While the vast majority of the nation is fed up with Congress, the Repubs aren’t exactly making great strides in earning their confidence as yet. Nor should they until they’ve done something to earn it.
But this can’t hurt
51% say Congress is too liberal – 22% say it is too Conservative
Better than 2 to 1 say they’d rather have a less liberal Congress. I’m sure the Bule Dogs will see this number and enjoy it. The Repubs better look at all the numbers and get to work.
…..
Here in the greater Seattle metro area, the largest school district in the southern suburbs got stuck with a teachers strike this week. Since it is illegal for public employees to strike here, a judge has ordered them back to work while the union negotiates.
The Washington equivalent of the NEA, the WEA, is refusing to break the strike, and while arresting the union officials and any teachers who listen to their direction for contempt of court is legally an option, the number of individual teachers is so large that it isn’t feasable (that and the state and local authorities don’t have the balls to do it).
And despite what you think, this isn’t about wage increases (they’re getting a 4.5% raise over last year). The sticking point is an argument over class size and how many meetings the teachers have to attend per school year. The teachers want one child removed per class and two meetings removed from the roster. The second one I can understand, but as for the first one, district is so large that it would have to build at least four new schools (two elementary, one junior high and one high school) to accomodate that many classes, and then staff them.
Which brings us to why the unions is pushing this strike: They want the increase in membership.
This isn’t and never will be about “The Kids”. As usual, it is about “The System”. They like the system. It funds their cushy jobs.
However, strikes like this one, where everyone but the union and their members can see right through the bullshit and into their true motives, lead to things like we’re seeing in this poll from Gallup
Gallup finds organized labor taking a significant image hit in the past year. While 66% of Americans continue to believe unions are beneficial to their own members, a slight majority now say unions hurt the nation’s economy. More broadly, fewer than half of Americans — 48%, an all-time low — approve of labor unions, down from 59% a year ago.
So keep it up. Maybe enough parents in this district will back up the authorities and get, at the very least, some contempt of court fines handed out.
You know, the air traffic controller’s union was pretty big, as I recall. Reagan had a solution for that problem. I wonder if something similar could be employed?
I too vote for firing the lot of them, there are plenty of replacements waiting for an opportunity to ……. you know, work! But if they haven’t got the balls to cite and fine them, they certainly don’t have what it takes to do THAT, oh my goodness, no.
WRT reducing class size needing new buildings, not so much – at middle and HS, just hire a few more teachers, and some of them are sharing rooms during prep period, being mobile, etc. Speaking as someone who is a teacher and has taught in that particular district doing just exactly this sort of thing, I think the best thing for the district long term, as well as me personally, is if they vote to strike, the judge says they are in breech, allows the district to fire en mass and selectively rehire and bring on a couple hundred new teachers with a new contract given by the district on a take it or leave it basis, would be great – get rid of the dead-wood, and hire me and a bunch of other currently unemployed teachers, and give the whole bunch a bit of a reality check. The district has some real issues – while this would be a messy way to start addressing them, it might be something big enough to get some problems fixed.
Been There’s comment makes too much sense, speaks from experience and directly addresses the problem ….. hence, it’ll never happen. Too bad.
Well, it looks like they voted to continue the strike, in violation of the court order. With any luck, there will be a mass lay-off and selectively offered rehire, and a whole lot of new job offers going out, and I’ll have a job. It’s not my preffered district (it’s got some messed up policies both district-wide and on a school-by-school basis), but a difficult-to-crappy job with a paycheck & benefits beats the heck out of subbing for ~1/3 the pay (and no benies).