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so who do you think pays the other 80% of your benefits? the old couple down the street through property taxes. ever think about them while you cruise on easy street with you new job.bet not
You don't think I work for a living, do you? You think teaching's easy street? Really? I love my job but it isn't easy. Clearly you hate teachers, and don't know any. I'm done talking to you.
I know you feel guilty but you do not need to thank me in every post. My daughter is a teacher and even she is shocked at the amount of money thrown at the teachers and the layers of administration instead of the students
And coincidentally, so is the middle class. I do think there is a relationship. I'm not as sure about public unions... but I do think the attacks on non-public unions here are over the top. Management has all the leverage now... workers have very little if any without a union.
Across the country, right-wing legislators continue their attack on labor unions, claiming that they are saving their states money. Yet in waging these anti-labor campaigns, these politicians are ignoring one very simple fact: unions were a major force in building and sustaining the great American middle class, and as they declined, so has the middle class. As CAP’s Karla Waters and David Madland showed in a report they first published this past January, as union membership has steadily declined since 1967, so too has the middle class’s share of national income, as the super-rich have taken a larger share of national income than any time since the 1920s:
This is not to say that declining union membership is the only factor that led to the growth of income inequality over the past 35 years. Yet, the correlation does show that the presence of strong labor unions tends to co-exist with a strong and vibrant middle class (http://www.aflcio.org/mediacenter/speakout/dick_levin.cfm - broken link). That is why a Main Street Movementalloverthecountry is fighting to protect collective bargaining and the middle class wages, benefits, and protections it promotes.
as a carpenter in a right to work state I make way more the my union brother I can find my own work instead of sitting on the union hall out of work list kissing you know what hoping they will let me work. I get work on my rep.I work for Me. working for the mob requires alligence and embarsssing yourself as a mindless idiot in front of your children,friends,and co workers
And coincidentally, so is the middle class. I do think there is a relationship. I'm not as sure about public unions... but I do think the attacks on non-public unions here are over the top. Management has all the leverage now... workers have very little if any without a union.
Across the country, right-wing legislators continue their attack on labor unions, claiming that they are saving their states money. Yet in waging these anti-labor campaigns, these politicians are ignoring one very simple fact: unions were a major force in building and sustaining the great American middle class, and as they declined, so has the middle class. As CAP’s Karla Waters and David Madland showed in a report they first published this past January, as union membership has steadily declined since 1967, so too has the middle class’s share of national income, as the super-rich have taken a larger share of national income than any time since the 1920s:
This is not to say that declining union membership is the only factor that led to the growth of income inequality over the past 35 years. Yet, the correlation does show that the presence of strong labor unions tends to co-exist with a strong and vibrant middle class (http://www.aflcio.org/mediacenter/speakout/dick_levin.cfm - broken link). That is why a Main Street Movementalloverthecountry is fighting to protect collective bargaining and the middle class wages, benefits, and protections it promotes.
Ok, I read your links and watched the videos and find very little real truth in any of it. When the unions in Wisconsin make their noises they are talking about only public unions when they say that collective bargaining has been taken away. Yes it happened to the teachers and others who belong to public employee unions but it did not happen to the private unions. When will many of you people realize that those people paying so little of their pension money from their own pockets and having tax money pay the rest is just not fair to the general population? Never it seems as long as I keep seeing those links to Think Progress, Media Matters, AFL-CIO and the like. Those people are telling too many half-truths and even lies for me.
An example would be to look at how much tax money goes into teachers pensions and how much goes into the same thing in many other states. In Kansas we have right-to-work laws but unions are allowed to operate. The hard part of that one is that out teachers are allowed to have local, state, and national union membership but they have to deal with local boards of Education and get their pensions through the state people. My wife has been in the same school for 39 years (she just retired on state pension only) but she had paid over $150 dollars per month for years to the pension fund. I wonder how much those teachers who were on strike for weeks while they demonstrated in the State Capitol. Who looked out for their kids while that was going on? And yet the taxpayers were paying much more to their pensions than they were.
How is it right for the tax payers to have to pay that much when there is no way they can get their money back like businesses can when they have to make up for paying union workers. You know, that is like the amount of money we spent in the 80s for automobiles because of the high dollar health care paid for the workers, and every time they got a raise we of the buying public got to pay more so the companies could make their money. Tax payers can't do that but those public employee unions seem to thing that they are the same thing as the other union people.
That behavior of the Wisconsin teachers was the very thing I always refused to take part in although I never was around a strike. As a teacher I felt I owed a lot to the kids and being out of the classroom to demonstrate the way unions like to do just didn't fit what I believed.
Get some links from somewhere other than Think Progress or as it really means Think Progressive and unions and I will gladly read more, but not from those places.
Somehow I never saw myself as a teacher as a part of the middle class just because I belonged to a national union. I felt like maybe middle, middle class but thought of small business people as the upper middle class. Maybe that is the reason I just can't handle all this union talk about death of the middle class. When I think of that and then that Obama and other Democrats keep talking middle class I have a lot of trouble accepting any of it.
Somehow I never saw myself as a teacher as a part of the middle class just because I belonged to a national union. I felt like maybe middle, middle class but thought of small business people as the upper middle class. Maybe that is the reason I just can't handle all this union talk about death of the middle class. When I think of that and then that Obama and other Democrats keep talking middle class I have a lot of trouble accepting any of it.
