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I've never fully understood public unions to be honest. Unions used to be the best way to protect yourself from a bad employer...but the employer is the govern

I've never fully understood public unions to be honest. Unions used to be the best way to protect yourself from a bad employer...but the employer is the government (and to some extent the people). It used to be that public sector workers made less in exchange for better benefits, but in the last few years the war was waged on the public to increase wages to that of "private companies". Now teachers in my state make more than an average BS degree and work 9 months of the year...along with better medical and retirement benefits. They still claim they are underpaid and taxes just keep going up.

BitwiseFool 6y ago
Public Sector Unions make perfect sense from a political standpoint. It accomplishes two big things - it's a massive barrier to scaling back bureaucracy and it's a boon for any politician who supports the union.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  I have never engaged with a public government union that was short of bureaucracy and laziness.
ryanmercer 6y ago
>Now teachers in my state make more than an average BS degree and work 9 months of the year...along with better medical and retirement benefits. They still claim they are underpaid They are. A few years ago I still thought they were oeverpaid and then I married a teacher. She's absolutely underpaid. It is very much not a 9-5 job and, that time off during the summer - some of it get used for required continued education and a good deal of it makes up for the fact that teachers generally don't have vacation time remotely comparable to most other industries. My wife wakes up and goes to school about 2 hours before classes start. She comes home, makes us dinner, then sits on the couch all evening watching tv while she answers student and parent emails, works on her lesson plan for the next few days/weeks, grades papers, tries to figure out how to squeeze kids in around others during her prep hour or before/after school that are requesting help, find time to squeeze in phone calls during those same time slots with parents that are unhappy with a student's grade or want help for their child. The weekends are more of the same, a lot of grading/lesson planning/creating content for teaching. This summer she had 2 weeks of full-time college classes in the middle of summer to keep up with her continued education requirements which required her to purchase about a dozen books that weren't textbooks for the class and required a few binders, several papers, then a 20-page paper. Then weeks before the school year started she had to go start prepping her classroom, attending meetings in person, etc. Just look at babysitting rates. If you look at the cost of daycare and consider any k-12 child at babysitting rates, teachers are extremely underpaid. Last school year she had roughly 185 students she saw daily. So, the average rate for a local babysitter in Indianapolis, IN is $12.75 per hour as of January 2021 according to Care.com's data. Assume she had each student for 60 minutes a day - as a babysitter she should have earned $2,358.75 a day if my math is right. She was doing a lot more than babysitting, after marrying her I fully joined the stance that teachers are horribly underpaid.
- j_walter 6y ago
  That is not how math works. My kids day care has a government mandated 8 to 1 ratio. That teacher doesn't get paid 8x the average wage to watch kids. I don't pay $25/hr for my 2 kids to be at daycare. A local babysitter can watch more than 1 kid for that $12.75 an hour as well...it's not per kid. Nice try. Also, continued education is a requirement as it should be for such a career, but don't forget that her pay will go up as she completes credits (on top of her yearly increase). Just so you know, teachers in my area start at $55K/yr right now, not including benefits.
  - ryanmercer 6y ago
    >A local babysitter can watch more than 1 kid for that $12.75 an hour as well...it's not per kid. You're just massaging the data to benefit your point. Go find a babysitter that'll find 5 parents an go "yes, I'll watch all 5 of your children if you all chip in and give me 12.75 total".
    - j_walter 6y ago
      I'd be happy to pass you on to anyone that works at a daycare. They don't make much more than minimum wage in many cases. That's how daycare can remain somewhat affordable...economies of scale. Even your own source of care.com has a "Nanny Share" program that reduces the cost more. Without sharing, full time care (40 hrs a week) for 2 kids in my area is $16 an hour...which is less than 2 bucks more than minimum wage. $17.65 an hour if its 3 kids. Certainly not three times the $14.65 an hour that is for a single kid.
- offtop5 6y ago
  Also worth mentioning teachers have to deal with almost every societal issue. Having a kid tell you him and his mom sleep in a car this weekend is a heavy burden to carry. We treat teachers like these magicians who should find a way to make economically stressed kids fantastic students. I myself went through tons of housing instability , and an eviction while in high school. In no universe was I going to get into some type of premiere college. But you just keep seeing more and more pressure to make kids college ready. Kids who can barely read English are now told to take a foreign language( I've always hated foreign language requirements because I think it gives a big leg up to people growing in bilingual homes). Your wife is a saint. I can't imagine how much stress this reopening drive is causing your home.
mynameishere 6y ago
What don't you understand? The point of a union is to extract more money and reduce productivity (yes, it is). A company will resist this since it's the company's money that's getting extracted and their productivity that's getting hurt. Politicians will not resist it since it's public money and public services--not specifically their own.
- perfmode 6y ago
  side effects but not the point
sircastor 6y ago
I don’t understand this position. Just because some portion of the chain is elected doesn’t mean the management portion of the employer acts differently than anywhere else. Your local school districts comptroller isn’t necessarily working that role because they feel a higher calling in education. Also this “9 months a year” thing is really getting tired. Every teacher I’ve ever met works 60-80 hours a week or more, including weekends. When they work does not correlate to how much they work.
- yostrovs 6y ago
  It fundamentally corrupts democracy when you have unions donating to politicians, and the politicians in turn give more money to unions so that they give more money to politicians. This behavior effectively bypasses voters.

