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Should the state put more limits on teachers’ collective bargaining rights?
| Response | Percent | Votes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| No | 60% | 306 | |
| Yes | 32% | 166 | |
| Not sure | 6% | 32 | |
| Total | 504 | ||
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Comments
KS 5 months ago
Before I even opened this link, I knew what the answer would be coming from our Lawerence readers. There should be NO unions in the public sector. These jobs are of civil servant nature. If you don't like your job, quit and go someplace else. The problem with unions here is that the mob bosses are the ones that get all the money and they don't care about their members. Just ask those folks at the Twinkie plant that were led down the primrose path.
toe 5 months ago
Couldn't have said it better.
jimmyjms 5 months ago
What are you talking about? The owners stopped paying the pension and cut hours and wages in order to put that money into executive bonuses.
chootspa 5 months ago
Last I heard, the workers were actually better off without the Hostess jobs. They're getting job training for new careers that will pay them more in the future instead of being stuck in a job that would cut their pay over the next several years and leave them with no time to get trained for a new career. The union really was looking out for the best interest of the workers. Whodathunkit?
chootspa 5 months ago
Mob bosses in the teachers union? That's a little unhinged. Teachers don't have the power to strike, and they can't be compelled to join a union. So really the teacher's union is just shorthand for talking to a bunch of teachers and finding out what sort of contract they could live with.
KSManimal 5 months ago
KS - you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I would try to educate you, but I'm guessing you're immune to facts.
KS 5 months ago
Where are they working now? I can't imagine they are looking forward to a Merry Christmas with lots of presents under the tree.
jonas_opines 5 months ago
Why worry about facts when you have faith? Faith conquers all.
jafs 5 months ago
I believe he's referring to the question on the ballot in the last election.
jafs 5 months ago
Ah - thanks for the clarification.
SouthWestKs 5 months ago
You need to check out those "democratic venture capitalists" for the Hostess plant.. I think they were the ones that pulled the plug..
Cant_have_it_both_ways 5 months ago
Do you as parents or your children have a union representing you and your interests? Any way to fight back against all the drivel, and the such you are being blessed with? Any say in how or what is taught to your children?
Think about this next time you have to jump thru your butt to find someone to watch your children while you go to work to give your hard earned cash to members of a gang that only has their best interests at heart and not yours.
Since the NEA has been in control, we find that kids learn better if school starts AFTER you have to be at work. Teachers need Wed afternoons to grade papers while your children are running the streets, or you are paying for daycare. There are some more I am sure.
At any rate, if you have children, you are being held hostage to the desires of the union, which acts in a renegade manner and is only interested in the unions survival. Most unions do not care about those they represent until they need their money. Until education becomes performance based, it has no chance of getting better.
xorobabel 5 months ago
The proof is in the pudding, as the say. You can sit and argue ideology all day, but the countries with the highest performing students (Japan, Singapore, Finland, etc.) have teachers that are highly unionized.
Agnostick 5 months ago
I think it could also be argued that these same nations (Japan, Singapore, Finland etc.) have parents that are highly "unionized" between each other... and they are highly involved in the education of their children.
I suspect that many of those that complain about teachers unions are the same parents that complain that teachers aren't "fixing" their children... the ones that need extra help, supervision, education because parents got lazy during the infant and toddler and pre-school years.
xorobabel 5 months ago
I agree, Agnostick.
tomatogrower 5 months ago
So schools should be babysitters, huh? "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 – babysit. We can get that for less than minimum wage.
That’s right. Let’s give them $3 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 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here. There sure is. The average teacher’s salary (nationwide) is $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!) WHAT A DEAL!
windex 5 months ago
Yeah, those teacher union bosses in their snowflake sweaters, cleaning their own classrooms, scrambling to provide coats for cold kids, food for hungry kids, extra help for kids who entered kindergarten already 2 years behind - they're the problem, all right.
tomatogrower 5 months ago
How do you suggest teachers are protected from and angry parent, especially one on the school board, who wants to fire the teacher, because he/she gave their deadbeat kid an f? And don't give me your fantasy world where that would never happen.
JW1945 5 months ago
People have forgotten a long time ago that unions gave us the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, Health Insurance, & Retirement pensions .........people literally died to get these benefits. Does anyone really think that businesses gave these benefits to their employees just because they were "nice guys?" Think about it.
Pal 5 months ago
I have thought about it. Their usefulness has been used up. They have done wonderful things in ancient history for people that can not do for themselves.
Now what good are they? Besides, laundering money for the Democrat party, what have they done for the country lately?
They are past tense. They have placed the children way down on the list of useful skills for a modern world. American doesn't make the top 10 list for the best place to raise a child.
