Unions & Bailouts * Open Thread

I am a retired public school teacher. I understand your ranting about teachers unions. There is really only one basically in my state, the NEA. When I first started teaching in the 70′s there was a sort of competition between the NEA and the AFT. The AFT made no bones about being a union, but the NEA tried to sound more “professional” so they called themselves a “professional organization.”

But the whole thing about the NEA, which I ended up joining, is this. As a teacher you can be caught between a “rock and a hard place” when it comes to administration and also parents.

There are administrators who are absolutely awful. I was voted NEA rep from my building my first year when I was not even at the meeting because I was the only one with the courage to send a letter to the editor about two teachers he was “non renewing” and thus basically ending their careers. One had advised a senior to “suck up” and do what it took to graduate when the student had been unfairly suspended. The principal had just not wanted the kid around. The other teacher had embarrassed the principal when the governor called the school to congratulate this teacher for his work with a government agency to provide low income housing. When the call came in, the secretary just heard that the governor’s office was calling and assumed he wanted to talk to the principal, a banty rooster sort of guy. When he took the phone and then had to go turn it over to the teacher he was furious. He just didn’t like that the teacher was popular.

A group of students and parents petitioned the school board to hear the cases, and the school board refused. This principal was the biggest jerk, and he had been brought in to “get the teachers” in their places. So we NEEDED the protection of the union. I told the editor that he needed to print my letter even if I would be “run out of town on a rail” as he suggested I would be if I insisted.

I spent the rest of the year expecting to see him walk into my classroom at all times, which he did, always trying to “catch” me doing something wrong, since I was non-tenured. The kids were amazing and always acted like angels when he walked in because they knew what he was trying to do.

We needed the lawyers membership in the union provided and we needed the insurance they provided.

But……over the years the administration has become so much just a part of the staff and faculty that they just don’t do their jobs to get rid of bad teachers–too much paper work and documentation necessary, and they “pal around” (to use Palin’s phrase) with some of the teachers that should probably be let go, so their social commitment trumps their professional commitment.

And besides, nowadays it’s often the other way around. The “popular” teachers are the ones not doing their jobs doing anything remotely like teaching in the classroom. The kids love them since they don’t have to do work, so no administrator will face the parents, many of whom just want to get their kids through school without worrying if they’re learning anything.

There ARE procedures in place to get rid of bad teachers, but many administrators just don’t do their jobs.

If not for the legal help and the insurance, I would not have joined. But I saw too many teachers almost lose everything when some student falsely accused them of something. You read about the pervert teachers, who SHOULD be caught. But you never really read about the teachers whose lives have been turned into a living hell by some kid’s vindictive false accusation. By the time they have gone through three years of the legal system, they don’t usually choose to make the counter suit against the kid’s family. Who wants another year of court and you’d be trying a kid who is obviously messed up anyway.

The NEA, however, does nothing I think to really promote academics. It just promotes its ability to bargain for more pay. It never considers bargaining for changes to the way those pay scales are set up so as to promote better teaching. More funding, more pay–that’s all I see from them, besides providing the lawyers and insurance policies.

I could go on-

The NEA endorsed Obama, of course. I saw his ugly mug on the cover of my monthly NEA mag and simply threw it away.

There once was a time from 1960-1995 when there existed the largest biggest plastics manufacturing company in the Pacific Northwest. The company was renowned in the area and had a lock on the market that no one could penetrate.
Then one day a union leader walked into the plant and unionized all the employees.
That day marked the beginning of the end of a great company. A few years later the company after a series of labor disputes abruptly left town and shut it’s doors leaving all these workers out of work.

The company left all it’s machinery and equipment behind and now years later that same building is pumping out the same plastics with an all new work force that has the highest productivity and the least turnover and is the leader once again in the industry…
Without unions!!
I sure hope they don’t come knocking at my door after we finally got it right..Stay away unions
I have a company to run!!

The reason michigan no longer makes cars is because of the union demands. Now cars are made in states that aren’t as demanding. That’s the reason, right or wrong.

Car manufacturing is not dead in America. UNION car manufacturing is dead.

No president is going to tell a car manufacturer to unionize. Not even The One, with his law that ‘votes’ to unionize or not unionize can’t be private. Foreign manufacturers who provide jobs here will just pull up stakes and leave. They can afford it too.

