# Teachers Strike. Seriously? Teachers, feel free to chime in here. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 11, 2005, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175 "2005-01-11T05:25:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/21 "2005-01-11T06:55:15Z")
> [@Silentgoldfish](#): > > As far as you know yeah, as I’ve offered as much proof as you have in this thread. Pshaw. Are you, or aren’t you? **Dio** has claimed that he was, you’ve not even done that. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/22 "2005-01-11T06:57:15Z")
> [@Happy Lendervedder](#): > > 1. Weekends off? I don’t know one of my teacher friends who has a “weekend off” during the school year. \*\* Yeah, teachers take home work, I also investigate fires, so my cases come home with me, it happens\*\* > [@](#): > > 1. 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. \*\* You’re damn skippy I’m in a union, wouldn’t have it any other way. That said, I think teachers unions ought to be held to the same standard my union is. No strike/No lockout. Period. Lobby, informational picket etc. etc. etc. No. Strike.\*\* > [@](#): > > 1. 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. **As a matter of fact, we’ve just had a fairly large increase in our health insurance liability. The family plan deductable doubled, and the individual plan deductable posted a similar increase. Sucks, and we’re working to change it, but we’re not gonna leave people twisting in the wind because we’re forced to pay more for health insurance. I agree about health care, wholeheartedly. We need not only tort reform, but insurance regulatory reform. Americans are being ass-fucked by the insurance industry, and our gov’t is allowing it, nay, endorsing it.** > [@](#): > > 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. \*\*Oh are they ever, I’ve been in the game almost 15 years, but when you strike in cases like this, you’re not only holding the officials accountable, you’re holding the kids, their parents, and a whole lot of state and federal funding (at least in IL) accountable too. \*\* ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/23 "2005-01-11T07:02:27Z")
By the way, when fire fighters don’t show up to work, people die. When teachers don’t, schedules need to be changed. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/24 "2005-01-11T07:27:50Z")
I was too pissed off at the OP to offer a coherent response for a while. I’ve calmed down now. I spent two years in the St. Paul school district. I spent a year in an tutoring in an LD room and another year in a 2nd grade classroom. I worked in inner city schools with bad heating and scarce resources. I made very little money because I was working as an Americorps volunteer on a stipend Teachers are not finished working just because the kids aren’t there. They work holidays, they work weekends, they work long after school is dismissed for the day. They are underpaid and even so a lot of the resources used in classrooms are paid for out of pocket by the teachers with no compensations. Try keeping 20 or 30 kids supplied with pencils, paper, erasers, pens and glue for a year. See what it does to your petty cash. The job is unbelievably stressful. If you haven’t done it you have no idea. It’s not like the kids just do whatever you say all the time. Discipline in schools is very hard because teachers are very limited in how they’re allowed to handle it and they often get no help from parents. Calling a parent is not very helpful if the parent doesn’t care and flat out tells you he/she doesn’t care. I HAVE stood outside in the Minnesota winters watching kids at recess or getting on the buses. Lunchtime was not a break for me because I always had cafeteria and lunch duties. I got 15 or 20 minutes to eat (maybe) and then I had to go to work. I worked at afterschool activities as well, supervising reading programs and the like. Teaching is a hard job, man, as well as extremely important because kids spend so much of their time in school. It was a constant race to try to make sure that kids got even a minimal level of the skills they were going to need. I got assigned the hard cases and I knew that some of those kids (even by second or third grade) were already so hopelessly behind that they were going to be in serious trouble before they even got to middle school. Even with all the crap that teachers have to put up with (including the subpar compensation) most of them cared deeply about the kids and they had to in order to last at the job. The burnout rate for new teachers is through the roof. Walk a fucking mile in those shoes, **buttonjockey**. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/25 "2005-01-11T07:30:02Z")
