Guest post by Ohio Mark
The contradictions in the public-employee union arguments are many.
We need the unions so we have good pay and benefits, but…
We don’t really have good pay and benefits.
We don’t really have good pay and benefits, but…
It’s time to tax the rich to pay for the budgets that pay for our pay and benefits.
We have to have public-employee unions and collective bargaining because it’s the only way we’ll improve our lot in life, but…
Union membership in the private sector continues to decline – don’t they need unions to improve their lot in life?
If you stop collective bargaining in the public sector you’ll eliminate the middles class, but…
Most people don’t work for the government and most people are in the middle class.
We need unions and collective bargaining in the public sector to protect us from the government “man,” but…
Aren’t the people who work in government good, unlike businessmen? Whom do you need protection from? The voters? The citizens?
They just want to end collective bargaining and public-employee unions to intentionally destroy the middle class, but…
Really, seriously, why?
The private sector has unions and collective bargaining and so should the public sector, but…
Private-sector unions have to deal with a free market, company profit and loss, competition; public-sector unions are funded through mandatory taxes and the customers – citizens – are locked into the state monopoly.
People should be allowed to assemble as they see fit, but…
A right-to-work state that doesn’t require the payment of union dues to work is wrong?
Public employees deserve good or great pay because they do good and great jobs, but…
Requiring pay based on merit is an attack on public employees?
If collective bargaining is ended and unions weakened, all public employees will quit, but…
Well, probably not.
We will not all quit because we love our jobs. We have never said that our pay and benefits are not adequate because they are. Merit pay is just a term used to what? Say that I will work harder if my pay is based on the results my students display on a given day. Aren't students worth more than test scores? Aren't people worth more than standardized test scores? Is this what our world is coming to? If you fail a test, you aren't a good person, student, teacher? I am really tired of defending what I do and what I've earned over the past 13 years. It's exhausting to continue to defend myself, my students and my profession. However, we have to continuously prove ourselves and defend ourselves because of blogs, articles, news stories
ReplyDeleteetc. The misconceptions about our pay, working conditons and benefits are numerous. My problem is that the unions we pay to "market" for us aren't doing us any favors.