Health care workers, hell--if they can do this to nurses, they'll go after teachers next. Who directs what goes on in their workplace more than teachers?

So if unions cause bad schools, all the states like Mississippi with no bargaining rights for teachers are the best, then?

And are you seriously arguing that you have such confidence in education administrators that you assume that they would keep competent teachers and not just those who brownnose well?  Tenure exists precisely because historically teachers were eliminated for political reasons quite often, not based on their teaching skills. 

This is not to say there aren't some "awful teachers" (most of whom are athletic coaches first and teachers second) out there, but the supposed army of subpar educators is as big a GOP myth as the so-called welfare queen, popping out babies for an extra $20 a day.

As to your second point, pharmacists and physicians are organized into immensly powerful bodies. The AMA's word is almost unimpeachable on certain health care matters. So I'd argue that they're actually MORE powerful then the R.N.s and Educators right now. But, even just talking about the traditional union functions, the fact is that pharmacists and physicians are true supervisors in that they don't NEED to be unionized- they've already got the power to direct their work and that of those around them (including, may I add, R.N.s).

KikoKimba
Let's cut right to the chase before this thread goes way out of whack. Comparing nurses to school teachers and overlaying the issue with good labor union-bad labor union arguments are beside the point.

Nurses -- not doctors, administrators or pharmacists -- are the people who make hospitals tick. They are historically underpaid, overused and abused and have brought much of the grief upon themselves because they are taught to be advocates for their patients and not themselves.

Classifying nurses as supervisors so they can be further screwed will only exacerbate a national nursing shortage that grows more grave by the year. Nurses are being driven out of the profession and nursing schools are unable to provide replacements because the very people that need them the most -- the vast majority of hospitals that have become profit driven and not health-care driven -- treat their most valuable assets like sh*t.

For the candid comments of a career RN on all of this, go to

http://kikoshouse.blogspot.com/2006/05/from-nurses-perspective-its-nightmare_08.html

Let' focus on the main issue, not everyone's pet side issues. Please!

 

This is not to say there aren't some "awful teachers" (most of whom are athletic coaches first and teachers second) out there, but the supposed army of subpar educators is as big a GOP myth as the so-called welfare queen, popping out babies for an extra $20 a day.

Not so. Most of them are tenured and teaching classes which they are not certified to teach due to their tenure they are retained and placed in those subject areas due to seniority. If anything, it is the people who are the coach who have the degree in math but are not able to teach in the classroom due to their lack of seniority...it is either coach or be laid off.

There is a legion of teachers who are kept on their jobs each year due to seniority and young teachers are laid off consistently, no matter how good they were, due to their lack of seniority.  You have people with degrees in music who are the math department chair, due to them being tenured! 

As to your second point, pharmacists and physicians are organized into immensly powerful bodies.

O please. You are talking apples and oranges a professional association is NOT a union.  If you lack an understanding of this fundamental difference this dialogue goes nowhere. A union has bargaining power with an employer a professional association does not.

The AMA's word is almost unimpeachable on certain health care matters.

This is totally false. Name one such matter!

But, even just talking about the traditional union functions, the fact is that pharmacists and physicians are true supervisors in that they don't NEED to be unionized- they've already got the power to direct their work and that of those around them (including, may I add, R.N.s).

Huh? Sounds like you are arguing against your own premise most likely because you do not understand the roles of health care professionals. Nurses are supervisors as much as physicians and pharmacists are. They are all licensed health professionals and none of them needs to be unionized, just as teachers do not. 

To connect this to the larger anti-union movement, the fact is that unions often function to protect the quality of the goods and services you receive, as much as they protect the quality of paycheck received by their employees.

This may hold true when it comes to non-health professionals in terms of goods and services. Unions in health care, however do not enhance quality, if anything they result in sub-quality service, beacause they allow institutions to utilize uneducated and poorly trained 'medical aides' in place of nurses with degrees from 4 year programs. You get folks who are LPN's and hospital trained staff..  Folks who do not understand how to take blood pressure but are allowed to draw blood and give PAINFUL shots.

Come on-- you are blaming teachers unions for short school days and long summer vacations that long preceded the rise of teachers unions.  And please note, all the countries in Europe with longer school years usually have stronger union movements.

I am blaming unions for the extra holidays and teacher conferences and training that are scheduled during the school year, vs. during the summer vacation or spring break/Xmas break time periods. Unions are responsible for many schools going to 90 minute periods during the school year, and dimishing the electives that kids can take in HS..that is directly related to the union contracts.  Teacher opted to teach fewer periods and the kids were shafted.

So here we have these educated 'professionals' bargaining to work fewer hours, teach fewer classes and not be laid off.  Name another group of educated professionals who can do this and yammering about they meet the standards. No other profession does this. All other professions understand that meeting the standard is the minimum required not some high bar for excellent performance. The vast majority of other educated professionals understand that working a 40 hour week is the bare minimum and doing the job well demands significantly greater time investment. NOT teachers.  There are NO other educated professionals who get to retain their jobs over other peers based on seniority. Teacher unions are a major problem in terms of attracting and retaining individuals who do the bare minimum and think because they have tenure it is sufficient.

