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.