> [@CanvasShoes](#): > > At any rate, way to miss my point. You say in your post to iamthwalrus: Well, consdiering you posted after walrus, your point had not yet been made (unless I’m reading it wrong). > [@CanvasShoes](#): > > 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. \*\*First, there is NO job above reproach. Second, I could not care less what sex you are, if you can do the job, THAT is the only qualification I need. Third, no one said teaching was ‘easy’. I said teaching was not as potentially life threatening as some jobs (having a second grader puke on your shoes is less deadly than falling through a burning floor) and that the right to strike ought be removed. \*\* > [@CanvasShoes](#): > > 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? **Nothing. As an essential and licensed public servant however, you have an obligation to work. If you do not feel like fulfilling that obligation, get another job. No, I’m not saying that at all.** [QUOTE=CanvasShoes] 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. > [@CanvasShoes](#): > > 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. \*\*Of COURSE contracts change, they’ve got to. I know about spending to hire, I get it, really. I’m not tearing down anyone who doesn’t earn their dollar on the line between life and death, I chose it, many don’t. Frankly, what teachers do, is a damn sight more important than putting out a fire, but it only counts when you’re DOING the job. \*\* > [@SallyCan'tDance](#): > > See many lawyers, doctors or stockbrokers going on strike? No? Ever wonder why that is, hmm? Do you consider them to be as valuable members of society as teachers or nurses, without whom you wouldn’t be reading this? **Actually, no because most of them are independent contractors. Though many Docs are having going out of business sales because there ain’t the kind of money in doctorin’ there used to be. Two words: Tort Reform. See the above for the answer to that last sentence.** > [@Happy](#): > > There is absolutely no seperation of the two. **Nonsense. I respect the people, I dislike their actions, there is an absolute seperation** > [@FinnAgain](#): > > You are aware that many times school funding is put to a vote in whatever local district is affected? **Yep. Not always though. Mostly, at least around here, money from the schools comes right on out of the property taxes, and it stays the same, or goes up a little every assessment** > [@FinnAgain](#): > > 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? **It’s the law of unintended consquences. No, they’re likely not out to TRY and punish anyone, but they DO. That sucks** > [@FinnAgain](#): > > 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? **Yep. It’s what they signed on for. They’re working on a change, and their union, which, in Illinois is VERY strong and VERY connected, will help with that informational picket. Or at least they’d better.** ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/26 "2005-01-11T07:32:19Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Pshaw. > Are you, or aren’t you? > **Dio** has claimed that he was, you’ve not even done that. So? I didn’t put forth an opinion on the strike either. My point was that saying “I’m a teacher and you suck” is a shitty response. He’s elaborated later so it’s now a moot point but coming in, saying “I’m x profession and you’re wrong” and nothing else is a waste of everyone’s time. ---
**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:** [January 11, 2005, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/27 "2005-01-11T07:36:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Yeah, teachers take home work, I also investigate fires, so my cases come home with me, it happens So what’s your point. The reason I said that is because your OP made it sound like teachers have more cake hours than anyone else. They _don’t_ just work 6-7 hours a day, five days a week. And summers? I know almost a dozen that have to find work in the summer just to make ends meet. Cake hours, my ass. > [@](#): > > That said, I think teachers unions ought to be held to the same standard my union is. No strike/No lockout. Like **FinnAgain** said, when you don’t show up people die. These teachers who made the decision to walk out right now, probably did so with a heavy heart. This is probably a very emotional time for many of them. But they voted to strike, to walk away from these kids with whom they have built strong bonds, and have dedicated themselves to bettering, because they know that by doing so will create a better educational environment in the Minooka Public Schools in the long term. But let me re-iterate: the students won’t die because the teacher isn’t in the classroom. **buttonjockey308** , I think your rant is based in concern for the kids involved-- because they are ‘the public’ which is directly served by Minooka’s Dept. of Education-- which I admire. But these teachers are looking out for the same public’s interest. However, the difference here, if you were to go on strike as a firefighter, that would not be in the public interest, because the public you serve would die. These teachers aren’t striking in spite of the importance of their work, they’re doing it because of it. I don’t understand how organized laborers can argue to take leverage away from other organized laborers. Do you think no public servants should have the right to strike? Sanitation employees? Parks and Rec employees? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/28 "2005-01-11T07:42:11Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > It’s the law of unintended consquences. No, they’re likely not out to TRY and punish anyone, but they DO. That sucks. I don’t see it as punishment for anybody. Worst case scenario school is delayed by a month or two. > [@buttonjockey308](#): > > Yep. It’s what they signed on for. First, since I’m a teacher, that statement would read “That’s what **you** signed on for.” I’m guessing that those teachers didn’t any more than I did. Teachers do their jobs so they can educate children. Also so they can support themselves. We’re educators, not martyrs. > [@buttonjockey308](#): > > They’re working on a change, and their union, which, in Illinois is VERY strong and VERY connected, will help with that informational picket. Or at least they’d better.