So the minute you start arguing about "bad US schools" compared to other countries, you are comparing us to countries where teachers unions are often much stronger.

First off, I have made no such argument. You are the one throwing in other countries to make a false argument. Nothing about American schools compares to international schools other than perhaps the subjects taught. The international standards for teaching are far different than in the USA and whether unions are stronger there has no bearing on how unions have diminished the quality of teaching in America.

And as for the idea that other professionals don't unionize -- that would suprise all the unionized airline pilots, nurses, Boeing engineers, and a host of other professions with strong unions.

Engineers are not unionized. Some engineering jobs in certain industries are unionized. The same goes for pilots and nurses. There is simply not a host of professionals with strong unions who are college educated that is anywhere near comparable to teachers. NONE.

Pharmacists are not unionized? Not very knowledgable of your own field, eh?

How about you name the union.

USW -- formerly PACE -- prior to that, OCAW.

Organizations, whether public or private, get the unions they deserve. In the case of short-sighted school districts who have historically not treated teachers as professionals this is particularly apt.

As Nathan suggests, it's not as if school districts will enact an educational utopia in the absence of unions.

You've failed in your posts to establish that unions are the cause of ails in public schools. There is an issue with teacher quality in too many underserved districts but it can be attributed to attitudes towards teachers. You keep harping on engineers but if teachers were paid like engineers teacher quality wouldn't be a problem.

I am blaming unions for the extra holidays and teacher conferences and training that are scheduled during the school year, vs. during the summer vacation or spring break/Xmas break time periods. As a daughter of a teacher (who is also a Union rep), I'll tell you that most teachers HATE those conferences, and would far rather be in the classroom. Going is not typically their idea, but that of an administrator or politician who wants to teach some new standard.  My mother has had to go to the mat to NOT be sent to a conference 1 week before her students' finals.

 Unions are responsible for many schools going to 90 minute periods during the school year, and dimishing the electives that kids can take in HS..that is directly related to the union contracts.  Teacher opted to teach fewer periods and the kids were shafted.  Um, once again, no.  The lack of electives, etc., is directly related to the rise in the emphasis on testing.  The 'block scheduling' fad is also not beloved by most teachers.  Perhaps the teachers' unions didn't fight hard enough against it- there are some pedagogical benefitst to longer class times.  But you're right in the intimation that it's been largely unsuccessful.  But teachers have little to no control over such things, and you would strip them of whatever control they do have.

 So here we have these educated 'professionals' bargaining to work fewer hours, teach fewer classes and not be laid off.  Name another group of educated professionals who can do this and yammering about they meet the standards. No other profession does this.

As to the 'summer's' off argument: First of all, teachers do not get the full time off that students do, since they ARE in inservices and going to continuing ed, etc.

Second of all, even this benefit does not make up for the difference in compensation between teachers and 'other professionals': MBAs graduating in 2005 with less then 3 years work experience can expect to earn a base salary of over $68k, plus signing bonuses, according to the wall street journal. For similarily situated teachers (i.e. master's degree), it's somewhere in the 30s- MAYBE fourties in some districts. As a matter of fact, NEA is seeking to establish a minimum salary of $40k- hardly an outrageous goal for people with post-graduate degrees.  Plus, those same teachers pay an average of $400-$500 out of pocket for classroom expenses.  Name me one other professional who would volunteer to buy pens for his whole office!  And teachers work an average of 50 hours a week- doing related work- counseling students, hosting extracurriculars, etc. And their work environments, while rewarding, can be dangerous and even deadly- at the very least, often unpleasant. 

You make legitimate points about what's wrong with the educational system.  But the problem is neither teachers nor their unions, and getting rid of them will only exacerbate them by leaving the very people who actually do the work without a voice in determining policy.

Perhaps way, way off-topic (and perhaps not), as this began with nurses. What's happening with respect to nurses in consistent with other actions taken by this administration. For example, the new work rule that was adopted (last year, I believe [?]) was so vague that it permitted employers to categorize virtually any white-collar employee as management and, therefore, unable to unionize. Moreover, that rule's interpretation gets Chevron deference (the courts basically take the agency's word for it unless it's barred by the statute's plain langugage), which would again be decided initially by, I think [?], the NLRB. It's a nasty circle and, if we are in fact moving to a "service economy" as the source of the middle class, a really big deal.

But thanks to our world's best brightest national leadership I am sure all will agree the United States health care 'system' is the greatest in the world, bar none.

There is at least a lot of money to be made, 25% or so of the $4500 percapita health care dollars going to paperwork and overhead. No other western country spends as much on paperwork.

We spend about twice as much (percapita) as other western countries on healthcare, and lead with the highest rate of those with no insurance, the US also has the western world's highest infant mortality, we lead in poor immunization rates, lack of pre-natal care, and although 25th or so in the world, we still are ahead of some nations in longevity.

