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How about some of both? It's hard because these are working people, not Wall Street millionaires. All the worker protections that they have, the private sector should really have too...instead of bringing standards for pub. employees down, we should be bringing private sector standards up...
But then the reality is there is no money to make that work. If it's not there, it's not there and something has to change to make ends meet. State and local governments can't print money to meet budget shortfalls. Something has to give.
As a librarian at a public library (non-unionized), I can definitely see the benefits in being a part of a union. Though we are professionals and all have master's degrees, we make in the low 30s as it is, and now they are trying to strip us of all our benefits in addition to that (sick time, etc). We get treated like shit by the public on a daily basis (not every library patron, mind you; some appreciate us) and are recently weekly being told by the library board that we are interchangeable with workers at fast food jobs (because they have no idea what librarians actually do and didn't even have library cards until they became board members). I could go on. Library unions are not the most rabid of unions, but at the very least if we were unionized, we would be able to have representation that actually knows how a library works in decision-making meetings, so that they could say, "Yes, the librarians would love to take on that challenge," or, "No, that works for a big box corporation, but would never actually work in a library." As it is, we have at least one board member who just last week motioned to have our salaries cut across the board by 30% just because he thought we were being "big babies" because we were upset about having all of our benefits taken away. It didn't pass, thank goodness.
IMO, taking unions away from public employees leaves them completely vulnerable to the whims of government. Most of them don't make very much, and part of their compensation is (supposed to be) their awesome benefits. Now they're trying to take those away. Public employees keep us safe and teach our children. We don't pay them enough as it is... why are we trying to take away what little compensation they do get?
The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach and sad.
I'm afraid to even comment on this thread, I know this debate gets heated.
I come from a union family (dad and brother). I'm not in a union, but work for a union employer. I am not fan of them. In my opinion, its not far that unions get automatic pay increases each year while the rest of us haven't seen an increase in 2 years.
The average salary for a Boston school teacher is approx. $76,000 (that was from 07-08...the latest statistics I could find but I am sure its out there somewhere). Thats a hell of a lot more than I make, and yes I have a college degree from a well known school. Not to mention they have more vacation time in a year than I could ever dream of.
As a public employee, supported by a union, I fall inbetween the poll options. There are things that my union has done "on my behalf" that have really effed up how I plan my time and do my job. There are other things they have done that have really benefited me. Most public employees don't get into the job for the salary. What keeps us here is the satisfaction of a job well done and the benefits. You take away my benefits and I'm out the door. I'm sorry, but no amount of satisfaction in the work that I do will cover my greatly increased insurance premium. . .especially when I haven't had a raise (COLA or otherwise) in 4 years.
My opinion is that unions bring the standard of living up. I wish we had unions or at least more standards in the field I worked in.
So you're mad that someone in a union makes more adn gets pay raises? Join a union!
Also, in Ohio (and a LOT of other areas) teachers make nooooooooooowhere near that. When I was in high school my math teacher-- who had been at the school for over 20 years-- made $42,000 per year.
And the government wants to cut into his healthcare benefits? Sigh.
@Atalanta: I work in HR and as a manager I am not allowed to join the union.
No one will ever be able to convince me that teachers are overpaid, no amount of money could entice me to teach 24 7 yr olds. Now the MTA union pisses me off, the way they have been mismanaged over the years is disgusting.
Unions can definitely be or become corrupt. A lot of money does get poured back into the administrator's pockets. But then again, they also do a ton for their employees. Lobbying isn't cheap, and neither are labor negotiations or strikes. I come from a union family, too, and I believe that overall they do benefit everyone concerned.
I'm a public employee in NC where we are not allowed to be unionized and it BLOWS! I have the same job as a private employee and make about 30K less. I love what I do and it's non-profit, so I suck it up. Not everyone gets to go to a job they like everyday. However, when they start messing with my health insurance, force me to contribute 6% of my income to a retirement plan that only matches 3% and I will likely never fully benefit from, strip my benefits, not give me a raise for 3 years, and furlough me... it becomes a problem.
HOWEVER, I also know that if I were in the private sector, I could be laid off, not just furloughed or lose benefits. The state is our employer and if it were "just a business" that was in debt, more layoffs would have happened a long time ago. The state is in debt and it needs to do what it needs to do to keep running. Is it horrible? Yes, but it's happening to people all over the country. Just because we are state employees doesn't mean we are exempt from the suckage.
@Bostongrl25: I'm with you - not a fan of unions. The force the government into giving benefits to these union members that are far beyond what is reasonable.
