The absolute worst aspect of the ongoing union vs. non-union conflicts taking place around the country is the way people are being pitted against one another.
The vitriole is flying fast and furious from folks on both sides of the collective bargaining debate, enough so that you have to just wish some of the louder voices would take a time out somewhere (preferably in state of course).
I've taught for fifteen years. It can be an incredibly rewarding job, and you would like to think it's an important and valued job. Unfortunately all you need to do is scan through a few comments to one of the Wisconsin or Indiana stories to find out that there are many people out there who have little to nothing good to say or think about educators.
I would like to think that every workplace is populated mostly by people who care about their work and put forth a genuine effort each day to do their job the best they can. It's also true of course that most workplaces have a handful of people who are not like this. They "punch the clock" only to receive their paycheck, and care little about how well they do what they do.
Teaching is no different.
There are good teachers and there are bad teachers. My experience, in four different school systems across two different states, is that most teachers are incredibly dedicated and professional in their work. It's too bad that the bad ones cast dark shadows over those who labor so diligently on behalf of their students.
Most teachers I know are not so pompous or entitled to believe that they should not suffer economically when the rest of the country is suffering. The last five years I spent in Indiana, I think we might have seen, at best, a total overall raise of 1.5%, most of which was eaten up with increased insurance premiums. After 15 years in this profession, I still do not make over $40k, and I pay hundreds of dollars each month for health insurance. I contribute to my own retirement account and pay for life insurance as well.
I'm simply not getting the part of this story that makes me a contributor to the economic woes of my region, state, or country.
Despite these facts, leaders in states like Indiana and Wisconsin have managed to pit me against those in the public sector. I now represent what is wrong and bad with this country. I am now the reason that fellow Americans have lost their public sector jobs, had their pay reduced, or caused their homes to go into foreclosure.
People, are we even listening to the things that we are saying to each other?
For every example of excess out there in the public sector, how many examples are there of honest, hardworking men and women doing their best to serve in the capacity they have been trained for? Do the men and women on the non-union side really believe that cafeteria workers, custodians, maintenance staff, teachers aides, and secretaries are spending their days raking in big bucks while they sip on cappucino's in the staff lounge? Really?
I saw someone post in defense of collective bargaining for teachers by listing graduation rates by state compared to whether or not the state allowed collective bargaining. Seriously?! Are we expected to be so incapable of rational thought that we would immediately believe that there is some kind of causal link between collective bargaining and graduation rates? Such nonsense does nothing to ease the tensions or bring resolution to the issues.
At the same time, it is equally ludicrous to suggest that teachers, fat on their excessive paychecks, are sloughing on the job, leading to uneducated students.
These issues are complex, and seeking out simple causalities that do not really exist is taking the easy way out. And that is my major beef with people like Governor's Daniels and Walker.
First off, collective bargaining is not the root cause of the economic trials we currently face.
Secondly, most unionized workers are more than willing to contribute to solutions by sharing the financial burden during difficult times. They do not require the threat of losing their right to negotiate to do so.
Thirdly, any approach to leadership that comes by dividing the population and sending them off to attack one another is the worst kind of leadership. And Tea Party members, I am talking directly to you on this one. Confrontational politics, adversarial politics, both get the blood pumping and leave in their wake a devastated population eventually.
We are in this together. Those who have worked under the support of a labor union are not evil and do not seek to destroy the public for their own self-interest. They do not consider themselves better than their public world counterparts.
The fact is, we thought we were on the same team all along.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
A Precedent that Eventually Reaches Ourself
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself."
Thomas Paine
American physicist Gerard O'Neill cautioned in his futuristic novel 2081 that we should "be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify."
While I sincerely doubt that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker deserves to be labled a dictator, he, along with Indiana's Governor Mitch Daniels, seem to be walking a path similar to the one that O'Neill warned about.
There is no question that these are difficult, trying economic times. Ever since the days of $4.00 and above gasoline not so many years ago, most people that I know have been scraping to get by. Prices on goods continue to rise at the same time that wages have flatlined or, in sadder cases, disappeared altogether as jobs vanished.
Average, non-wealthy Americans have watched their government flood billions of dollars of tax payer money into a protracted war effort and corporate bailouts. We watch the news and see the illegal actions of large companies rewarded with government protection, while we try to stay a step ahead of foreclosure with little to no help from those we elected to office.
Now we see the leaders in our State and Federal governments choosing tactics that pit citizen against citizen, rather than show the intestinal fortitude necessary to make the difficult and fiscally responsible decisions that need to be made. Disappointment is not a strong enough word.
The history of collective bargaining is rich in our country. I do not come from a union family, nor was I raised with a union-type mentality. I have belonged to a teachers union, primarily for the legal protection it provided and because it only seemed fair, since the union negotiated on my behalf for wages and benefits. At the same time, I can appreciate the need for any human being to feel as though they will be treated well at the place they will spend nearly a third of the rest of their life, and where they will earn the wages that enable their family to survive.