\*\* So you tell me, how long do they have to go on ‘working for a change’ without seeing any appreciable results or getting closer to their goal? “I know I can’t afford to send my kid to college, but maybe if I stand outside in the freezing snow and rain for a few more months with this damn sign, someone will give me a raise.” ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/29 "2005-01-11T07:42:37Z")
Just so we’ve got some idea of what we’re dealing with, the teacher’s salaries (being paid by taxpayers) are public information and thus, thanks to the glories of the Internet and FOIA, [online](http://www.thechampion.org/teach2004/salaryfinal.asp?StartNumber=0&order=salary%20desc&order2=Teachername&district=1110&county=32®ion=24&districttype=16&distname=MINOOKA%20COMM%20H%20S%20DISTRICT%20111). Also, FWIW, the average salary of all the teachers on that list is just a bit over $51k. Also, 40 of 85 have Baccalaureate degrees. 44 of 85 have Masters’ degrees. One has no degree. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/30 "2005-01-11T07:50:05Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > I said teaching was not as potentially life threatening as some jobs (having a second grader puke on your shoes is less deadly than falling through a burning floor) and that the right to strike ought be removed. So, the less dangerous a job is, the less right people working in that job have to strike? Teachers have less right to strike than, say, cops or firemen? ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/31 "2005-01-11T07:56:12Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > Well, consdiering you posted after walrus, your point had not yet been made (unless I’m reading it wrong). Yes, I had already made my point, I used **walrus’s** to reillustrate mine, not in place of it. > [@](#): > > \*\*First, there is NO job above reproach. Second, I could not care less what sex you are, if you can do the job, THAT is the only qualification I need. Third, no one said teaching was ‘easy’. I said teaching was not as potentially life threatening as some jobs (having a second grader puke on your shoes is less deadly than falling through a burning floor) and that the right to strike ought be removed. \*\* Again you miss my point. In your posts your words seem to state that because they, the teachers wouldn’t, or haven’t chosen to do your job, or to do one in which they didn’t get summers off, or only have to work 9-5 etc, that they have no right to complain, or to enact measures like striking which is designed to assist them in getting what they deserve. > [@](#): > > **Nothing. As an essential and licensed public servant however, you have an obligation to work. If you do not feel like fulfilling that obligation, get another job. No, I’m not saying that at all.** And when negotiations break down, and you are left with no other recourse with which to bargain, what other choice do they have? Thank GOD there are places in which people do have recourse and protection from their unions. > [@](#): > > \*\*Of COURSE contracts change, they’ve got to. I know about spending to hire, I get it, really. I’m not tearing down anyone who doesn’t earn their dollar on the line between life and death, I chose it, many don’t. Frankly, what teachers do, is a damn sight more important than putting out a fire, but it only counts when you’re DOING the job. \*\* Asked and responded to above. What else CAN they do when their previous demands go unanswered? They’re not striking because they “don’t feel like doing the job” as you so easily dsimiss them as doing, they’re striking because they DO want to do their job, but at an increased reward level that they QUITE deserve to have, and strking is their only, or one of their few, options to win this. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/32 "2005-01-11T07:58:20Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I was too pissed off at the OP to offer a coherent response for a while. I’ve calmed down now. I spent two years in the St. Paul school district. I spent a year in an tutoring in an LD room and another year in a 2nd grade classroom. I worked in inner city schools with bad heating and scarce resources. I made very little money because I was working as an Americorps volunteer on a stipend > > Teachers are not finished working just because the kids aren’t there. They work holidays, they work weekends, they work long after school is dismissed for the day. They are underpaid and even so a lot of the resources used in classrooms are paid for out of pocket by the teachers with no compensations. Try keeping 20 or 30 kids supplied with pencils, paper, erasers, pens and glue for a year. See what it does to your petty cash. > > The job is unbelievably stressful. If you haven’t done it you have no idea. It’s not like the kids just do whatever you say all the time. Discipline in schools is very hard because teachers are very limited in how they’re allowed to handle it and they often get no help from parents. Calling a parent is not