“These Teacher Unions Are Out Of CONTROL”

This is a different discussion. I'll assume from that you have conceded the legal point.
As for income distribution, I'm not concerned. The period 1945-1975 (roughly speaking) was an anomaly -- a uniquely lush environment in the US. A large part of what you have seen since then is a trend back toward historic norms in income distribution.
And there's nothing at all wrong with an investor out-earning a wage earner.

 

Teachers join unions when they get the chance, and unite in "teachers' associations" when government stops them from unionizing. Why do they join? To protect themselves against unfair treatment by management, particularly in evaluating their work.

 

No, I don't concede the legal point or the underlying politics that created right-to-work laws and other legislation that undermines workers' wages.

You can't realistically compare what happened a century ago with the situation we face today.

The imbalance undermines support amongst everyday folks for the capitalist system. Trump, loser that he is, tapped into worker anger. He's a false prophet who actually worked against workers he claimed to support by giving 85% of the tax cut to people making more than $400,000 a year, and trying to gut healthcare premiums support for low-income workers and those with preexisting conditions.

The thought someone politically competent could have done what Trump did in 2016 is scary.

 

Because they run a business and judge that they'll make more money if they suppress workers' wages.

 

Denied work? No, of course not. You can work for someone else.

You don't have to join a union or work for any employer, including the government.

Your opinion is that your rights would be violated. I disagree.

Your First Amendment rights wouldn't be violated.

 

Not always. Teachers' unions wouldn't have the solidarity they do if they excluded Republicans from union leadership.

I organized and led my teachers' union (about 2,000 members) response to a Trump-like radical rightwing school board in a conservative community while openly supporting school vouchers.

Teachers' unions are political, but not necessarily partisan.

 

It's just normal life.

 

The state-bankrupting contracts are nearly always in collusion with Democrat office holders.

 

What is "just normal life?"

Your answer is nonresponsive.

 

Teachers' union contracts are not "state-bankrupting," an absurd claim born of propaganda churned out by people who prefer lower taxes to a half-decent K-12 school system.

 

On the contrary, I believe we should all be paying higher taxes. And yes, the unfunded obligations of pension plans are indeed bankrupting.

 

No. Only a few get really rich. A larger group achieves comfort. Many get by, others struggle, some suffer.
Tax cuts benefit high earners most because that's where the taxes are.

 

That's what I said!

And, that is NOT the fault of unions.

It's typical for public and private employers to negotiate against improved compensation and job description improvements and FOR benefits that won't be realized until the future - like retirement.

In fact, RARELY do employee unions demand better retirement.

The really sick aspect of that comes when the company (like big auto) or the state then fails to fund those compensation features they PROMISED during negotiations.

We even see public and private employers point to those retirement benefits and claim they are "too large" and "unwarranted", etc.

BUT, those are the benefits that the employers used to suppress the wages of their employees!! Employees PAID for those benefits through working for lower wages throughout their CAREERS.

Taking away those benefits is blatant theft. And, failing to account for them in the employer's books is malfeasance.

 

My daughter's private school has an exercise where students and parents come to school for dinner. At the door, each family is given a number that correlates with food available to a segment of a population chosen as the theme for the night. The night I attended was for India. One couple was waited on at a table with candles, tablecloth, chairs, etc. and their food was a good looking tandouri dinner (the school has a chef). The next tier down had plates and were allowed forks and ate a small amount of the tandouri, sitting on the floor. Like most who attended, my wife and I ate a small amount of rice in a bowl, with our fingers while sitting on the floor. The food distribution was calculated to be accurate by actual percentage of the population.

The idea of demonstrating what the stats actually mean is seriously important.

How do you think your Palestinian classmates felt? I think it is important for kids to have an understanding of what your family experienced. Glossing over the real world implications is not an education.

Students don't have "learning styles". That has been been debunked for decades.

Corporations have management that has no right to fire without cause that is reviewed. They DO have management that can judge the work product of those in their groups.