Surely both our goverments and other governments around the world recognized the same by virtue of their historical support of a workers right to collective bargaining. The U.S. history of collective bargaining as a RIGHT exists as far back as the National Labor Relations Act from the 1930's.
In 1948, the United Nations issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declared in Article 23 that all human beings have the right to work, as well as the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of their interests.
The International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, in 1988 adopted the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which identified the freedom of association and collective bargaining as fundamental principles for member states.
Despite the historical precedent of collective bargaining as a fundamental right to all employees, both Governor's Walker and Daniels seem intent on bringing it to an end. While you can appreciate the lure of being allowed to dictate terms and conditions of your employee's wages and benefits, it is hard to understand the groundswell of support from so many "common" non-union Americans.
Perhaps it's just me, but I am inclined to think that the benefit of collective bargaining typically transcends the employees who are being represented. As work conditions improve for represented populations, does that not in some way provided an upward push for other jobs in the same area? Are wages at non-union shops not in some way established by the norms built through the efforts of collective bargaining units throughout the country? I honestly cannot see how this could help but be so.
But here is where O'Neill and Paine's quotes come into play for each of us I believe.
By turning this into a contention between public vs. private sector, by making this a battle between union vs. non-union workers, the leaders who choose this "easier" path to fiscal responsibility take the focus off of the significance of their attack. They find support during these trying times because there are lots of hurting people out there. And, as O'Neill suggests, our natural human tendency is for misery to want company.
Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
As Paine also suggested, we cannot expect to protect liberties and benefits for ourselves, if we are not prepared to also insist upon and protect the same for our enemy.
By pitting two sides of Americans, one against the other, these two Governors hope to appeal to the base side of human nature. They expect us to choose sides rather than see the bigger issue, rather than see what exactly it is that they are asking some of us (and therefore all of us) to give away.
Shame on them.
Thomas Paine
American physicist Gerard O'Neill cautioned in his futuristic novel 2081 that we should "be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify."
While I sincerely doubt that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker deserves to be labled a dictator, he, along with Indiana's Governor Mitch Daniels, seem to be walking a path similar to the one that O'Neill warned about.
There is no question that these are difficult, trying economic times. Ever since the days of $4.00 and above gasoline not so many years ago, most people that I know have been scraping to get by. Prices on goods continue to rise at the same time that wages have flatlined or, in sadder cases, disappeared altogether as jobs vanished.
Average, non-wealthy Americans have watched their government flood billions of dollars of tax payer money into a protracted war effort and corporate bailouts. We watch the news and see the illegal actions of large companies rewarded with government protection, while we try to stay a step ahead of foreclosure with little to no help from those we elected to office.
Now we see the leaders in our State and Federal governments choosing tactics that pit citizen against citizen, rather than show the intestinal fortitude necessary to make the difficult and fiscally responsible decisions that need to be made. Disappointment is not a strong enough word.
The history of collective bargaining is rich in our country. I do not come from a union family, nor was I raised with a union-type mentality. I have belonged to a teachers union, primarily for the legal protection it provided and because it only seemed fair, since the union negotiated on my behalf for wages and benefits. At the same time, I can appreciate the need for any human being to feel as though they will be treated well at the place they will spend nearly a third of the rest of their life, and where they will earn the wages that enable their family to survive.
Surely both our goverments and other governments around the world recognized the same by virtue of their historical support of a workers right to collective bargaining. The U.S. history of collective bargaining as a RIGHT exists as far back as the National Labor Relations Act from the 1930's.
In 1948, the United Nations issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declared in Article 23 that all human beings have the right to work, as well as the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of their interests.
The International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, in 1988 adopted the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which identified the freedom of association and collective bargaining as fundamental principles for member states.
Despite the historical precedent of collective bargaining as a fundamental right to all employees, both Governor's Walker and Daniels seem intent on bringing it to an end. While you can appreciate the lure of being allowed to dictate terms and conditions of your employee's wages and benefits, it is hard to understand the groundswell of support from so many "common" non-union Americans.
Perhaps it's just me, but I am inclined to think that the benefit of collective bargaining typically transcends the employees who are being represented. As work conditions improve for represented populations, does that not in some way provided an upward push for other jobs in the same area? Are wages at non-union shops not in some way established by the norms built through the efforts of collective bargaining units throughout the country? I honestly cannot see how this could help but be so.
But here is where O'Neill and Paine's quotes come into play for each of us I believe.
By turning this into a contention between public vs. private sector, by making this a battle between union vs. non-union workers, the leaders who choose this "easier" path to fiscal responsibility take the focus off of the significance of their attack. They find support during these trying times because there are lots of hurting people out there. And, as O'Neill suggests, our natural human tendency is for misery to want company.
Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
As Paine also suggested, we cannot expect to protect liberties and benefits for ourselves, if we are not prepared to also insist upon and protect the same for our enemy.
By pitting two sides of Americans, one against the other, these two Governors hope to appeal to the base side of human nature. They expect us to choose sides rather than see the bigger issue, rather than see what exactly it is that they are asking some of us (and therefore all of us) to give away.
Shame on them.
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