# Ohio Issue 2 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 1, 2011, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514 "2011-11-01T16:35:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/141 "2011-11-10T04:03:07Z")
> [@Jman](#): > > Come up with a fair and reasonable way to implement merit based pay for teachers that won’t completely castrate them in the classroom, and I think most teachers would be on board. Unfortunately, SB5s method will reward teachers who coddle parents rather than actually teaching students and holding them to a standard. To be fair, standardized tests do not force you to coddle parents. It might tempt you to help your students cheat on tests or (more likely) run your classroom like a Princeton Review test prep course. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/142 "2011-11-10T04:05:40Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Let me add to this. The teachers and firemen are the sexy public workers and were the face of this “No on SB5” campaign. But if you turn on your tap and clean water comes out, thank a public worker. If you flush the toilet and the turd goes away, thank a public worker. If your street lights are working, thank a public worker. If your neighborhood isn’t being overrun by inmates from the nearest prison, thank a public worker. If your kids’ school isn’t a filthy pig sty, thank a public worker. If your local park is mowed and isn’t filled with vermin and trash, thank a public worker. > > Reducing pay and staffing levels for all public workers-- not just cops, firefighters and teachers-- would affect our communities. Racing to having the cheapest and smallest workforce will not benefit us in any way. I know but all those other things are things I only notice when the public worker doesn’t do their job. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/143 "2011-11-10T04:14:00Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Unions are extortion? WTF?!?! I don’t know about you, but I consider, “If you don’t meet our demands, we’re going to strike and the provision of our contract says you can’t fire us and hire anyone else!” to be pretty close to extortion. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/144 "2011-11-10T04:16:21Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I know but all those other things are things I only notice when the public worker doesn’t do their job. The offensive lineman of public employees. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/145 "2011-11-10T06:13:45Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I don’t know about you, but I consider, “If you don’t meet our demands, we’re going to strike and the provision of our contract says you can’t fire us and hire anyone else!” to be pretty close to extortion. So you are saying that Ohio government employees can strike without risking getting fired? Just want to be clear. How did these workers gain this immunity from getting fired? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/146 "2011-11-10T13:37:45Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I don’t know about you, but I consider, “If you don’t meet our demands, we’re going to strike and the provision of our contract says you can’t fire us and hire anyone else!” to be pretty close to extortion. LOL – requiring someone to live up to a contract is “extortion”? Are you here instead of at an OWS rally because they kicked you out for being too radical? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/147 "2011-11-10T13:47:35Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I don’t know about you, but I consider, “If you don’t meet our demands, we’re going to strike and the provision of our contract says you can’t fire us and hire anyone else!” to be pretty close to extortion. So in your experience, union demands are never refused, because their coercion is so complete, management could never dare to resist their power. Unions just lay their outlandish demands on the table, and management has no other choice but to roll over and pee on the floor? Because if management has ever refused union demands without suffering complete and utter destruction, your thesis fails. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/148 "2011-11-10T15:19:48Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I don’t know about you, but I consider, “If you don’t meet our demands, we’re going to strike and the provision of our contract says you can’t fire us and hire anyone else!” to be pretty close to extortion. Why do you keep arguing about things you obviously don’t understand? Striking workers can be fired, as long as the strike is economic (ie., they’re not on strike because the employer is violating the FLSA or other federal employment laws). ---
**Author:** ![Sinaptics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Sinaptics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaptics)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/149 "2011-11-10T15:52:33Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I don’t know about you, but I consider, “If you don’t meet our demands, we’re going to strike and the provision of our contract says you can’t fire us and hire anyone else!” to be pretty close to extortion. Kind of like an employer saying, “If you don’t meet our demands, we’ll fire you and this non-compete agreement says you can’t work for anyone else,” right? ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/150 "2011-11-10T17:38:55Z")
> [@Dahnlor](#): > > So, things like child labor, hazardous working conditions and minimal pay were solved by the companies themselves? Organized labor and government regulation had nothing to do with it? Please provide cites to support your ridiculous assertion. Or are you saying that child labor, 16-hour work days and the occasional dead worker are examples of treating employees well? Regulations played a role, but the fundamental driver is that if Company A insists on treating its employees significantly worse than Company B down the street, Company A is going to have a very hard time keeping staff. If every company treats its employees the same, and the companies aren’t somehow conspiring to do so, then the employees really have no grounds for complaint. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/151 "2011-11-10T17:41:53Z")
History, meet **Hyperelastic**. **Hyperelastic** , meet history. The two of you obviously have a great deal of catching up to do, so I’ll leave you to it. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaptics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Sinaptics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaptics)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/152 "2011-11-10T17:45:47Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Regulations played a role, but the fundamental driver is that if Company A insists on treating its employees significantly worse than Company B down the street, Company A is going to have a very hard time keeping staff. If every company treats its employees the same, and the companies aren’t somehow conspiring to do so, then the employees really have no grounds for complaint. And what if, by treating it’s workers worse and cutting costs related to workers, it’s able to lower is price point enough to drive Company B out of business? ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/153 "2011-11-10T17:54:45Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You do realize that the state as the largest employer of teachers in the state exercises a virtual monopsony on the consumption of teaching labor. The free market pricing mechanism breaks down with monopsonies and monopolies. There’s no monopsony. There are 611 school districts in Ohio and pay and conditions vary widely among them. The problem arises when every teacher in Stumptown with 15 years of experience makes the same pay, whether that teacher is the biology teacher producing science fair winners year after year, or the gym teacher who reads People magazine while the kids beat each other silly with hockey sticks. My understanding is that each district sets its own pay schedule, but by state law that schedule can only include adjustments for seniority and education. There have been recent proposals to change this, but of course the union has opposed these with every fiber of its being. It has been stated in this thread that there is no objective way to measure teacher performance. But it doesn’t need to be perfectly objective. It just needs to be better than the current system. One Ohio teacher told me that as long as a teacher is not breaking the law, in her opinion nobody has a right to make any evaluation of her performance, not even the principal or her peers. These kinds of ridiculous, extreme attitudes are a direct result of union propaganda and fearmongering. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/154 "2011-11-10T18:00:28Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Regulations played a role, but the fundamental driver is that if Company A insists on treating its employees significantly worse than Company B down the street, Company A is going to have a very hard time keeping staff. If every company treats its employees the same, and the companies aren’t somehow conspiring to do so, then the employees really have no grounds for complaint. Are you dodging the analogy to the worker who is forced to sign a non-compete contract in order to get a job? The employer/employee relationship is inherently unequal in favor of the employer. You seem to object when unions balance the relationship; why is that? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/155 "2011-11-10T19:31:53Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > It is precisely the desire for profits that makes a (successful) company treat its employees well. Which is why China is such a worker’s paradise, right? If workers are scarce, they get treated well. I’m scarce so I do okay. Unskilled immigrants is a situation with a surplus of labor could be easily replaced, and so were not treated well. What possible advantage would an employer have in increasing wages over his competitors? He could easily fill his factories with lower paid workers and keep his prices low. Anyone complaining, out the door. Having a union so that all workers complain at once was the only way workers got power - that and when the consequences of the conditions became painfully obvious, like in the Triangle Fire. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/156 "2011-11-11T18:19:03Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Are you dodging the analogy to the worker who is forced to sign a non-compete contract in order to get a job? > > The employer/employee relationship is inherently unequal in favor of the employer. You seem to object when unions balance the relationship; why is that? Broad non-compete contracts are generally held unenforceable because they impair competition. An employee can be required not to work for a competitor while employed by a company, but if you don’t want to be bound by that, don’t sign the contract. The employer/employee dynamic is different in every situation. If you need unskilled labor, you can be pretty demanding because it’s so readily available. If you need a teacher or a fireman, you’re going to have to pay more and generally treat the employee better. If you need a brain surgeon, you’re going to have to pay a high salary and provide lots of perks. Somehow brain surgeons are able to enjoy a pretty good work environment without being in a union. Saying that teachers and firemen have no leverage with the employer is essentially calling them unskilled labor. A union degrades teachers; it does not empower them. It’s the unions that want you to believe that the employee never has any leverage except through union membership. Sorry, but if you have no leverage with any employer, maybe the problem is you and not the employers. Companies can exist without unions but not vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/157 "2011-11-11T18:29:44Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Which is why China is such a worker’s paradise, right? > . According to Wikipedia, China has “1,713,000 primary trade union organizations.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/158 "2011-11-11T18:35:10Z")
> [@](#): > > Companies can exist without unions but not vice versa. Workers can exist without companies but not vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaptics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Sinaptics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaptics)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/159 "2011-11-11T18:52:39Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Broad non-compete contracts are generally held unenforceable because they impair competition. An employee can be required not to work for a competitor while employed by a company, but if you don’t want to be bound by that, don’t sign the contract. Cite? I know wikipedia isn’t the best cite, but from wiki: "However, an over-broad CNC may prevent an employee from working elsewhere at all. English Common Law originally held any such constraint to be unenforceable as a matter of public policy.[1] Contemporary case law permits exceptions, but generally will only enforce CNCs to the extent necessary to protect the employer. Most jurisdictions in which such contracts have been examined by the courts have deemed CNCs to be legally binding so long as the clause contains reasonable limitations as to the geographical area and time period in which an employee of a company may not compete. The extent to which non-compete clauses are legally allowed varies per jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions, such as the state of California in the US, invalidate non-compete-clauses for all but equity stakeholders in businesses" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete\_clause](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause) > [@Hyperelastic](#): > > The employer/employee dynamic is different in every situation. If you need unskilled labor, you can be pretty demanding because it’s so readily available. If you need a teacher or a fireman, you’re going to have to pay more and generally treat the employee better. If you need a brain surgeon, you’re going to have to pay a high salary and provide lots of perks. Somehow brain surgeons are able to enjoy a pretty good work environment without being in a union. Saying that teachers and firemen have no leverage with the employer is essentially calling them unskilled labor. A union degrades teachers; it does not empower them. Unions for government employees exist in order to keep politicians and politics from idly tinkering with worker conditions, be they pay, environment, rules and limitations, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaptics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Sinaptics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaptics)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514/160 "2011-11-11T18:53:55Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > Broad non-compete contracts are generally held unenforceable because they impair competition. An employee can be required not to work for a competitor while employed by a company, but if you don’t want to be bound by that, don’t sign the contract. Oh, and if companies don’t want to be bound by union rules, all they have to do is not sign the contract. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ohio-issue-2/601514.md?page=9)