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Tag Archives: collective bargaining

Overzealous Union Teachers Drag Students into Their Messy Contract Disputes

DANVILLE, Ill. – Americans might not agree on much these days, but we can all agree that kids should not be bullied at school.

But what happens when the school bully turns out to be the child’s teacher?
That concern was raised at a Danville school board meeting last night by parent and school board member Gina McGuire, who alleges her high school-aged son was “harassed” by a teacher over comments McGuire made on a social media website.

The nature of McGuire’s comments has not been made clear, but they may have been about the district’s ongoing contract

Read the rest at Big Government

Ohio follows Wisconsin’s lead restricting public sector union collective bargaing privileges

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Legislature voted Wednesday to severely limit the collective bargaining rights of 350,000 public workers, sending a bill that sparked weeks of pro-labor protests to Republican Gov. John Kasich, who is expected to sign it by the end of the week.

The full House had passed the measure on a 53-44 vote Wednesday after it cleared committee, and the Senate followed with a 17-16 vote of approval.

The measure affects safety workers, teachers, nurses and a host of other government personnel. It allows unions to negotiate wages but not health care, sick time or pension benefits. It gets rid of automatic pay increases and replaces them with merit raises or performance pay. Workers would also be banned from striking. Read More

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker knew exactly what he was doing

Before he signed the bill limiting collective bargaining privileges, teachers unions throughout the state were slow to respond to calls for salary and benefit concessions.

They believed their members should be held harmless during a period of necessary cost-cutting. They didn’t seem to care that Wisconsin schools were operating with multi-million dollar deficits that were forcing the layoffs of younger teachers and the cancellation of student programs.

Their only answer was to raise taxes at a time when few people could afford it. They didn’t want to sacrifice anything, despite the fact that schools spend about 80 percent of their budgets on labor costs.

But now, with Walker’s legislation set to become law once it clears legal hurdles, the unions are suddenly coming to their senses. They are jumping at the chance to extend their collective bargaining agreements, in exchange for meaningful concessions that will help schools survive the financial crisis.

In Madison, the teachers union has suddenly agreed to a wage freeze and increases in health insurance and pension contributions. The concessions will save the district an estimated $15 million next year, which would almost make up for the expected cuts in state aid.

In Oshkosh, the union has agreed to a wage freeze, increased contributions toward benefits and a change in the employee insurance carrier, which will save the district more than $5 million per year.

In the Slinger district, the union has agreed to commit 5.8 percent of teacher pay to pension costs and increase contributions toward health care costs. The concessions will save the district about $1.3 million per year.

What are the unions gaining by accepting concessions at the last possible minute? Plenty. Read More

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Idaho bill to limit collective bargaining passes

As Wisconsin politicians stay locked in a stalemate over a proposed law governing public employees’ unions, Idaho’s legislature on Tuesday passed a bill restricting collective bargaining rights for the state’s unionized teachers.

Under the bill, which is expected to be signed into law by the state’s Republican governor, collective bargaining for the state’s 12,000 unionized teachers would be limited to salary and benefits only, and could not be used to negotiate course loads, class sizes and other working conditions.

The legislation, which had already cleared the state Senate in February, passed the Republican-controlled House by a 48-22 vote Tuesday. The measure is part of a broader education reform initiative being spearheaded by Gov. Butch Otter. In Wisconsin and in Indiana — where Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Republican legislature agreed to reconsider their bill after Democrats fled to Illinois in protest — proposed legislation would affect most, if not all, public-sector unions, and not just those representing teachers.

The Idaho bill also ends teacher tenure, limits contracts to one year and ends the “last in, first out” method that most school districts use when determining teacher layoffs. Collective bargaining would be completely banned in any district where the union is unable to prove that at least half the district’s teachers are members. Read More

Collective bargaining is not a right

Ever notice with the left, any little “cause” they automatically turn in to a “right.”? Collective bargaining is an example and Big Government’s Ned Ryun explains that it is not a “right” quite well.

I keep hearing the narrative that somehow, as though it were written in stone, collective bargaining is a right for public sector unions. I would disagree entirely: collective bargaining is a privilege, not a right, for public sector unions. And you know what? About 50 years ago, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. agreed with me. The union’s Executive Council in 1959 said: “In terms of accepted collective bargaining procedures, government workers have no right beyond the authority to petition Congress — a right available to every citizen.”

And it is a privilege that has been badly abused for years; U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show that public sector employees, many of them unionized, make nearly $40 an hour in combined wages and benefits versus roughly $27.50 for those in the private sector.

So I applaud what Scott Walker is doing in Wisconsin, but I actually feel he didn’t go far enough. All his Budget Repair Bill is doing is addressing the public sector unions’ right to collectively bargain over pensions and health care. I think it would have been nice to address the right to collectively bargain for wages, and here’s why: at the end of the day, the public sector unions are not collectively bargaining for a greater share of earnings, as do the private sector unions. They are bargaining to get a bigger slice of the pie of tax dollars, which the government has taken from the American taxpayer.

Now to be clear: paying a certain amount of taxes is a part of being involved in an organized civilization. If you want to make sure you have roads and national defense, you’re going to have to pay taxes. But that being said, taxes are removed through a threat of force from the taxpayers by the government (yes, I mean force. Try not paying property or income taxes and see what happens). So the government is run off of money earned in the private sector. Government does not create jobs; when there are reports of more jobs, but they’re all government jobs, the government is not creating anything: it is merely funding even more government jobs off the backs of the private sector. Which compounds the problem because by taking capital from the private sector to create government jobs, you’re not creating jobs that create more capital, as private sector jobs do.

So, public sector unions, unlike their private sector union counterparts, are not creating more capital. Do they provide services for the public good? Absolutely. Are they creating capital? Absolutely not.

So here you have public sector unions negotiating for more pay in tough times, soaking more from the already overburdened American taxpayer. I keep hearing this drivel of, “Well if Walker is expecting the unions to make sacrifices, is he going to ask others to make sacrifices by increasing taxes?” Memo to those saying that (Mika Brzezinski, I’m thinking of you): The American taxpayer has been gouged for years, and years, and years, by higher taxes, and I’m not talking just income taxes. I’m talking the hidden taxes on gas, food, etc. Yeah, add up all your taxes sometime and you’ll realize you’re probably paying well over 50%, sometimes 60% or more of your wages, in taxes. So you’ve kind of already done your part. Read More