Interesting you mention this. I guess it's experience. My grandfather was a factory worker--I think a foreman--in Chicago--a union guy, and he lived a solid middle class life on a single income. He put five kids through Catholic school and built his own summer cottage in Northern Wisconsin. (He bought the land at a discounted price and built the place himself, but he paid property taxes in both WI and Chicago. Not cheap). So for me, union = middle class insurance. And the increased wealth disparity in America, coupled with the decline in union membership really does make me wonder if they're correlated. I'm not some militant union guy, but I support their right to exist and bargain on behalf of workers.
In North Carolina I knew teachers who would show up to protests--on Saturdays, but I'm not the protesting type, and I'd never do it during the school day. It's hard enough planning for a sub anyway. I might was well just teach myself.
Interesting you mention this. I guess it's experience. My grandfather was a factory foreman in Chicago--a union guy, and he lived a solid middle class life on a single income. He put five kids through Catholic school and built his own summer cottage in Northern Wisconsin. (He bought the land at a discounted price and built the place himself, but he paid property taxes in both WI and Chicago. Not cheap). So for me, union = middle class insurance. And the increased wealth disparity in America, coupled with the decline in union membership really does make me wonder if they're correlated. I'm not some militant union guy, but I support their right to exist and bargain on behalf of workers.
In North Carolina I knew teachers who would show up to protests--on Saturdays, but I'm not the protesting type, and I'd never do it during the school day. It's hard enough planning for a sub anyway. I might was well just teach myself.
I will DM you a bit later this evening as I don't want us talking about some things that may come up out here in the open. Hang on, I am starting to like you and even respect you left leaning or not.
Ok, I read your links and watched the videos and find very little real truth in any of it. When the unions in Wisconsin make their noises they are talking about only public unions when they say that collective bargaining has been taken away. Yes it happened to the teachers and others who belong to public employee unions but it did not happen to the private unions. When will many of you people realize that those people paying so little of their pension money from their own pockets and having tax money pay the rest is just not fair to the general population? Never it seems as long as I keep seeing those links to Think Progress, Media Matters, AFL-CIO and the like. Those people are telling too many half-truths and even lies for me.
An example would be to look at how much tax money goes into teachers pensions and how much goes into the same thing in many other states. In Kansas we have right-to-work laws but unions are allowed to operate. The hard part of that one is that out teachers are allowed to have local, state, and national union membership but they have to deal with local boards of Education and get their pensions through the state people. My wife has been in the same school for 39 years (she just retired on state pension only) but she had paid over $150 dollars per month for years to the pension fund. I wonder how much those teachers who were on strike for weeks while they demonstrated in the State Capitol. Who looked out for their kids while that was going on? And yet the taxpayers were paying much more to their pensions than they were.
How is it right for the tax payers to have to pay that much when there is no way they can get their money back like businesses can when they have to make up for paying union workers. You know, that is like the amount of money we spent in the 80s for automobiles because of the high dollar health care paid for the workers, and every time they got a raise we of the buying public got to pay more so the companies could make their money. Tax payers can't do that but those public employee unions seem to thing that they are the same thing as the other union people.
That behavior of the Wisconsin teachers was the very thing I always refused to take part in although I never was around a strike. As a teacher I felt I owed a lot to the kids and being out of the classroom to demonstrate the way unions like to do just didn't fit what I believed.
Get some links from somewhere other than Think Progress or as it really means Think Progressive and unions and I will gladly read more, but not from those places.
Somehow I never saw myself as a teacher as a part of the middle class just because I belonged to a national union. I felt like maybe middle, middle class but thought of small business people as the upper middle class. Maybe that is the reason I just can't handle all this union talk about death of the middle class. When I think of that and then that Obama and other Democrats keep talking middle class I have a lot of trouble accepting any of it.
Roy, I admit that I have questions concerning public unions given that they contribute money to those that negotiate their wages.
But, what I see here on this board is not only questioning that, but rather a general animosity toward all unions. Unions are evil, are thugs, are a pox on this country. That is the opinion I disagree with.
And, I have to think that there could be some way to have collective bargaining for public unions work. I don't think you can say that they can't contribute to campaigns as with the recent Supreme Court ruling that would infringe on the freedom of speech. There has to be some solution though.
Roy, I admit that I have questions concerning public unions given that they contribute money to those that negotiate their wages.
But, what I see here on this board is not only questioning that, but rather a general animosity toward all unions. Unions are evil, are thugs, are a pox on this country. That is the opinion I disagree with.
And, I have to think that there could be some way to have collective bargaining for public unions work. I don't think you can say that they can't contribute to campaigns as with the recent Supreme Court ruling that would infringe on the freedom of speech. There has to be some solution though.
I saw only collective bargaining on wages being taken away from the Wisconsin public employees. I still think that both sides have to be involved in any kind of collective bargaining and tax payers just don't get to take part in public employee bargaining. However, I will admit to not liking unions because of many of the things they force on consumers.
It doesn't matter whether 400 rich guys or 12% of the population that is union is screwing my finances, they are both deplorable.
If union members are getting highly subsidized health benefits and pensions, then they should be taxed on that benefit as if it was income.
Unions bribing politicians to get favored status is no better than corporations doing it.
my pension is taxed......
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