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This thread is what this country has become as far as its working class people are concerned....a whole lotta anger and jealousy over how "I ain't got what you got." (Money for nothing and your chicks for free.) Lotta bashing of pensioned union factory workers, teachers, police, and firemen and nurses.
He's got a pension? That lazy bum! She's got eye care paid by her employer? Elitist yuppie woman that thinks she's better than everyone else!
How did we become this way? So sad!
We do fine ourselves without a union - it's not jealousy for me yet I feel strongly. It's the fact that they are taking it from US as non-profit civil servants rather than a for-profit business paying their employees from sales/service/product that people made a choice to buy at their set prices. As I said before, unions fighting for workers' rights (working conditions, time off, health benefits, etc.) are great. Unions fighting for higher pay (taken from us) - double the industry avg - is absurd and should be outlawed.
When I taught 4th grade the only way I could get out of the school before 4pm was if I got in at or before 6:00am. Otherwise there was no way in hell I'd be prepped for the next day.
I don't see what the big deal is with unionization. If you're so jealous than get organized at YOUR workplace so you can collectively bargain and get a better deal. Why should it matter if you're a public sector or private sector worker? What's so different about public sector workers that they can't strike.
Most teacher contracts say in them that teachers CANNOT strike unless no contract is in force. So if you have teachers going on strike that means there was a breakdown in contract negotiations. You might ask yourself what management did or did not do to which led to the breakdown because it takes two to tango.
I think there's an idea that because you work "for the government," you cannot be abused or treated less than fairly. I've had private and public sector jobs, and there are nasty bosses in both. When I taught 4th grade there were people on the school board that thought like people on this thread - that teachers hardly deserve any pay at all because their job is "fun" and they are overpaid as it is for part-time jobs.
In my educator's union we did discuss a strike but voted it down and instead took the crappy deal administration gave us. We wanted an 8% raise, the administration started with an offer of 0.75% raise. Actually that was a pay cut because just keeping up with inflation since the last negotiations would have been 3.6%. We haven't had any raises for years. We were not being greedy. We took the board's own vision statement - that has a clause saying that goal is for the system to offer faculty compensation in the top third of the state in order to recruit and retain competitive faculty. Our math and stats faculty did some research that showed we were actually in the bottom third of the state in compensation. We were not asking for outrageous salaries, we were only asking for for what the board publicly said was their goal, which would have been minimally met with the 8% raise. Turns out, like all politicians, those snakes do not mean what they say.
The practical effect on the budget - out of an operating budget of over $100 million, would have been about $650,000. Entire faculty salaries where I work combined make up between 10-15% of the budget - around 12-14 million out of that 100 million. Salaries are not the problem. Administrative bloat and health care costs are.
Last edited by redguard57; 11-18-2014 at 10:29 AM..
Teachers should make 140,000 a year in cities with low cost of living and upwards of 230,000+ in places with higher living costs. Politicians should switch with teachers and make 17,000 a year.
Teachers should make 140,000 a year in cities with low cost of living and upwards of 230,000+ in places with higher living costs. Politicians should switch with teachers and make 17,000 a year.
It's actually quite a decent salary considering they have the summer off too.
I hear all of these arguments that teachers are underpaid because they put in extra hours and have a masters degree education. Yea, I do too and I make a similar amount, for a whole years worth of work. So, when the union, or whomever, make those graphics/videos, how are they supposed to garner any sympathy when we (other college educated professionals) make the same amount?
The bigger problem is there is a wide, WIDE divide between what teachers get paid depending on geographic location and luck. As in, you need to be lucky to snag a job in a good state and wealthy district. So, really teachers should be duking it out with each other.
What don't you teach for a year and then maybe you would actually understand what teachers go through. In my opinion they are very underpaid for what they do. Teaching is not easy. You would think that the main job of teachers is to teach but that's not the case. They have to deal with parents who think their child is gifted and should be treated special, or the parent who never shows up for conferences, or the parent who doesn't speak English. And also the parents of kids who are out of control in the classroom and they just don't care. They just want the teachers to take care of it. If a teachers job was only to teach then maybe that pay would be enough. But their job doesn't stop at teaching. They are also counselors, mentors, disciplinarians....and so on.
By the way, not everyone who is anti-union is jealous. The teachers in my family are very anti-teacher's union but did reluctantly join because they would have to had paid the same amount in dues while abstaining from joining the union.
By the way, not everyone who is anti-union is jealous. The teachers in my family are very anti-teacher's union but did reluctantly join because they would have to had paid the same amount in dues while abstaining from joining the union.
Lovely. Just lovely. Shame on them.
Piggybacking off of the sweat and toil of the union teachers who sacrificed everything over the last decades, hammering out contracts, going on strike for no pay, so that your freeloading family members reap the benefits the others worked hard for. They only joined because they were going to have to pay the union dues anyway and don't want to? Wow. It's around $30-40 a pay, depending on where they are. Worth every penny.
I'm sure those mooching anti-union teachers in your family aren't (you know, since they're so anti-union and I'm sure that's what REALLY matters to them) declining their eye, dental, and medical benefits, or their summers off or their spring break, or their planning period, or personal and sick leave, or their union protection if a disgruntled supervisor has it in for them for any stupid reason and just wants to write them up "just because." Or any of the other things that the union brought them over the last many years. Virtually all of that can and will be reduced or cut at a moment's notice without collective bargaining.
I thought the same thing as them, in many ways, when I first started teaching. "Got a good job at a good district, and everyone's so nice and works hard, we don't really need a union." I still love my job and my school and my students. But after seeing what can and does happen when supervisors want to do crazy things to good people, I'm sold on my union. Thank God for it. And shame on the teachers and staff who forgot or never knew (because the "fight" often happened so long ago) how tough those early teachers had it, and how hard it is to maintain it. It's kind of like voting on Election Day. It's a hassle, and "does it really matter?" but then I think of those who fought for our freedom, so I do it proudly. Being in a union and being a teacher is NO different. I am so proud and grateful for the things those union teachers fought for....how could I ever turn my back on them and what they did for us? If not, they should go teach at a non-union school (private, charter, etc) for half the pay, crap benefits, and NONE of the protection. And that's what your "anti-union" family members would have had in a PUBLIC school IF those brave folks didn't (and still continue to) stick their necks out for their district and colleagues and kids.
Hope your teacher family members are ashamed. They should be. I can see them now, during one of their planning periods or days off that their union achieved for them, sitting there griping about unions. But maybe they'll come around eventually.
It is impossible to answer the question about teacher compensation without first putting a dollar value on the defined benefit pension that public sector union employees receive.
For example, let's modify the original question to read as follows:
Quote:
Essentially all teachers are unionized
Teachers work approximately 176 days per year
Teachers can retire & begin drawing a pension starting at age 55
If they prefer, teachers can stop working after 10 years to pursue another career while having their pension nestegg grow at a minimum 3% per year -- guaranteed
Under reasonable assumptions, the value of a teacher's defined benefit pension exceed $1.1 Million
Under reasonable assumptions, the value of a teacher's defined benefit pension amortized over the working career exceeds an extra $27 per hour above and beyond cash compensation
Given the above real value of a pension, How much should a teacher earn?
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