Big Loss of Teachers Union in California

Well, it's just that the teacher issue regarding unions isn't unique.
I think that for the most part unions are essential but in order for them to BE essential they have to stick TO the essentials, right?
If your union is metalworkers, it's not helpful if the union succeeds in lowering the quality of the metalwork coming out of the shop
just because they focus on keeping some idiot employed who can't do the job.
Metalwork unions should be equally concerned with making sure that their union brothers are skilled and productive employees, and
they should not be afraid to dispose of the layabouts and the incompetents.

My occupation is film and video and you can't BE an incompetent layabout because we don't have union halls where you just show up
and pluck a gig from the bulletin board. We don't have the equivalent of a school district with administrators and human resource departments.
We have producers, directors and production companies.
You have to make yourself a desirable worker and get picked, get yourself hired onto a show or a production.
Thus the unions in my area of skill concentrate on seeing to it that union brothers get adequate pay, proper benefits and good working conditions.
But you have to know what you're doing, or you just don't get hired. And if you screw up enough you're gone, and if you keep screwing up you won't
get hired on anything else anymore.
Maybe that's because the resulting effects of incompetency show up instantly, shots get blown, productions fail to keep on schedule, shows don't get delivered.

Why shouldn't teachers have to live by the same requirements? Sure, the effects don't show up instantly but they can be measured fairly easily in real time.
If nine kids out of a class of 30 fail a single test, that's one thing. If 23 of them fail a single test, that's another. If nine kids fail every SINGLE test every time, that's still another problem and if 23 kids fail every SINGLE test every time, that's STILL another problem.
If six kids are discipline problems, that's one thing, if 23 of them are discipline problems, that is a different problem.
These are all easily defined metrics that school districts can use, and unions need to have an agreement and understanding as to how to deal with them.
If a teacher is failing her students, she needs to receive a failing grade just like students would.
And if it turns out that the district is the one failing the teacher, then the district needs to receive the failing grade instead.
Unions should be able to put union politics aside long enough to recognize the difference and react accordingly, otherwise the union gets the failing grade instead.

Make sense?

Hard Truth said:

The difference in worker management relations in places like Germany is mostly in the more respectful and inclusive attitudes of management, not with the unions. That is why Volkswagen wanted a union in their plant in the USA. Public employee salaries of individuals is kept confidential, but the salary ranges and benefits for every civil service position is publicly available. (at least in my state)

My local paper and most local media was very critical of the union during the last major public employee strike, and we are not a conservative community.

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So the problem isn't unions, it's more a problem with how we allow unions to function, how we see the roles between unions and management.
That COULD be fixed. Is it being fixed? That's another question.

Amandi said:

I support doing away with tenure and being able to get rid of sub-par teachers, but, there are other things unions do and I dont support doing away with them entirely. Other than safe work places, unions and their contracts, ensure work is distributed fairly, work shifts arent changed arbitrarily, employees arent punished for non-cause, and these just name a few things.

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Why can't work shifts be changed when they need to be?

Deuce said:

Yeah, I mean look at how much worse working conditions have gotten since unions first formed.

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That comes second to our children having the highest rated education and results in the world.

azgreg said:

Good. I think unions could be good, but more often than not they are more destructive.

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Unions need to be regulated just as corporations are, albeit in different ways.

DiAnna said:

There is no constitutional right to protest when public safety is put at risk. That's why police, fire, public works, etc., are not allowed to strike, because doing so would put the public safety at risk. So what do they do when they aren't given a big enough raise? They pull a "blue flu", then organize a community scare tactic to tell citizens that because the mean old City Manager won't give them the money they want, they won't be able to respond to traffic accidents, fires, rescue services, keep the water flowing to the taps... and of course, terrified citizens call City Hall and insist those poor underpaid workers get the money they're entitled to so citizens won't be murdered in their own homes during the crime wave.

Then when the next year's taxes come due, guess who again calls City Hall to scream about the increase.

Public employee unions should be illegal. That's my position. :shrug:

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So if we had no public employee unions, who would ensure proper work conditions for public employees? I would be willing to sit down at a table and negotiate with anyone who just wanted to talk negotiating of pay but I will fight as much as I can against doing away with public employee unions entirely. I am a federal worker who is a shop steward in my union and we do not negotiate our pay; the only thing in our contract is working conditions.

Mason66 said:

Why can't work shifts be changed when they need to be?

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They can and that is in the contract. It has to be proven to be a necessity to change them without two weeks notice though.

Fishstyx said:

Huge loss: teachers unions in California case - POLITICO.com

This case is a pretty big deal. Hope the movement spreads across the nation like a wild fire. Think the biggest is getting rid of statutory restrictions in firing d-bag teachers making extremely expensive and timely. The immediate dismissal of substandard teachers is a no brainer. The removal of the tenure system would help to prevent complacency in tenured teachers.

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I am not overly fond of unions, but I knew a teacher that got sued for pulling a student off of a peer he was beating to death. The broader issue is that teaching requires parenting, which leads to disagreement over methodology between schools and teachers and actual parents. Teachers sort of need to be armed with a union to deal with that.