Posted on 05/14/2011 6:52:29 AM PDT by HorowitzianConservative
I've been arguing with my leftist friends again. Bad habits die hard. I still manage to let the dirty laundry pile up for weeks too. Some day I'll learn my lessons -- and have more leftist drinking buddies and fewer days wearing faded t-shirts from college.
This time it's Chris, an admitted Socialist and proud Union Man. (I suppose I'm being redundant aren't I?)
An argument that started over the futility of the attempt to create a "digital picket line" to boycott the Huffington Post (Chris's link was responsible for me suggesting to our star blogger Walter Hudson that he write this FANTASTIC post here) soon drifted over to the subject of the damaging effects of teachers unions. I challenged my friend when he seemed to play dumb on the horrific effects of lousy tenured teachers:
Oh come on, Chris. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Are you disputing the obvious reality that the result of making it much harder to fire elementary and high school teachers is that more bad teachers get to keep teaching kids poorly? It's very hard to fire a tenured high school or elementary school teacher. The result of this is kids get left behind when they're stuck with a lousy teacher for a year. Are you telling me that you're perfectly satisfied with the status quo of the hoops that have to be jumped through to fire bad teachers?I expected Chris to argue with me about this and insist that I'd been indoctrinated by evil right-wing talking points -- not that I was genuinely concerned about children getting a good education.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com ...
I just can’t do it. I do have friends who I suspect are liberal but we never broach the subject and they don’t torture me with such nitwittery. Seriously, I can not be around it.
LOL..good gosh, ya beat me to it!
Thirteen years ago, I was hired by EMU to teach reading/writing/computers (another person taught math)to union auto workers at a Chrysler assembly plant south of Detroit. It was designed as a basic reading/writing program and I had people who were foreign born, some had HS diplomas,many did not, and some were illiterate.
One such student was a janitor at the plant. Because of overtime and regular pay, my janitor student earned over $100,000.00 per year. ( I taught there from 1987-1997) He proudly showed me his pay chits. (My highest year’s earnings was $34,000.00 because I was paid by the university and had to belong to a “technical union” that took monthly dues, required for me to teach, all of which went to democrat causes. If I complained, I feared for getting my car ‘keyed’ or much more. This same student, who did learn enough to sign his name and read the instructions for voting and pass a driver’s test with reading, lived in Detroit and railed at that time against cutting welfare payments for his ‘people’ in Detroit because they wouldn’t know how to work. He also told me that he believed that if you walked into a store, like a 7/11, grabbed bag of potato chips and finished it before you got to the check out, you didn’t have to pay for it. (At that time all super markets were leaving Detroit-and yes I discussd the cause and effect of that with him)
I had also many high ability students who were more than capable but couldn’t write or spell-and were taking college classes where papers were required. Fortunately, I could work one on one with these students.
It was frightening to see how handicapped most workers were with a lack of a good education. These workers were required to check the quality of parts in the plant and enter their results in a computer. I had way too many students who were afraid to answer that honestly because their spelling and writing would be made-fun of by other workers.
Reminds me of years ago when I was working for a large industrial corporaton as an entry engineer. I was not unionized but the plant workers were very much so. On my first performance review I was asked what were my goals with the company. I told my boss who was high up in management that my objective was to make sure the work I did was at least worth my salary and I really intended to be twice as as valuable as my salary. I’ll always remember the quizzical look on my boss’s face with no reply at all. I’ve always thought it fair to have performance pay for the job. I don’t have much use for unions since my childhood days. To many members think like pack animals without wanting to repay monies given with a marginal increase in value of services.
Yep, and they have to beat the applicants off with a stick. Go figure. You can make more if you apply yourself. My wife is certified in NYS to teach biology, chemistry, and math. They pay extra if you teach more than one subject. Imagine that! Extra money for people who work harder! What a concept!
Right to work state with no union helps keep the pay low.
No, the RTW state with no union keeps the pay SUSTAINABLE.
The medical benefits are not so good.
No, the medical benefits are affordable and SUSTAINABLE.
Why wouldn't my wife and I stay in NY where the pay and benefits are better instead of moving to SC? Here are the reasons:
1) The pay and benefits for her may be better in NY, but I run a business and it SUCKS here for me. And I bring in quite a bit more than she does. Every time I turn around, NY is bending me over a desk. From tolls to gas taxes to fees on everything under the sun, they're killing us.
2) The pay and benefits are completely unsustainable in NY and are thus unstable and unreliable to plan on for the future. It is foolish to pretend that unicorns are magically going to show up and crap enough Skittles to make the pay and benefits viable. Promises don't pay the bills. We value stability, thus we choose SC.
3) NY is, economically, a decaying corpse with vultures feeding on the remains. There will be food for some time at the current rate, but eventually, they'll pick it clean to the bone. Best to not be here when that happens. Upstate SC is teeming with activity. It floors me to see how much has been built in Greenville over the past year.