BitwiseFool 6y ago

Public Sector Unions make perfect sense from a political standpoint. It accomplishes two big things - it's a massive barrier to scaling back bureaucracy and it's a boon for any politician who supports the union.

MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
I have never engaged with a public government union that was short of bureaucracy and laziness.

ryanmercer 6y ago

>Now teachers in my state make more than an average BS degree and work 9 months of the year...along with better medical and retirement benefits. They still claim they are underpaid They are. A few years ago I still thought they were oeverpaid and then I married a teacher. She's absolutely underpaid. It is very much not a 9-5 job and, that time off during the summer - some of it get used for required continued education and a good deal of it makes up for the fact that teachers generally don't have vacation time remotely comparable to most other industries. My wife wakes up and goes to school about 2 hours before classes start. She comes home, makes us dinner, then sits on the couch all evening watching tv while she answers student and parent emails, works on her lesson plan for the next few days/weeks, grades papers, tries to figure out how to squeeze kids in around others during her prep hour or before/after school that are requesting help, find time to squeeze in phone calls during those same time slots with parents that are unhappy with a student's grade or want help for their child. The weekends are more of the same, a lot of grading/lesson planning/creating content for teaching. This summer she had 2 weeks of full-time college classes in the middle of summer to keep up with her continued education requirements which required her to purchase about a dozen books that weren't textbooks for the class and required a few binders, several papers, then a 20-page paper. Then weeks before the school year started she had to go start prepping her classroom, attending meetings in person, etc. Just look at babysitting rates. If you look at the cost of daycare and consider any k-12 child at babysitting rates, teachers are extremely underpaid. Last school year she had roughly 185 students she saw daily. So, the average rate for a local babysitter in Indianapolis, IN is $12.75 per hour as of January 2021 according to Care.com's data. Assume she had each student for 60 minutes a day - as a babysitter she should have earned $2,358.75 a day if my math is right. She was doing a lot more than babysitting, after marrying her I fully joined the stance that teachers are horribly underpaid.

j_walter 6y ago
That is not how math works. My kids day care has a government mandated 8 to 1 ratio. That teacher doesn't get paid 8x the average wage to watch kids. I don't pay $25/hr for my 2 kids to be at daycare. A local babysitter can watch more than 1 kid for that $12.75 an hour as well...it's not per kid. Nice try. Also, continued education is a requirement as it should be for such a career, but don't forget that her pay will go up as she completes credits (on top of her yearly increase). Just so you know, teachers in my area start at $55K/yr right now, not including benefits.
- ryanmercer 6y ago
  >A local babysitter can watch more than 1 kid for that $12.75 an hour as well...it's not per kid. You're just massaging the data to benefit your point. Go find a babysitter that'll find 5 parents an go "yes, I'll watch all 5 of your children if you all chip in and give me 12.75 total".
  - j_walter 6y ago
    I'd be happy to pass you on to anyone that works at a daycare. They don't make much more than minimum wage in many cases. That's how daycare can remain somewhat affordable...economies of scale. Even your own source of care.com has a "Nanny Share" program that reduces the cost more. Without sharing, full time care (40 hrs a week) for 2 kids in my area is $16 an hour...which is less than 2 bucks more than minimum wage. $17.65 an hour if its 3 kids. Certainly not three times the $14.65 an hour that is for a single kid.
offtop5 6y ago
Also worth mentioning teachers have to deal with almost every societal issue. Having a kid tell you him and his mom sleep in a car this weekend is a heavy burden to carry. We treat teachers like these magicians who should find a way to make economically stressed kids fantastic students. I myself went through tons of housing instability , and an eviction while in high school. In no universe was I going to get into some type of premiere college. But you just keep seeing more and more pressure to make kids college ready. Kids who can barely read English are now told to take a foreign language( I've always hated foreign language requirements because I think it gives a big leg up to people growing in bilingual homes). Your wife is a saint. I can't imagine how much stress this reopening drive is causing your home.

mynameishere 6y ago

What don't you understand? The point of a union is to extract more money and reduce productivity (yes, it is). A company will resist this since it's the company's money that's getting extracted and their productivity that's getting hurt. Politicians will not resist it since it's public money and public services--not specifically their own.

perfmode 6y ago
side effects but not the point

sircastor 6y ago

I don’t understand this position. Just because some portion of the chain is elected doesn’t mean the management portion of the employer acts differently than anywhere else. Your local school districts comptroller isn’t necessarily working that role because they feel a higher calling in education. Also this “9 months a year” thing is really getting tired. Every teacher I’ve ever met works 60-80 hours a week or more, including weekends. When they work does not correlate to how much they work.

yostrovs 6y ago
It fundamentally corrupts democracy when you have unions donating to politicians, and the politicians in turn give more money to unions so that they give more money to politicians. This behavior effectively bypasses voters.