very helpful if the parent doesn’t care and flat out tells you he/she doesn’t care. > > I HAVE stood outside in the Minnesota winters watching kids at recess or getting on the buses. > > Lunchtime was not a break for me because I always had cafeteria and lunch duties. I got 15 or 20 minutes to eat (maybe) and then I had to go to work. > > I worked at afterschool activities as well, supervising reading programs and the like. > > Teaching is a hard job, man, as well as extremely important because kids spend so much of their time in school. It was a constant race to try to make sure that kids got even a minimal level of the skills they were going to need. I got assigned the hard cases and I knew that some of those kids (even by second or third grade) were already so hopelessly behind that they were going to be in serious trouble before they even got to middle school. > > Even with all the crap that teachers have to put up with (including the subpar compensation) most of them cared deeply about the kids and they had to in order to last at the job. The burnout rate for new teachers is through the roof. > > Walk a fucking mile in those shoes, **buttonjockey**. **Dio** Thanks for writing back. I figured your knickers were twisting, and I’m glad you could come back with some real insight. Look, I get how stressful it is, really, and I know how rewarding it is too, the only thing I’m about here is the equality in unfairness. The teachers get stiffed, and they in turn (unintentionally) stiff the kids and parents. All I’m saying is that there has GOT to be a better way to deal with this. Strikes are NOT the answer. As far as your particular experience, man, that sounds rough. I wouldn’t want a piece of that action for all the tea in China, (and I’m crazy for the Oolong) and even though I’m all the way down here, thanks for your service to the kids, I’m sure you changed many more lives than I’ve saved. > [@Happy](#): > > And summers? I know almost a dozen that have to find work in the summer just to make ends meet. Cake hours, my ass. Maybe so, and that sucks, but uh, in [Minooka](http://www.schools-data.com/schools/MINOOKA-COMMUNITY-HS-MINOOKA.html) the average pay is 43K a year. If you can’t manage your cash flow to make that 43k last an entire year, that’s not MY problem. I work four, count em four different jobs, and I get three weeks a year off, a week at a time. So yeah, in my mind, a month and a half off would be fuckin’ cake. > [@Happy](#): > > I don’t understand how organized laborers can argue to take leverage away from other organized laborers. Do you think no public servants should have the right to strike? Sanitation employees? Parks and Rec employees? I’m not taking leverage from anyone. It’s a card that simply shouldn’t be in the deck. The sanitation workers keep up the public health by removing the garbage and repairing broken water mains. No strikes for them. Parks aan Rec people generally aren’t union, so striking isn’t an issue as often, but they make sure the parks are safe for kids to play in, and the equipment is safe for them to play on, so nope, strike three. Look. Just IMO here, but uh, if you’re a public employee, the whole idea of striking seems wrong. I go back to the whole idea of violating the public trust. People don’t have a choice as to what taxes they pay, so they should get the most for their dollar (which they seldom do). If you’re against a certain company for the way they treat their employees, and their employees strike, you can always vote with your feet and wallet, but with the gov’t, you’re stuck paying what you owe. Period. I think there should be a remedy for that. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/33 "2005-01-11T08:06:14Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > So, the less dangerous a job is, the less right people working in that job have to strike? Teachers have less right to strike than, say, cops or firemen? Nope. It’s the public servant angle. Cops and firemen have no right to strike, my position is, because they’re so vital, that neither should teachers. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/34 "2005-01-11T08:08:53Z")
> [@Happy Lendervedder](#): > > So what’s your point. The reason I said that is because your OP made it sound like teachers have more cake hours than anyone else. They _don’t_ just work 6-7 hours a day, five days a week. And summers? I know almost a dozen that have to find work in the summer just to make ends meet. Cake hours, my ass. Excellent point. I don’t know what **button’s** fireman shift is like, but when my dad was in the department their shift went something like this 24 hours on (they of course slept and ate in the firehouse at this time, and could have family to visit). 24 hours off 24 hours on 24 hours off 4 days off called a “kelly”, (really a half day at each end and three days off in between) then back on shift. My dad was studying to be an EMT before he was retired on a medical disability due to his heart. He had a lot of time to study, relax and do other things at the firehouse in between fires. As a kid, I spent a lot of time at the firestation, (only when dad was there, he wouldn’t allow us to be around firefighters, he said they were “animals”, but I think he meant the young ones that were too interested in his teenaged daughter :D). I also babysat for lots of the older firefighter’s kids. So I have had a chance to see what kind of shifts they had to work, and what kind of workload they had. Yes, firefighting is dangerous work. But it’s not as if that 24 hours on is chock full of fires. For all the stressful mega fires, there was also a LOT of downtime. And firemen don’t have to supply ANY of their own equipment, nor do anything off time when they go home. > [@](#): > > Like **FinnAgain** said, when you don’t show up people die. Weren’t there firehouses striking in Chicago or New York not too long ago? ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/35 "2005-01-11T08:13:15Z")
