Wisconsin Gov. Walker Threatens To Deploy National Guard Against Unions

Remove all ads!

Well, whenever anyone makes an argument like "government employees are over/under paid/effective/priviledged", you tend to have broad generalizations - but I think I more or less cover the majority case . I agree that in general, the public sector offers somewhat lower salary and higher benefits, that is how it is - otherwise it would be pretty hard to recruit quality people for it. I'd say NASA might be a bit of an outlier due to being an elite organization which advertises and has a reputation for excellence - although I'm not sure if that is the case if you put it side-by-side with comparable private industries.

As for teachers in Wisconsin, I'm not sure how "competitively" they are paid - that depends on who consider competition. Here is what I've found from http://www.teacher-world.com/teacher-salary/wisconsin.html:

Average salary: $52,644 (for 2009/10the data doesn't match the below columns, which leads me to believe this includes various benefits)
Pre-school teacher salary: $23,460 (This and the two below are for 2009)
Elementary school teacher salary: $51,240
High school teacher $49,400

Starting level salary for school teachers is supposedly in the 30Ks, secondary school teachers can get over twice that - the 90th percentile was just short of 70K. Naturally, the 90th percentile means "90% of the people in the same kind of situation are worse off than that". I'd say only those who have been at work for 10+ years can start looking at something like the average salary - a lot of teachers will be getting a fair bit less.

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/State=Wisconsin/Salary has a list of average salaries for other positions:

Retail store manager: $37,711
General / operations manager: $55,617
Registered nurse: $50,316
Project manager (construction: $59,357
Project manager (IT): $70,194
Mechanical engineer: $58,190
HR manager: $53,941

That said, it reminds me that teachers are paid for teaching hours, but I believe the job involves a fair amount of additional preparation at home for the lessons you need to teach. Homework, so to say . Personally, I think their salary is decent, but that is pretty much to be expected for someone in that profession. I could not find any differences in public and private compensation, though. One site suggests that public teachers actually have higher salary, but lower starting salary and lower salary growth (thus suggesting higher turnover in private schools, I suppose). In general, it seems the difference in this state isn't particularly glaring, perhaps with the exception of parochial schools.

That is all tangential to the OP issue imo . Personally, I think the whole bill issue has little to do with pay for public servants and more with political shenanigans.

 

It is a common misconception that when school's out, the teachers stop working. My sisters and a very good friend of mine are teachers. They all say that the time spent on meetings, administration and documentation, delivering feedback to parents, preparations and corrections make up at least 50% in addition to the hours of actual teaching, during exam periods easily more.

This 'extra time' also varies with subject and school form: If you teach two languages in high school, corrections for instance take longer since the teacher needs to process all that text. With younger or problematic pupils they need to spend more time on pedagogic technique, and on properly preparing the subject at hand in a 'digestible' format.

 

My sister tells a different story. She is a third grade teacher in Florida. Most days she is home by 4pm. She rarely has to do work at home because during the day when the students go to "specials" it enables her to have free time to work on lesson plans and grading. She also gets every holiday off, two weeks off for Christmas and New Years, a week off for spring break in March, and school gets out at the end of May/ beginning of June and starts up at the end of August. Per U.S. rules students have to attend 180 days of school and maybe she has another ten days she has to go to meetings/seminars. Also those 180 days average around 6 hours a day. For this in 2009 she was compensated $48,853.

EDIT: for comparison most American workers work an 8+ hour day for 240 days a year.

 

Teachers perform a vital service to society. People who hated school likely disagree, but the fact is the educational systems we have in Western countries are the envy of the third world. Just learning simple arithmetic and basic literacy is an amazing gift that many people don't appreciate because they take it for granted.

Take it from me, the lot of a teacher is not easy. Absolutely moronic parents expect us to magically cure their spoiled rotten children of all the retarded habits the parent taught the kid in the first place. Parental support is a rare commodity in some places. Try to strike and people accuse you of "not caring about the children!", yet these people who are supposed to care so much about the kids are told time and again by the public that what they do with the children isn't worth a liveable salary.

It takes some real brass balls to give major tax concessions to Big Industry and then turn around and tell teachers that they need to take a fricking rollback "for the sake of the budget and the province". That happened in Alberta in the 90s. What a load of horse doots.

Now, it's well known that I'm not a die hard union fan but dangit, collective bargaining is still necessary to prevent peopel from being walked on.

 

Exactly right. That is redistribution of wealth, favoring one class of citizens/workers over another. America is suddenly filled with Marxists, it seems.

 

Bravo. I'd rep you if I could.

Edit: I just saw this.

 

BTA, I am not unsympathetic to that viewpoint, especially in this day and age of labour relations laws. That said, it is idealistic in the extreme to say "go somewhere else" -- sometimes it's not that easy, especially if employers collaborate. I know that some unions are far, far too powerful. But in the absence of unions things can also get ugly. I reiterate that there must be some form of balance.

I've heard tell (possible urban myths) that in some countries the relationship between unions and employers is much more cooperative and collaborative than adversarial. That would be a welcome change.