4) The overall cost of living is much lower. For instance, the northeast has their own version of cap and trade and various other onerous regulations that make energy extremely expensive in NY. We just looked at the historic bills for a house in SC that is twice the size of our house in NY and the electric bill is less than half what ours is now.
5) Property taxes. You have to be a complete imbecile to sign on to buy a house in NY these days. In many areas, the tax bill could be higher than your mortgage. Think about how much it'll cost you when you pay off the house just to pay RENT to the state afterwards. And those taxes will ALWAYS go up, never down. The idiots in power here are talking about 'capping' the taxes to ONLY raise them 2% a year.
In SC, after I'm done paying off my $250k, 3000 square foot house, my tax bill will be about $1400 a year. It would be at least $5k where I am now.
6) The weather sucks in NY. It is dark, dismal, and depressing. Everyone is depressed and miserable here. Not so in the south. People you meet are friendly and helpful. They aren't beaten down by their lives. At least not yet anyway.
Unions have a right to exist, but only to the extent that they depend entirely on voluntary association. If a guy can convince all the workers at a plant that they should walk if management doesn't offer a pay raise, fine. But if management wants to fire any worker who even threatens to strike, that should be its prerogative. And if any worker decides to sabotage or disrupt operations by any means other than his decision to quit, or if a worker quits without giving contractually-required notice, the business owner should sue him.
Unions were a good thing when they had to be. When union workers knew that making unreasonable demands in a labor market that could replace them in a day would simply land them on the unemployment line, they had a strong incentive to be reasonable in their demands. Unfortunately, some bozos gave unions the power of government to protect them from competition, to the detriment of everyone including union workers.
This is Marxism, pure and simple. Liberals are not upset that a custodian is paid $50K a year plus full benefits.
Tot them, he NEEDS it. (remember, their definition of NEED can be very flexible)
My grandfather was a custodian for the last several decades of his life. He worked hard, and took his job seriously. But the point is, nearly ANYONE without a physical infirmity can be a custodian.
If I didn’t have a job, I would be a custodian, and would take no shame it it, because what is important is how well you do the job you are paid to do. There is honor in doing an unpalatable or boring job well.
But not everyone can take a scalpel and cut open flesh. There has to be a mechanism to get people to do that, and the government deciding for young people “YOU will be a brain surgeon, and YOU will be an accountant, and YOU will be custodian” is a mechanism that leftists love, but will never, Never, NEVER produced goods and services that are affordable, available, and of good quality.
We have read that book. We know how it ends.
Agreed. When people ask me what my goals at work are, I say “To provide the highest value to my employer I can, at a very minimum commensurate with the money they pay me.”
How about company executives whose salaries and automatic bonuses are tied to how well the company's stock does each year instead of over the long term? Is that really a good thing?
Fifty years ago a guy could graduate high school, get a good paying job, get married, buy a house and start a family by the time he was 21, with no college at all. Why can't he do that today? Sure, technology has made things more complicated and you need training, but that just shows that schools have not kept up with the times (liberal ideology, no doubt). Too many jobs "require" a college degree nowadays that really should not. Don't forget, every time unions get their members raises, executive salaries go up, too. And when there are layoffs, who do you think goes first, the union employee or some executive? It goes both ways.
College is not for everyone, neither is the boardroom; some people would rather work with their hands and not play office politics (and I've seen some people who did nothing but play office politics all day, every day). Why should they be paid any less?
My question is- do the janitors do more than clean? I admit I have always attended small schools, but the janitors I know about also do repairs. Many “janitors” have to be able to do plumbing, electrical, carpentry, A/C, heating, etc. I would bet many save the district money because they do not have to hire many different types of professionals to keep the buildings operational and safe. Our janitors had to also maintain the wooden gym floors, take care of the grass for the football field, and baseball diamond right along with all their other duties. They also were expected to be there during after school activities and games to make sure everything went smooth and cleanup afterward. The school janitors I know about are probably worth $50,000 but not sure they get that much anywhere I have lived.
I do think many in administration are overpaid- Superintendent, etc. they seem to hang out, drink coffee, and attend meetings. The school secretaries seem to do all the actual office work that keeps the school going... I never see the admin. guys doing much, but the janitor is always working.
Sorry ‘bout that.
I'm getting closer to that point every day. I think it's just a matter of finding my nuts and fully disassociating.
the seals that took out bin laden...
they make $55k/yr
it’s all about the unions
You might want to compare SC costs for houses, property taxes, rent and other basic costs of living before you conclude it is so bad.
And compared to what other states?
In 1979, starting pay for "IN DEMAND" engineers was about $16,000 ...
Why not? They pay Human Resources bimbos with “Business Communications” degrees $50,000 but the janitor does more productive work.
Then there would be more jobs available for citizens that paid more, and greater progress could be made toward reduces the $950 billion paid annually for welfare and low wage subsidies. We pay for it one way or the other. Might as well have decent pay for low skilled work so people moved off welfare could become mostly self-supporting.
The COLA in SC is one of the lowest in the US.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.