> [@](#): > > …\*\* Third, no one said teaching was ‘easy’\*\*. I said teaching was not as potentially life threatening as some jobs (having a second grader puke on your shoes is less deadly than falling through a burning floor) and that the right to strike ought be removed. Really? Well then what was all of this: > [@](#): > > …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… Supposed to imply? Because it sure SOUNDs as if that the above is saying that it’s really a _cushy_ job, not to be compared to the DANGER and IMPORTANCE of _some_ jobs. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/36 "2005-01-11T08:19:57Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Just so we’ve got some idea of what we’re dealing with, the teacher’s salaries (being paid by taxpayers) are public information and thus, thanks to the glories of the Internet and FOIA, [online](http://www.thechampion.org/teach2004/salaryfinal.asp?StartNumber=0&order=salary%20desc&order2=Teachername&district=1110&county=32®ion=24&districttype=16&distname=MINOOKA%20COMM%20H%20S%20DISTRICT%20111). > > Also, FWIW, the average salary of all the teachers on that list is just a bit over $51k. Also, 40 of 85 have Baccalaureate degrees. 44 of 85 have Masters’ degrees. One has no degree. I wonder if they’ve posted those in the same manner they do with our municipal workers here? That is, they take all of the benefits (sick leave, vacation, health insurance, life insurance etc), calculate their annual value, and then add them to the actual wages and call THAT their annual “income”. Since the article listed but a single wage for each different position, I wonder. It’s a well-worn trick of government to try and turn the public opinion against the “usurpers” and make them look “greedy”. ---
**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:** [January 11, 2005, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/37 "2005-01-11T08:27:55Z")
> [@CanvasShoes](#): > > I wonder if they’ve posted those in the same manner they do with our municipal workers here? > > That is, they take all of the benefits (sick leave, vacation, health insurance, life insurance etc), calculate their annual value, and then add them to the actual wages and call THAT their annual “income”. > > Since the article listed but a single wage for each different position, I wonder. It’s a well-worn trick of government to try and turn the public opinion against the “usurpers” and make them look “greedy”. Probably not, because if you costed out each of these workers, they’d probably be ‘worth’ $100,000+ a year. Damnit. How the hell did a relatively civil debate break out here? I feel we’re only a few posts away from someone yelling, “Motherfucker, I’ll see you in GD!!!” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/38 "2005-01-11T08:40:06Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > 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. > [@buttonjockey308](#): > > 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. Wait a moment. The teachers knew ahead of time what their salary and working conditions would be, so the responsibility is theirs. Management knew ahead of time that there was not a no-strike clause in the contract… but for this, you give them a pass? Where’s the NOT MY PROBLEM comment on the failure of management to negotiate such a clause and prevent strikes? Generally, I am not a “friend of labor.” But employees have the right to collectively bargain and to walk out of their jobs if their conditions are not met. As long as I don’t start hearing about substitutes being egged on their way to fill the strikers’ jobs, my feeling is the teachers are within their rights. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/39 "2005-01-11T09:17:08Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. In other words, teachers are laid off for 2.5 months a year and have no income unless they can find someone to hire them for a short period. They are in competition for those jobs with most other teachers and college students. And since we are professionals, we are expected to continue our education. That means working in a college course now and then – at night, on weekends or while we are laid off during the summer. There are also usually two or three workshops that a teacher can participate in. They pay at a rate of about 1/3 the regular salary – sometimes less. I’m uncertain about what an “institute day” is, but it sounds like a workday for teachers. My “simple, lilly white, nearly crime-free suburb” was actually the inner-city. My classroom overlooked housing projects. Newspapers and pizzas were not delivered into the neighborhood. But each morning, I was dropped off outside the locked school in the dark where I had to wait for