Brilliant.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about this. I think unions serve a purpose and they were initially put in place because employers treated their employees like dog crap. But somewhere along the line, the demands got worse and worse. To even imagine a company will put up with that in these competitive global times is just plain foolish.

$60,000 a year?

————-

Wow.

Let’s see, how do we redefine middle class, these days?

Where I live, $60, 000 is not enough to own a home, with a family of four say, health insurance, dental, et al, education, food, clothing, the basics, it doesn’t go far.

Couple of kids in college?

Forget it.

So, before we think it’s an enormous amount of money, perhaps we ought to reexamine the true cost of living in relation to that 60, 000, before taxes.

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Okay,
I used to live in Germany.
Most of my life self-employed, working sundays and holidays, no coverage on my vacation or whatever.
(the German systen was very social until recently, so people expected to get stuff without doing stuff, You know what I mean)
When somebody tried to tell me how hard the Americans have it, like no health insurance, two jobs etc,.
I used to think to myself, thats the way I live ever since.
Obviously I was living the American way in Germany.
Only without opportunity. I was just not made for sucking the system and living on gouvernment.
As I said, “without opportunity!”, the American people should really understand what this whole thing is all about.
If You have the opportunity to make it, there is always the chance You don’t.
You cannot have it both ways.
I have really hoped for a strong vote for McCain, but You should never underestimate the stupidity.
People don’t get it, because You have just freaking gossip machines as news.
I am all for Sarah 2012.
Hopefully I have voting rights by then.
This guy Obama is just another politician, the people he used for his scam are going to realize this soon.
He is against the American dream, because he does not know poverty, he has always had the dream.
The gouvernment controlled distribution is so humiliating,
please Americans, stand up for opportunities.
this is the American Dream.

The defense of unions displayed in these comments is entirely misplaced.

There are only two legitimate and non-harmful roles of unions: to ensure that wages are at least market rate – and to ensure safe working conditions.

Anyone who believes that unions were responsible for “creating the middle class” or raising wage levels over the years is ignorant of basic economics. A simple explanation of cause and effect will suffice to correct.

First, a word on the origin of wages. I constantly hear union supporters insinuate (or claim outright) that wages come from “profits” and that if only the greedy capitalists would forgo some of those profits, the workers could enjoy higher wages.

But wages are paid for with revenues, not profits. In a typical manufacturing enterprise for instance, around 65-75% of revenues pay for the cost of labor (wages). Of the rest, most is used for other production costs (materials, fuel, premises, training etc), some is used for research and development and most of the rest is reinvested. After that, around 2-5% are typically taken as profit – a tiny fraction of the percentage taken for labor. The idea that wage levels could be increased significantly by pressuring companies to give up some of their profits is false.

So when unions obtain wage increases, where do they come from? Since wages come from revenue, the only way to raise them is through an increase in revenue. There are two ways to increase revenue.

Firstly, by raising consumer prices. But not only does this reduce prosperity by reducing spending power, it also causes unemployment in other industries as the consumer edges out from their budget the things that those “other” industries produce in order to pay higher prices for union produced goods. This causes unemployment in non-union industries. So what if all industries were unionized and they all procured higher wages? Well, everything would be more expensive and we’d all be poorer.

The second way to increase wages – and the only way to do it without reducing prosperity or causing unemployment – is by improving the means of production so that each worker produces at a higher rate and thus more revenue is raised. In fact this is exactly how wage rates have risen since the start of the Industrial Revolution. It also explains why workers were so poor at the start of the Revolution and why parents frequently had their kids work too – the means of production was crude and inefficient.

The only way to increase general prosperity is by increasing the production of wealth. The only way to do this is via technical innovation which improves the means of production and hence makes each worker more productive. It is through this process that our general prosperity has improved to the point where even those classed as “poor” in capitalist countries have TVs, DVD players and microwaves in their homes.

Unions have nothing to do with our general prosperity and in fact have slowed economic growth, caused capital to be used inefficiently and have slowed the growth of real wages by inflating consumer prices. Further empowerment of the unions Obama style will spell disaster for our economy. Obama is an isolationist who doesn’t see the wider, global economic picture. Pressuring companies to “preserve” jobs which could be performed cheaper and more efficiently abroad will ensure further misuse of capital and cripple economic growth at a time we need it the most.