Well, the key quote in the original statement was this:
Maybe you’re misunderstanding my use of the word “malfeasance”. It wasn’t meant to imply that the union was wrong in pursuing more sick days (actually, as it turned out, what they were after was the right to bank them year-to-year). “Malfeasance” was meant to imply illegal strike actions in pursuit of their goals, which goals in my view did not rise to anywhere near the level of consequence to justify defying the rule of law and endangering public safety.
I don’t think anyone is particularly surprised that you’re largely disconnected from what it’s like being part of the working class.
Again, not seeing a context that invalidates Kimstu’s response to you. Her post seems entirely on point with the context in which you were originally speaking.
“Working class” is surely not the term you’re looking for here. As someone who worked hard for a living right up until the day of my retirement, I consider that I was always part of the “working class”. What I was never directly part of was the union experience, and the attendant employer-union hostilities.
“Working class,” as you must surely know, does not literally mean “every person who holds a job.” “Working class” has usually meant workers, generally without post-secondary educations and paid hourly, clearly below the level of salaried professionals. If you could just take time off “as needed” when you were sick and get paid, and not have to worry about expending a hard limit of sick days, you were not working class.
Sick days are called that because it lets people stay home when they’re sick without their boss getting all pissy about taking an unannounced “vacation” to sit home recovering from the flu.
They are not vacation days, or little envelopes of money, they’re a benefit that forces your employer to treat you like a human being when you’re ill. When we play games like storing them up to cash them out, or taking them when we’re not sick, they’re no longer little slices of human decency, they’re just another aspect of your personal compensation plan. If your employer wants to negotiate them like a line item in your compensation plan, don’t play the “but what if I get sick?” card, we decided they’re compensation.
I’m a bit slow following this topic, but I was sort of wondering what a union could do without the power to strike - I assumed they were still useful for managing health and pension benefits - and you answered that for me. Thank you!
Though, what made the government negotiate with the union? If not the threat of a strike.
And to my mind, with respect, they don’t come even close. I’m taking into account multiple factors:
I don’t recognize any right to work for government or to have a job at a place of one’s choosing. (However, I do recognize a right to refuse to work, that is, the right to be free from forced labor.)
The right to education is, in my opinion, more important than the right to go on strike and retain one’s pay (or even job).
If teachers go on strike, a large segment of the community is inconvenienced. If teachers cannot go on strike, they are still free to quit on an individual basis whenever the terms of employment are unsatisfactory. Furthermore teachers can always petition the government as private individuals.
There are simply more people who rely on the state to watch and educate their children than there are teachers who rely on their power to go on strike. In fact, in my jurisdiction, there are zero people in the latter category.
To the extent that teachers develop a reliance on the state for their wages, that reliance is entirely their own doing as they must voluntarily apply for and accept employment. To the extent that the population relies on the state to supervise and educate children, that reliance is for the most part compulsory as truancy is a crime.
Yes, strikes are effective. Yes, they effect positive change. That doesn’t establish that they are valid. I am not a consequentialist. If strikes tend to produce good results, then to me personally, it does not follow that strikes are right or valid. And so for me personally, no amount of reading on the practical history of public sector strikes goes towards the main question.
Now, I do think there has to be some process to obtain better working conditions. This is another way I distinguish the private from the public sector. In the private sector, in the absence of strikes there may be no other process. You can be fired if you advocate against the company’s interests in the public sphere. It is impractical to regulate the working conditions of each and every private business in finite detail. Therefore it is good public policy to guarantee a right to strike in the private sector, so the employees and employer are on more equal footing. In the public sector the government, by definition, controls every aspect of its operations in finite detail. There is always the public process, because the public is your employer and the public interest is your employer’s interest. There are other ways to raise awareness, maybe not as effective, definitely not as easy. But I’m not convinced you have the right to force the state’s hand with a strike.
Consider your salary, for example. I think this particular ground - teacher salary - is potentially the weakest of all (before, I mentioned that I would consider valid a strike for student safety). Suppose your salary is below subsistence. I would argue that as a matter of public policy, you should quit, not strike. I think there’s a significant distinction between a teacher strike and a bunch of teachers quitting because the terms of employment don’t work for them personally. Even if the result is the same in the end.
The state has the power to prescribe a minimum wage. Why should you be allowed to force the state to pay you a living wage when so many others have no such leverage? One can present his or her case to the public that, at the very least, the state should pay its own employees a reasonable wage. If the salary is below subsistence one would expect the schools to close for want of teachers, which is a problem any competent government will attempt to avoid, and which should quickly expose an incompetent government.
Aside: But in practice they pay teachers just about subsistence, don’t they? Suppose the entry level salary is $37k, which if you count only 11 months, is roughly equivalent to $14/hr, 55 hours a week. Which, I think, might be just above subsistence for a college grad sharing an apartment with another working adult. If she can find a side gig or a summer job to make up the extra $3k. Or say they pay $52k for a more senior employee, roughly equivalent to $18.18/hr assuming 55 hours a week and no side or summer jobs ($19.70/hr if only counting 11 months). That’s rough living if you have a house or kids, but with two working adults it could be manageable depending on where the house is. 30% of $80k is 8% of $300k, so if it’s reasonable to budget 30% gross for housing and an 8% mortgage rate, you’d be looking at houses under $300k.
In my state, there are a few incentives for public employers to negotiate - one is that an expired contact remains in effect until a new one is agreed upon. That means no raises for the employees - but it also means the employer can’t change the insurance benefits or the employee’s share of premiums or the amount of copays or change work schedules so that weekends are not automatically time and a half and so on . If an there is an impasse and mediation doesn’t resolve it, eventually terms will be imposed by either an arbitrator or the legislature (depending on the union) - and neither party has a say in the terms, so both will almost certainly be unhappy.
I wasn’t clear enough - I wasn’t talking about people faking illness or using sick days as vacation days, although some will. But my jobs have always allowed me to use sick days for medical and dental appointments - and if people get 5 or 10 or 15 sick days a year that they cannot bank , in my experience they will never make a medical appointment after hours or on weekends.
It’s not a federal right. Rather, some (all?) of the states guarantee the right to education in their state constitutions.
For example, Florida’s constitution, Article IX, section 1, begins:
The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require.
Or in North Carolina, Article I section 15,
The people have a right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain that right.