The striking of teachers and other union workers in Wisconson really makes me want to look at them and say, "do you know how greedy you are??" Right now, they don't have to contribute a single penny to their retirement. The taxpayers fund it 100% (in addition to having to fund our own). And these teachers get paid damn well - way better than I do as an engineer!
Here's the average wage and benefits for school teachers throughout Wisconsin (by school district):
The Madison garbage men often make over $70,000 a year with some making as much as $159,000. The Milwaukee bus drivers also make over $70,000 a year and top out at $117,000. And again - none of these people have to fund a penny of their retirement.
Yes - I do think that teachers, bus drivers, garbage men, etc should be compensated but unions have lead the compensation structure to become completely out of whack. I honestly beleive that unions are more of a barrier to the growth and improvement of the US than they are a benefit to us.
Just wanted to add that my family is actually kind of on both sides of this. My dad was a manager at a public facility so he was the one negotiating with the public employees union for decades, while my mom works at a school and is the head of her union. Both of them fully support unions.
Also, @FutureKMM, where did you find those figures? Just curious. I know that is not anywhere near the case in Ohio.
For the record, I think we can have this conversation without bashing teachers. Unions affect far more professions than just educators.
@CorgiTales: It's from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. They collect salary and compensation each year for the Wisconsin teachers, administrators, etc. Their salaries are all public record.
Nobody is bashing teachers. But when you talk about unions, teachers will come up. Along with firefighters, police, etc. Those professions make up a large portion of the union population.
I don't know anything about Ohio, but I would say that the cost of living is probably significantly less in Ohio than it is in MA, which is why the average salary is higher.
Just found the salaries for Columbus Public Schools here (which btw, one of my BMs is a 3rd grade teacher and you could not PAY me to deal with the shit she deals with on a daily basis! What a terribly difficult and emotionally draining job to work in this city..)
Teachers start at 40k and the highest paid teacher makes 90k. Sounds reasonable to me.
ETA: My source: http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/teacher-salary
@Mrs.KMM: Okay here is the problem I think. The numbers you're quoting are wage + benefits. Which is a really difficult way to look at this because a lot of people have benefits and its hard to calculate their exact value. We're talking about salary here, and they are nowhere near what you're quoting. Milwaukee, for example, which you stated at 86 (which sounds high) actually has an average salary of $56,000. Which seems totally reasonable (or, dare I say it, low).
Look at the teacher salaries... do you really think those are too high?
All I'm saying is that it is being insinuated that teachers don't deserve their pay. That's a whole different discussion.
No comment on the union stuff. I'm a non-unionized public employee and I've been on furlough since July 2009. I happily accepted my furlough and the loss of cost of living increases, completely understanding of the fact that our salaries need to be "taxed" in an attempt to fix the budget crisis. It's only getting worse, though, and our Governor now wants to take away our furlough and mandate a 5% pay cut for all state employees, while slashing our health benefits to a bare bones plan that greatly increases our out of pocket expenses. He has proposed all of this while telling us that he refuses to raise taxes, he won't do that to the citizens of Nevada. But he has no problem trying to do it to us, to balance part of the budget on the backs of the state workers. These cuts are devastating to those of us at the bottom - I work with a lot of single parents who will probably qualify for various types of Welfare once all the cuts are in place, if they don't qualify already. It's just frustrating.
Sounds like the teachers in the South need some unions....they don't get paid SH*T
Why arn't people's attention going to the real problem in the country coorporations adn politicians bought by coorporations. Here's a funny, but it's also true.
"A public union employee, a tea party activist, and a CEO are sitting at a table with a plate that held a dozen cookies. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, turns to the tea partier and says......, "Watch out for that union guy. He wants a piece of your cookie."
IMO, I think there was a time and place where unions were necessary. They were originally created during the industrial revolution to protect workers from unsafe working conditions, child labor, and being overworked and underpaid.
Coming from a state where industrial unions have basically crippled major industry because of their insanely high wage structure ($50/hour for screwing a bolt into a bumper), forced monopolies, and inability to fire incompetent employees, I no longer think they serve a benefit in the majority of circumstances.
@CorgiTales: But benefits are easily to calcualate. It is really easy to look at what the government pays to their retirement (currently funded at 100% by the taxpayers and 0% by the individuals themselves), their health insurance, etc. It's their total compensation package.
I honestly just find is ridiculous that the WI teachers are practically revolting because the government is asking them to fund 5.8% of their own retirement (with the other 94.2% still being funded by the taxpayers). I and everyone I know fund our full retirements ourselves (minus about 3% matching from our companies although I know many who doesn't get any matching either). It just screams of greed and entitlement and this sense of greed and entitlement is brought about by the unions. I don't think the people themselves are really greedy, but the unions push them to be and it isn't right.
