[mikemike]

By going on strike to get guaranteed job security, how many parents will be forced to take indefinite, unscheduled, leave from employment to care for their school age children. Teachers are inflicting economic harm onto the most vulnerable parents who can't afford to miss a paycheck or have one come up light. The parents whose employers aren't sympathetic to them taking a day or a few weeks off until the teachers can be satisfied in their demands will be laid off and all of the consequences upon those families and those children will be felt for a very long time.

Given the consequences of a teachers' strike, I can't think of a way to describe it other than selfish. This is one of the reasons why so many people are disgusted by unions.

Update: I heard about the strike on NPR this morning, but reading less liberal news sources I am reminded that only the lucky kids will survive the streets of Chicago.

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Last edited by mikemike; 09-10-2012 at 07:56 AM.

[jeffkrol]

America would be better off with more strikes - CNN.com

But in 1981, President Ronald Reagan summarily fired the striking federal air traffic controllers. Reagan's actions announced a critical turn in the federal government's attitude toward workers' rights. As a result, employers quickly adopted more aggressive tactics against unions and their strikes.

Decades of conservative federal court and NLRB decisions have now turned the law upside down.

For example, in 1983 the Supreme Court allowed permanent replacements to sue their employer if they were dismissed in favor of returning strikers, making a negotiated settlement of such strikes much more difficult.

In 1989, the court ruled that the federal Railway Labor Act governing transportation unions did not require employers to lay off employees who crossed picket lines in order to reinstate more senior strikers after an economic strike. That case brought a blistering dissent from Justice William Brennan, who found no basis for the court to favor crossover workers "unless it is perhaps an unarticulated hostility towards strikes."

At the bargaining table, the threat of replacement dovetails with legal rules that give management unilateral power to impose its last offer on declaration of impasse. As labor law scholar Ellen Dannin notes, the NLRB issued a series of decisions under the Reagan administration that lowered the number of bargaining sessions needed to show impasse, reduced the obligation to provide information to the union and gave employers freer rein to seek concessions, including total discretion in wages. These decisions have made it easier for employers to reach impasse and then implement their desired terms and conditions.

The previous mechanisms that once encouraged settlement are now reversed: Managers have incentive to reach impasse quickly and terminate bargaining, while unions often must scramble simply to avoid deadlock.

Disputes over impasse and implementation have featured in many high-profile labor struggles of recent years, involving Caterpillar, Bridgestone-Firestone, the Detroit News and major league sports. Even profitable employers can make extraordinary demands, and increasingly firms have chosen to lock out their workers and operate with replacements, as the National Football League is doing with its unionized referees.

In effect, we have returned to a policy of judicial repression.

[Parallax]

Given the consequences of a teachers' strike, I can't think of a way to describe it other than selfish.

Has anybody ever known a teacher that thought he didn't deserve more money? For some reason, teachers think the sun shines out of............ well, let's just say they have a very high opinion of themselves and their worth. Since it isn't possible to pay a teacher enough to satisfy him or her, I don't see why they even bother negotiating. I don't know what those particular teachers earn right now, and it doesn't matter. If any one of them quit, there would be another one that would take the job. (Most likely one that had been layed off somewhere else because some other district gave in to the blackmail and had to lay some off to pay the others the higher wages.)
Unions in the private sector are bad enough. If a company gives in they raise prices and the consumer has a choice whether to buy the product or not; or they just turn to overseas manufacturing.
Taxpayers don't get to choose whether the money comes out of their pocket or not. Unions for public employees are outrageous.

[jeffkrol]

Has anybody ever known a teacher that thought he didn't deserve more money? For some reason, teachers think the sun shines out of............ well, let's just say they have a very high opinion of themselves and their worth.

Gee for a minute there I thought you were talking about Congress......

After a five-week recess and lots of important tasks to attend to, lawmakers will get right back to work on the key issues when they return to Capitol Hill today, right? Eh, probably not. In fact, lawmakers are unlikely to stay very long in Washington in the first place. They’re expected to be in Washington for only about two weeks between now and Election Day in November,

Do-Nothing Congress: Returning lawmakers likely postpone important issues until after election

I LOVE misplaced priorities.......... makes the US go............ err.. what does it go???