Thanks to Union teachers.
http://www.globalnews.ca/pages/story.aspx?id=6442686542
Agnostick 5 months ago
Pal writes:
"They are past tense. They have placed the children way down on the list of useful skills for a modern world. American doesn't make the top 10 list for the best place to raise a child.
"Thanks to Union teachers."
So, let me see if I understand you correctly...
America is "sort of on the Top 10 List" for, say, ages 0-6? I mean, American parents, and the home they provide, are flawless and perfect? And the the children that are raised in them are flawless and perfect... until their first day in a public (not private, because private schools are also perfect and flawless) school?
Is that a pretty good summation of your argument?
P.S. I'm ignoring your unsubstantiated charges about laundering money, etc. as just so much interwebs flotsam and jetsam.
Pal 5 months ago
Yes. Look where the Union mentality has put the country. Unemployed not counted. Record food stamps. Record cases of denial.
Agnostick 5 months ago
Thanks for the clarification, Pal. I have to say, at this moment... it's not the "union" mentality that I'm worried about. I think we have much, much bigger problems.
chootspa 5 months ago
Firefighters are usually exempted from union busting efforts. I'm sure it has nothing to do with their generally Republican voting records.
KSManimal 5 months ago
And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the general public respects firefighters (and police, who are also usually exempt from union busting efforts). And I'm sure none of that has to do with the fact that the teaching profession is about 80% female; while the other two are about 80% male.....
LegendaryBeast 5 months ago
Educators are some of our most IMPORTANT people! We should not limit their bargaining rights any further and we need to pay them FAR more than we are. After all, they are responsible for educating and protecting our children for a fairly sizable portion of the day. Our governor is trying to stop paying teachers and trying to take away any recourse the teachers have for contract negotiation/feedback. The leaders of Brownbackistan want to destroy the eduction system so that only the church has a say in a child's upbringing outside of the parents. If the teachers living in Brownbackistan suffer, then the children of Brownbackistan suffer and ultimately all the citizens of Brownbackistan suffer! Emperor Brownback, please stop destroying our free, education-hungry, culture & art loving civilization!
Agnostick 5 months ago
Explanation of the Pseudoconservative Education Philosophy:
If your child is a troublemaker, poor student, reads poorly, scores low on tests, etc.: "It's those teachers! The teachers!! The teacher UNIONS!! They're ruining EVERYTHING for our otherwise-perfect child!"
If your child is an honor student, straight-A grades, reads college-level material in 6th grade, perfect test scores, etc.: "Teachers!?! The teachers had nothing to do with it! The kid just went there for babysitting. I/We taught our own kids EVERYTHING!"
If your child is home-schooled: [Same as above. If the child is only average, academically, blame the government; if the child is above-average, you researched and wrote all your own textbooks, ground up your own rocks to produce your own topsoil to grow your own trees, to harvest your own wood to make your own desks and pencils and wood pulp to produce and publish all the textbooks that you wrote for your child, etc.]
If your child is an average or poor student, reads poorly, scores low on tests, etc... but is REALLY GOOD on the football field or basketball court: "WAY TO GO, COACH!"
Paul R. Getto 5 months ago
Leave the law alone. It is toothless anyway and the board, in the end, can do just about what they want if there isn't enough money. At least the law requires both sides to talk about the issues and try to make a suitable contract.
Cant_have_it_both_ways 5 months ago
Kinda like looking in the mirror...isn't it?
verity 5 months ago
I observed 58 second graders on a field trip to a museum today. I decided that all teachers should immediately have their salaries doubled.
If any teachers are reading this, even though I have no children, I appreciate more than I can say what you do, the sacrifices you make and the part you play in helping our children grow up to become good and productive citizens. (And, yes, they are all OUR children and our future.)
merrill 5 months ago
Right To Work State = lower wages and zero benefits.
How many Brownback lovers want this in their life?
Fire the Sam Brownback administration because Kansas cannot afford wreckanomics aka supply side economics.
Cant_have_it_both_ways 5 months ago
No one is against education. Many are against education or any other type if employment that is not performanced based.
Until education is performance based, the very fine and competent teachers will be stuck carrying the malcontents and others that are not good for anyone.
You can whine all you want about unions...but if you look at the unions clearly, the unions are mostly in it for the unions survival, where 9 or 10 in the upper levels of management of the unions spend their time on cruise ships at the expense of those they are put in place to serve.
I never needed a union to keep my job for me. I perform when I am at work, and if I sence management is going a different direction, I change my course also. By making myself valuable to my employer, I have been quite successful over the years. I choose not to take the easy path, do what I have to do to attain tenure, then coast. All most of us want is value for our tax dollars. Most of the time, we are not getting it...thus the reason I demand change, which would be a performanced based education system.
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