The hiring problem you point to comes from two specific sources, I believe:

- First, existing compensation and job desciptions don't attract enough candidates that have the skills you want. When a corporation determines that they need greater success in some department, they increase compensation and/or improve job descriptions. In education, we just moan. In fact, it's often worse than that - we claim that since teachers aren't performing the way we want, we should pay them LESS!! NO corporation looks at it that way.

Not every smart individual is interested in a profession that requires significant education (making them qualified for a range of careers), but doesn't offer performance based advancement, doesn't offer input and decision making in teaching methods (a topic in which they have an adanced degree), and where the job doesn't change throughout their entire career.

We treat teachers as if they are a herd in a corral, profession wise. We forget that this is free market capitalism, and smart people have a lot of opportunity. It's true that there are those who really feel dedicated to education and the personal rewards that brings, but teachers have families.

- next, we don't have a legitimate way of evaluating teacher performance. We do not allow education to be a real profession. In high tech, we pay attention to this ability to evaluate performance and the management heirarchy is organized to recognie this as one of the key features related to advancement.

In education, that almost never exists in the USA (it DOES exist in some other countries). So, we leave salary to years of service! And, we allow no real participation in teaching methodology to the individuals who have ADVANCED DEGREES in education!! LIke you above, everyone on the street thinks they are smarter about education than the people who have studied education and participated in education as their full career!!!

And, if we don't grow a real profession, how and who is it that could possibly do an adequate job of selecting strong candidates to hire?

 

It's absolutely the fault of public sector unions.
Warren Buffett: Avoid States With Large Unfunded Pension ...
reason.org › commentary › warren-buffett-avoid-states-...

May 7, 2019 — Every new teacher, firefighter, or other public worker hired adds to a state's pension liability, but it's the unfunded portion of these liabilities that ...

 

You didn't even TRY to substantiate your claim of this being the problem of a union.

Unions don't ask for retirement compensation. They ask for improvements in job description, salary, and working conditions.

It's the state that offers retirement benefits in order to not address what unions ask for.

AND, it is not the unions who fail to include their promisses in the state or local budget.

Buffet has a point - but, it's not a problem caused by unions. It's a problem caused by legisatures and executive branches that negotiated obligations that they then failed to budget.

 

States welch on pensions when they promise too much at contract time as a way of getting around budget problems.

 

What is "really rich?"

We have an income distribution problem:


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

 

The best solution for pensions is for employees to take control of the funds.

Case-in-point of the above.

It's a tempting pile of money for employers who control it. Too tempting.

Message to employee: take control of your pension.

 

This is contrary to the science.

I thought we were going to be all about the science once Trump was gone.

 

Interesting idea. I'm not sure how that works, though.

Pension benefits are held by the employer in all the cases I know. Plus, in some cases the post retirement benefits include features, rather than dollars - like reduced price access to higher education or tax benefits.

The problem with pensions for teachers is that the money never existed. It was promised on the grounds that future budgets and revenue plans would prepare for that money to be available as individuals retired - hopefully, in distant years!

Do you think Big Auto would have turned over pension dollars to auto workers to manage?

I would say that wasn't even a possibility, as like with education, the employers didn't even HAVE that money.

Like with education they were counting on future revenue when they negotiated to deny salary increases, but offer increased retirement benefits instead.

 

Teachers just want to keep their cushy teaching-from-the-couch-a-few-hours-a-day gigs, and they don't care about the impact distance learning is having on the kids in terms of both mental health, and educational deficiencies.

Teachers are all about the teachers, and the pandemic has them really showing their selfish stripes. Did you notice how the teacher who posted the above never mentioned a word about the well-being of the kids? It's all about the teachers.

Two hours less per day, ten hours less per week, and they don't even have to leave the house.

Good luck getting the teachers to give up that sweet deal.

 

It's a problem created by state officials who offer future benefits to secure present political ($$$) support from unions.

 

Sorry, but their state courts almost always rule that the obligations are binding.

 

"Income equality" is not a value for me.