For those still in doubt, the USA is clearly best because Saudi princes choose America when they want to rent an entire floor in a hospital. What could be better proof of the priorities in the 'system'?

Well, they're part of it - W., is correct that unions do contribute to the problem - but then so does lack of funds, parental neglect, community ennui and a few other factors.

No one factor is responsible, but we all have to give up a little to gain better education. A mechanism to stop union protection of bad teachers wouldn't hurt, although it's a sacrifice to ask teachers to do this, when other professions don't police themselves.

I wish I had the solution.

So do all the other folks slimed by the rightwing message machine have to clean up their image?  So Kerry should stop looking so much like he stole his medals?  Gays should clean up their image as likely to molest children?  Feminists should fix their reputation as man-hating, abortion-loving freaks?

Maybe liberals with anti-union views should learn a bit more, like there is zero evidence anywhere of nurses unions (or most unions at all) having any history of being "mobbed up" or whatever cliche you want to spout.

 When you're friends libel good union folks, do you correct them on their prejudice or nod along?

I think this goes well before Kerry. Now, there are union shops when I've had excellent relations with the people. These were telephone company CWA members, who really appreciated it when we made them part of our team.

I've also had very negative experiences, mostly with the electricians' union in New York, where they considered all wiring their jurisdiction, even if it was network cabling they didn't know how to do. I have literally had them walk into seminars I was giving (with labs) and cut cables.

If it's a good union, I do correct. I've always had good relations with CWA people, and some of the airline unions. In the building trades, I'm not convinced they are as efficient as they could be.

Whether you intend to or not, you are coming across as if the union is always right, and the employer, and clients of the employer (e.g., the person hiring a contractor to build a house) are automatically wrong. Can you suggest a balanced view?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Let's see:

I began my career with the Building Service Employees, Local 370 of the AFL-CIO. The "buildings" I served were tombs. I was a grounds-keeper at a cemetery in Minneapolis Minnesota. My wages, upon joining, went from 90 cents to 1.25 an hour (this was back in the fifties). Was I corrupt? mobbed up? lazy? No lazier than any other 15 year old.

My Next Union was the Teamsters. I was a trucker's helper at a lumber yard that time around. Was I corrupt? mobbed up? lazy? One doesn't feel particularly lazy climbing four flights of stairs carrying 5/8" sheet rock in 8'x4' double bundles.

My Current Union is the NEA (National Education Association). I don't think I'm particularly mobbed up, corrupt, or lazy now, either. I've been a member of this one 33 years. We formed the union in the first instance in order to get a general governance contract...the right to teach in our disciplines according to the tenets of the disciplines, to control the curriculum, and to create a faculty senate.

I have attended conferences on poverty and progressive politics the past three years running. In 2004 I was at the Conference on Poverty held at NYU off Washington Square. I heard the AFL-CIO Choir sing there. They represented all the labor unions, as I remember it. They didn't strike me as particularly corrupt, mobbed or lazy... they even sang on tune.

In 2005 and 2006 I went to the Take Back America Conference... the registration in 2005 was about 1500, the registration in 2006 was over 2000, and my guess is that 1999 of these were good liberals. We heard Tom Harkin, Russ Feingold, Barak Obama, John Kerry, Hilary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Tom Vilsack...I guess we were mobbed up by people wanting us to vote for them. . . We also heard of, and were inspired by, the great work of Project Acorn  http://www.acorn.org/  and we remembered Cesar Chavez and the ongoing work to bring dignity to farm workers.  http://www.ufw.org/  who need our help now, just as much as they did when many of us boycotted grapes back in the 1970s. The conference was co-sponsored by the AFL-CIO and we heard John Sweeney speak to us about all sorts of issues dear to our hearts. I don't think we felt corrupted, mobbed up, or lazier for the experience.

I love Josh Marshall's word Bamboozlement. White Collar Professional liberals have been subject to bamboozlement on the union issue. It is utterly frustrating for me to hear people talk about those in unions or feeling the need for unions as "them". Just as southern business interests used race to separate the poor black from the poor white in the first Progressive Era (to the detriment of both, of course)...the Corporate Business Culture (so pure, so innocent, so rational, so market driven and impartial--Enron anybody???) has driven a wedge between the once mighty industrial and craft unions and the white collar workers in the service industries. As long as the Chamber of Commerce types can convince us that unions are corrupt, mobbed up, and lazy, they can outsource jobs, lay off thousands in the re-monopolizing of the banking industries, and underfund pensions.

I'm not suggesting Unions are pure as the driven snow... which, after all, is pretty cold sterile stuff anyhow. I am suggesting that we ask ourselves, "whose interest is it in to create a negative impression of the labor movement?" The answer to that question may suggest how many grains of salt we take the claims of corruption, mob-ism, and laziness with. The next time one hears a slur against labor, the best response is to ask for a reference? Those lovely reportorial questions, who, where, what, and when. If the person can't come up with any name besides Jimmy Hoffa, direct them to one of the many good references on the History of the Labor Movement in the United States.

 http://clusty.com/search?query=History+Labor+Movement+USA

 Mike