as a longtime california public school teacher i am a career-long member of cta and whatever local union i worked for at the time
the ta's and ea's have been incredibly good to me, my pay, benefits, work conditions, protections...
personally, i feel extremely coddled (especially compared to so many of my friends)
i work 181 days a year, only 3.5 hours per day in the classroom
i do rather resent the portion of my dues being devoted to political action that almost universally goes against my convictions
i've been told all my career that i can opt out of the political contribution part of my membership by writing a letter, but i and every conservative i've ever worked with (and there have been quite a few) have all felt it's not really a good career move
i've never needed union protection, but still...
opting out of political action would create a lot of animosity at the workplace
and that's never really smart
anyway, liking or disliking the union isn't the point, not at all
america has a very real and very large problem
for example:
States Warned of 2.5T Pensions Shortfall
we simply have to do something significant---now---to solve these utterly unsustainable public outlays and commitments
it's nothing personal, it's almost now a matter of economic survival
ask cuomo, ask rahm
it's a very difficult time
so many excellent young teachers, their families, so many in houses upside down...
if the high schoolers in my district gave up our 100 minutes of prep per day and returned to the 50 we managed to make do with before we went to block schedules, ms c***** would be back next year
i brought it up at a meeting late last year, i put it extremely diplomatically...
i was received in the spirit i offered it, for which i'm grateful