it to open. The second year that I taught I was beaten by a trespasser and hospitalized. He was one of a group of seven. Weeks later, on the day that I returned to class, someone had a loaded gun in my classroom. That wasn’t the only time that happened. I’ve taken knives away from students and I’ve walked between them when they were ready to fight. I’ve removed a used condom from the doorknob of my classroom. (That was an improvement on the human excrement that a colleague had to remove from her file cabinet.) I’ve had rocks, eggs, bricks and firecrackers thrown at me. I’ve had a convicted rapist placed in my classroom _and not been warned by the administration_. I’ve taught at least eight murderers. (Those are the ones I know about. I stopped counting at eight.) Part of the overtime for which I was not paid extra was spent standing in a puddle of urine at a ticket booth at the back of the football field. I was given instructions that if anyone asked for the money, I should just give it to them without any argument. I’ve had days that began at 6:45 a.m. at school and ended at 10:00 p.m. at school with no chance to go home. I went to a Board of Education Meeting that lasted until 2:00 in the morning when the teachers had to be at school ready to teach for the day at 6:45. The time spent in the classroom was half the job, and generally the fun part. I was prepared for that and for the amount of time I would have to spend in preparing for my classes. Grading papers took longer than I thought and wasn’t as much fun. The part that has increased steadily over the years is documentation of _everything_ for every student. I stopped teaching fifteen years ago. I cannot imagine what it must be like now. > [@](#): > > You don’t work in the sweltering heat, the freezing cold, or any other element for that matter. For 15 of the 20 years I taught, I was without an air-conditioner in the South. School started in August. If we were out a lot because of snow, then we had to make those days up in June. I have taught in a room that was 110 degrees and had students throwing up. (I also spent one day without any heat when it was 15 degrees outside.) > [@](#): > > 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. How can I research a salary and benefits packages that is negotiated every year – sometimes in the middle of the year? This is a _profession_ – a career. You don’t just toss your life’s work away without blinking. You say that if we don’t like things the way we are, we can leave. That’s what’s been happening to our schools for the last thirty years. School systems are _desperate_ for teachers. Tennessee schools are considering lowering standards rather than raising them. Most teachers don’t belong to unions, BTW. That’s a common misunderstanding. The National Education Association (NEA) is _not_ a untion. Neither are the state and local affiliates. The union – the American Federation of Teachers – is much smaller. Who do those teachers think they are? I suspect that those “academic, elitists” would be happy to be paid babysitter’s wages for each student. What’s the going rate now for babysitters? If teaching children is an important “trust,” act like it. With all that I have said, I loved my students and only a small percentage were difficult. I passed up chances to teach in “good” schools including an academic magnet. It wasn’t the students who ruined it for me. It was the ever increasing demand for non-teaching related responsibilities and administrators who were interested mostly in making things look good on paper. **buttonjockey** , what you said about teachers is the equivalent of my saying that all firefighters do is sit around the firehall and play cards all day. It was _that_ far off the mark. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2005, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175/40 "2005-01-11T09:42:33Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > Look. Just IMO here, but uh, if you’re a public employee, the whole idea of striking seems wrong. I go back to the whole idea of violating the public trust. People don’t have a choice as to what taxes they pay, so they should get the most for their dollar (which they seldom do). If you’re against a certain company for the way they treat their employees, and their employees strike, you can always vote with your feet and wallet, but with the gov’t, you’re stuck paying what you owe. Period. I think there should be a remedy for that. I’d take the view that in those professions where the government is essentially a monopoly (or near-monopoly) employer, the right to strike is all the more important. If there’s only one source of employment, you’ve got to have some sort of wage bargaining power. It’s all very well saying “this job is really important, so you can’t strike.” If it’s that important, it should be commensurately paid. I agree there’s a flip side, whereby excessive strike action effectively lets certain groups hold the government hostage (being a Londoner, I’m thinking of Tube drivers in particular, the bastards), but I think there have to be ways to mitigate this without completely removing collective bargaining powers from groups who don’t have the benefit of a competitive labour market. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike-seriously-teachers-feel-free-to-chime-in-here/284175.md?page=3)