 

That has been the general mode of operandi here in Sweden for most of the last century. The unions and employers sat down and came to the conclusion that being at each other's throat was counterproductive so they strove for compromise and consensus whenever possible. It has worked fairly well, we generally do not get any big strikes or other conflicts and employees generally have decent conditions. One thing that is fundamental though is collective bargaining. You have a horrendously naive view of humanity BTA, you really think that each individuals ability to negotiate salary and other benefits should be the ground for said salary and benefits? You do not think employers would divide and conquer?

Everyone want as much as possible for as little as possible, an employee can never be on an even level with his employer but unions help level the playing field a little bit and with strong unions there is a chance that people don't get too screwed.

It is clear though that some people are of the opinion that everyone should take of themselves and if they for some reason can't then it sucks to be them. Well, I do not share that view and even if I did I am pretty sure that if we would implement a classical nightwatch state it would be a pretty sucky place for everyone. People may be lazy and indifferent now when they are well fed and got a roof over their head but that can change quickly if you start removing their comforts.

 

That's nice and all, but who are you to say that workers can't organize, BTA? So what if people feel they want to join a union, or bargain in a collective manner? Is this China, or Iran? It's fine if you chose that for yourself, but not everyone feels the same as you. You want to make it "illegal" to join a union now, because the big nanny government says people can't? Or because you personally don't like it? Get on the side of freedom of choice.

Snook - So what? Are you saying that you oppose lobbying now? Don't make me laugh. Oh, I see, you would rather see the insurance compainies in the number one slot, instead of a union. Doesn't that just make it peachy. Sorry the day you actually see lobbying as something that ANY organization should not indulge in is the day you can restore any credibity you and other corporatists have on the issue.

Whatever. How do you know that? It seems that most of you are crying because unions can bargain BETTER, hence the reason you want to see union members get screwed over.

 

The problem is that lobbying is as ubiquitous as death and taxes. People are always going to advocate for their interests in whatever way they can get away with. With that in mind, it's fair to say that everyone should be able to organize and lobby as effectively as they can given their resources, and that laws should be in place to ensure that "lobbying" doesn't become "bribery". It's bad enough right now as it is -- wealthy people and companies can easily get the ear of a politician by promising campaign contributions and by "gifts" and such. Restricting other people from even organizing to make their opinions and desires known is not a good thing and imbalances things even further.

Whenever I think of labour relations, I think of Lee Iacocca and how he dealt with things. This won't be word for word, but I recall in his autobiography he said something like this:

They knew the company was in bad shape, and they knew he wasn't lying to them about how bad off the company was (he had earlier cut wages in top management and was himself receiving a salary of $1 / year, IIRC.) He had a reputation for integrity (vital to this sort of thing, and something that this Walker person does not seem to enjoy) and so they actually worked together. I fear that a great many unions today would rather see the ship sink than start bailing, but if on the other hand there is clearly a lot more money to go around and the employers are just saying "YOU are not worth paying more to", then why shouldn't they strike? That'd show the employers real quick how important the workers are.

 

Some companies, like Walmart, will close stores before they have to bargain with a union. Didn't that happen in Canada? So, I'm not sure where this, "workers can negotiate just fine for themselves," idea came from. There are Fortune 500 companies that devote much of their so called "human resources" to union watching and keeping unions out of their businesses. It is their right to do so, but in turn, to say that "most workers can fend for themselves just fine," without organizing, or the threat of it, is complete crap. BTW, I agree with much of your post, LKD, and your Iacocca is a good example of how things can work.

 

I agree that you are entitled to your opnion; I would never dispute that, but this is the government taking rights away from people.

Now you are saying something different, unless that is your idea of "negotiation."

 

The government is not in business to grant or give rights, but to protect them. I'm usually on the side of what ever "grants" more freedom. For instance, I would be opposed to a law that made it mandatory to have to join a union.

Walking out is not negotiation, unless it is part of a larger strategy.

 

Not really. The fact that most businesses do not have to bargain with unions, and that many employees choose not to even join unions, proves you are wrong. Employers have plenty of rights in that regard and mostly negotiate one-on-one, IF you wish to refer to it that way. Most corporations do not negotiate at all, especially over benefits. Of course, an emplyoee agrees to that when he/she is hired. That benefits change often leads to people just leaving and finding something better. That's not negotiation.

I've never been a car salesman; I've never been interested in that line of selling. But I have been a commission salesman most of my adult life. I've been on both sides, as a consumer and as a professional. Walking out of a store is not negotiating; that is ending negotiations. If a salesmen lets you walk out that means he is done with you. Now, I have had desperate sales managers tell me to call someone back, which is fine, since the manager is taking responsibility for the sale itself [how profitable it is or isn't]. That's what I meant by a larger strategy. But typically if I let someone walk out on a deal, I'm done dealing. As long as they are still sitting in front of me, I have no problem negotiating a deal and in fact, that's what I'm there for.

 

Sales Commissions

Ehhh, I don't get it.

Does it ever occur to customers that the salesman's commission is tied to the final price? It's true that every saleman has a different threshold regarding how low he is willing to work a deal. At a certain point, there is NO commission. Also, keep in mind that almost all salesmen have to answer for the profit on every sale. I prefer to negotiate with my employer from a postition of strength [how profitable I am for the store as a salesman]. If the deal is not good on my end, or for the store, I don't need it. Generally, I will let someone else take the "hit." In sales, good numbers are almost everything.