@CanAmBride: "inability to fire incompetent employees"
This is also a huge thing I despise about unions and what I think majorly hurts the US from being able to grow and improve. Incompetent employees stay in the system because the union, seniority, etc keep them from getting fired. This does nothing but bring the overall system down.
They accepted all their paycuts. they are angry becasue they want to take their collective barganing rights away. they accepted all the cuts!!
This has been floating around for a while and seems appropriate:
Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan -- that equals 6 1/2 hours). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.
Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE.... That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 15 children X 180 days = $140,400 per year. Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here!
There sure is! The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is around $50,000. $50,000/180 days =$277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!
@Mrs.KMM: Well, everyone is entitled to their opinions so that is fine. I just wanted to make sure that everyone here understands that your numbers INCLUDE benefits and that is not just their salaries (because I think most people myself included saw that and just read "salaries"). My personal opinion is that the current structure of things is just fine. Teachers have an incredibly difficult job and I don't feel that their total benefits package is outrageous at all. Teachers are college educated, and mostly required to have masters degrees and do continuing education now (at least in Ohio), meanwhile they can work their entire career with thousands of children (and I really do feel that they have an incredibly difficult job) and will probably never hit 100k. I went to school for 6 years to be a lawyer-- a job that I feel is much much easier than theirs on a day-to-day basis (if not in hours than at least in emotion and heartbreak and frustration), and if I wanted to go work at a big firm I could make 150k starting. Even not wanting to work in a big firm, I probably still make more in my 3rd year working at a small practice than many teachers will make in a career. My DH has just a college degree and works as a corporate accountant. Is his job hard? Sure... but way way easier than a teacher and same deal-- he makes more now than many teachers probably ever will. And they do match his retirement savings and provide us with amazing healthcare at almost no cost to us.
I feel like we're almost a little selfish for taking these easier and better paying jobs while teachers take incredibly difficult jobs for not much pay... they deserve amazing benefits. But... thats just me.
ETA: Just to be clear I agree that there are some problems with unions. Not being able to fire incompetent employees is a really big one. It is not a perfect system and if I believed for a minute that the government would actually take care of its employees then I wouldn't be so pro-union. But as it stands, I do not believe that the government would act in the best interests of its employees so I feel that I'm picking the lesser evil.... corrupt govt v. corrupt union. At least with the union employees get what they deserve. If someone has another option I'd love to hear it.
I work for the fed gov and we have a union. I'm not a member, but the union does protect even our non union employees from having really poor schedules, etc. If we feel that another employee is being favored we can also talk to the union about it, even if we aren't barganing members.
I'm surprised no one has linked to this yet: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2011/02/28/the-big-myth-in-wisconsin-gov-scott-walkers-union-busting-crusade
The taxpayers aren't paying for the pensions in Wisconsin except that they pay for the salaries of the employees - 100% of the pension contributions come from the employees themselves and are then invested to draw more. The only case in which taxpayers would be paying for their pensions directly is if the market never rebounded. So use whatever excuse for dismantling public employee unions you want, but that particular one is not valid.
Glad to see that majority of bees are supportive of people who work in the public sector, hubby does and where he works is hostile and sometimes the supervisors there are quite vindictive, with out a union to keep the higher ups on the straight and narrow, it would be choas
So I just came across this thread, but I wanted to thank HayleyJane for dispelling the myth that teachers don't contribute to their retirement. We pay into the system.
And I'm glad to see that most bees are supportive. I agree, unions aren't perfect. But teacher-bashing for the sake of teacher-bashing with little or misunderstood research to back it up really, really annoys me.
My union is fabulous. We would have had our teeny tiny salaries cut many times if it wasn't for their hard work.
@Mrs.KMM: See below.
@HayleyJane: Thank you for posting that! That's exactly what I wanted to say. I am a public school teacher in CA and we do not pay into state Social Security, we have our own pension system, but we also do not get social security. So no one pays our retirement for us...that's crazy! We also do not get any matching from any source, not even a portion.
So obviously I'm a member of a union, but I am totally on the fence about them. I believe employees need protections BUT unions treat every employee exactly the same no matter what which doesn't really work either. So as a younger teacher I often feel that they don't have my interests at stake as much as older teachers. I also have to pay into the union no matter what and I feel that they bully.
@tntrav44: ditto...super important (I wrote my post before reading yours!)
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I've seen a zillion things on facebook regarding unions & public employees. I saw a poll on CNN and thought I'd repost to get some input from the hive!
Give your opinions on unions/public employees.