union’s demands and involvement in certain causes that have nothing to do with how the schools are run or teachers do their jobs. That’s not anyone’s business but the union members.
That’s like saying the taxpayers should tell defense lawyers what to do because we pay for judges and courtrooms. It’s nonsense. The union represents the teachers to negotiate with the taxpayers. You can’t possibly argue that the taxpayers should be able to say what the union does. It doesn’t, and can’t, work that way.
By the way, nobody in America is forced to join a union. That’s long been banned by federal law.
They can be charged a fee in lieu of joining, to cover the services they get from the union (higher pay, benefits, etc) that it negotiated, unless state law prohibits that (“right to work”).
The problem is that you think this actually means something.
Which is why he asked you if you think you can tell him what grades to give his students. Of course you can’t, and you know that. So what’s the point of saying he works for you? What exactly does that mean? If you know you can’t tell him what grades to give, why do you think it gives you the power to do anything else?
When the taxpayers pay someone to do a job, the money isn’t theirs any more. You understand that, right?
The teachers pay dues from their own hard-earned money to their union. The taxpayers have absolutely no say in it.
By your logic, private employers would be able to tell unions what to do too because they pay their workers the salaries they pay their dues with. It’s ludicrous.