and more questions from Hal regarding education and unions
You just can't answer questions without demeaning people who disagree with you... sigh...
What greed do you have to oppose as a teacher's union? Who is the antagonist for the union?
You asked this question before and I answered it before. But, I will try to do so again.
Teacher unions are not fighting "greed" as you term it - whatever that may mean to you.
We are not against or opposed or fighting any battles against any antagonists. Teacher unions are a collective of members who advocate for their legal rights to have a contract with their employer.
You did not answer it before, and you're dodging it yet again. If there is no antagonist, then there is no need for a union. If there is no fighting, why would there be a strike? If there is a strike, to get anything from this antagonist, who pays for the resulting agreement? I know the answer. I know YOU know the answer. Why can't you just state it plainly?
Regarding strikes or work stopages ,please see my answer in the post above to Federir.
Are you honestly saying, that the first concern of the teacher's union was the students? There is no way any intelligent person can claim that a teacher's strike helps the students it disrupts. Even if it's just one day. Your trying to claim that a 6 week strike, plus 3 others, had no impact on the students is absurd and bordering on dishonest.
If, as you say, no child missed a "day of education" what were they doing during those work stoppages? Can you really claim their education didn't suffer from not having teachers?
The State where I live allocates 180 days and a certain number of classroom hours for every student. Even in the year when we were out for nearly six weeks, each student was given their 180 days of classroom education.
I'll echo Feredir's comment about disruption, and add a further one, that it disrupts not just education, but all extracurricular activities related to the school. It also costs the state and taxpayers more money, because schools have to be open longer, non-union employees have to be paid longer, and special circumstances always cost more than what's been planned.
If you want to know what the children were doing during those work stoppages, you will have to ask some of them. I was a teacher during those events and not a parent or student who has that information. I can tell you that during the six week strike, the union did set up special union schools where children could go for several hours each day. Teachers on strike volunteered their time and services to provide educational activities for children - and they did not get one dime for their efforts and it cost the union money to rent the space.
What is an "educational activity?" What is "several hours?" What was the purpose of these union schools? How did they fit into the negotiations with the Union? How did they play in the court of public opinion? What did they actually accomplish?
Your claim that schools are not businesses is false as well. They have employees, and they provide a service. Their money comes from the state, rather than fees (well, disregarding private schools of course), but they still do essentially work for the taxpayers. They have to bring in money, and distribute it in the best manner possible to provide their service. The more money the teacher's union sucks out of the limited supply, the more the product suffers. This is the parasitic relationship I mentioned before
Do understand the difference between a commercial business and a government service?
Actually, I do. Do you understand how money works?
Fire protection in the persons of the Fire Department are a public service and function of government and are not a business. They are not there to make a profit.
Police protection in the persons of the Police Department are a public service and function of government and are not a business. They are not there to make a profit.
Public education for children in the persons of the Public School System is a public service and function of government and is not a business. It is not there to make a profit.
whoa whoa whoa! Who said anything about a profit? You don't have to make a profit or even try to make a profit to be a business. Granted, schools could certainly be run MORE like a business than they are, as they have no self-imposed incentives to improve their product.
This is not my opinion. This is not my belief. This is not a fallacy I labor under. This is a fact of life.
It is indeed. But it is not the whole truth, as you are conveniently ignoreing facts of life you don't like.
You refer to teachers unions sucking money from the system. Do you understand how public education works? The operation of schools is a labor intensive process. The service being rendered is that of the teacher in the classroom to the student in the classroom. It is that service that comprises the largest portion of any school budget. To say you want to spend less on teachers is like saying your local department store sure could make a bigger profit if they only did not have to spend all that valuable money on their inventory. Its nonsensical and pointless to claim this. The delivery of the teachers service IS part and parcel the essence of education. In fact, it is the most important component of the delivery of the service of education to the student.
Please tell me where I've stated I think teachers should be paid less? I think teachers are one of the most important jobs in the world. I think they should be paid MORE. I think one of the greatest obsticles to that, is being a PUBLIC service, of course, but that's a different topic.
If, of course, the school board and principle could run their school more like a business, and not be beholden to the teacher's union's every whim, they could fire teachers that aren't good at their job, and hire teachers that are (costs more of course, but worth it). But the Teacher's union is not out for the school's best interest, it is out for its member's best interests, which is NOT the students.
You use the term "parasitic relationship". Any dictionary will tell you that a parasite is an organism who lives off another and gives nothing in return. I assume you used that term because it is an insult to teachers and expresses you personal feelings about public school teachers. However, aside from your personal animus, teachers perform a job. Teachers give of themselves and their labor and knowledge. Teachers are not parasitic. You have badly misused a term which in and of itself is tinged with ill will.
You are deliberately misunderstanding my point, which I think was quite clear. The teachers and the schools should be symbiotic, obviously. without teacher's the school dies. without a school, the teachers have nothing. That's why a work stoppage (the kind word for strike), can do nothing but hurt a school. It separates the two symbiotic partners.
My point with the parasite comparison, is that if a business or "organization" if you object to the term so strongly goes into an unhealthy situation, where one part of another is more interested in its own advancement than the advancement of the whole, then everyone suffers. They are feeding on the rest of those in the relationship. That is, taking more than normal, with no benefits for the whole.
Parasite.
As I stated in the very beginning of this discussion, a clear understanding of the public school system, the role of teachers in that system, and the role of teachers union is essential to any intelligent discussion of the topic.
According to you, only you have that, and thus everyone else is wrong
Arrogance is so annoying.