[Parallax]

Gee for a minute there I thought you were talking about Congress......

Applies there as well.

[jeffkrol]

Applies there as well.

Having teachers on both sides of the family I'd have to heartily disagree w/ the portrait you try to paint.......at best their Masters degrees are under priced in the "market" regardless of who pays the bill..
considering that their wages make it back into the local economy seems to never count to some as to "Benefitting" anybody local..........


Teacher Salary - Average Teacher Salaries - PayScale

considering they are above "administrative assistant" and below "executive assistant" and way below Human resource manager..........
Average Salaries - Job Descriptions - Annual Job Salaries - PayScale

And yes I am well aware they get the benefits we all deserve...........

[Parallax]

considering that their wages make it back into the local economy seems to never count to some as to "Benefitting" anybody local..........

Ah. Trickle-down economics. So if the more we pay them, the better off everybody is, let's pay them each a few million a year and we'll all get rich.

at best their Masters degrees are under priced in the "market"

That depends on where you are, I suppose. My wife has a job that requires her Master's degree as well. She works for the same outfit that the teachers do (State of South Dakota). She earns roughly 2/3 - 3/4 of what a teacher with a Master's earns; and has to work 11 months out of the year to earn it instead of the 8 that the teachers do.

[mikemike]

In Chicago, the mean pay for an elementary school teacher is 61K, Middle school 62K, High school 68K... for a job where you get the summers off that ain't bad. The mean wage in Chicago is 48K so they are solidly on the plus side of that city's wage scale. I would say that they are even being fairly compensated for the extra educational hoops they jumped through to qualify for that job.

Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI - May 2011 OES Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Area Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates

[jeffkrol]

In Chicago, the mean pay for an elementary school teacher is 61K, Middle school 62K, High school 68K... for a job where you get the summers off that ain't bad. The mean wage in Chicago is 48K so they are solidly on the plus side of that city's wage scale. I would say that they are even being fairly compensated for the extra educational hoops they jumped through to qualify for that job.

Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI - May 2011 OES Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Area Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates

Regional pay scales are always referenced to cost of living.. gross numbers are not indicative.. Here where I live we would be more of the average.. and live better than the Chicago average in Chicago...

I suspect the number is quite a bit lower in your area. Your argument means nothing in other words........"executive assistant" in Chicago..........$35,125 - $66,374

Median salary in Chicago Chicago, Illinois $62,687

[jeffkrol]

Ah. Trickle-down economics.

no that is really trickle up...................
And it actually works...........

[Parallax]

no that is really trickle up...................
And it actually works...........

Oh, now I see. It trickles up from the working people to the 1%.

[jeffkrol]

Oh, now I see. It trickles up from the working people to the 1%.

Yes


but they always find more and creative ways to bypass it.. such as derivatives and corporate takeovers......."little people" don't have quite enough to count as much..

good to see your catching on though.........

[Nesster]

What I don't understand, why hasn't anyone proposed vouchers for teachers to go teach in private schools? That would be perfect supply side politics: if all the teachers worked in private and/or religious schools, there would be no supply in the public ones. Therefore the consumers must go to where the teachers are.

[mikemike]

Median salary in Chicago Chicago, Illinois $62,687

Source? The link I provided from the BLS says for All Occupations, mean = $48,430 and median hourly wage = $17.58 which translates into $35,160 annually. Maybe you are talking about for households which can include multiple wage earners or people working multiple jobs.

[jeffkrol]

quote=mikemike;2091668]Source? The link I provided from the BLS says for All Occupations, mean = $48,430 and median hourly wage = $17.58 which translates into $35,160 annually. Maybe you are talking about for households which can include multiple wage earners or people working multiple jobs.[/quote]

Same as all the other ones......

who said he would push to end the strike quickly as officials figure out how to keep nearly 400,000 children safe and occupied.

Chicago Teachers Strike For First Time In 25 Years : NPR
Maybe now those parents will spend some quality time.........

some more general salaries:

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/chicago-salary-SRCH_IL.0,7_IM167.htm