Well, I’ve politely asked a couple of times how many Wisconsin teachers have left for better paying jobs in other states. The silence has been nearly as deafening as the “bellowing” you mention.

Nobody has answered because 1) it’s kind of a dumb question, and 2) the 40-odd commenters here are unlikely to have those statistics at hand so any answer would be speculation and, like your personal experience in this matter, irrelevant anecdote.

The silence is deafening. Ha.

Together, they looted state coffers to line their pockets and now, with the bill coming due, they don’t want to share in the pain that private sector workers have been dealing with for years.

Translation: Teachers, and all public sector workers, for that matter, should just accept low, stagnant wages, little or no health benefits, and the threat of being fired at will, just like everybody else, and like it.

Hey, Timmers, what’s in this for you? Is this simply “misery loves company,” or is somebody giving you some kind of tangible benefit to spout this line of bullshit? Does it make you feel better about yourself?

Seriously, I understand that Americans don’t believe in paying more taxes. But this “fuck over your neighbor because you perceive he’s got it better than you do” attitude that’s so prevalent now, I don’t understand.

Public sector unions have been used to getting their way for decades.

Between increases in contributions to health care, raises that did not keep up with the cost of living, and furlough days, members of public sector unions in Wisconsin have seen their salaries shrink in real terms over the past 10 – 15 years.

You don’t have a right to collective bargaining.

A passing familiarity with the ninth and tenth amendments might be considered a requirement before making such a statement. What is under discussion is legislation explicitly forbidding most public employees from bargaining collectively.

The completely valid criticism of what Walker is doing is that the police and fire unions are given a free pass. That is, I agree, bullshit.

Teachers are paid professionals indeed.

Their pay should be commensurate with the jobs they do and the results that they get.

It is outrageous, however, that they should expect the taxpayer to carry both their salary and benefit packages without a reasonable contribution from them.

When you add those, the average jumps dramatically.

For instance, the Milwaukee figure quoted in your source is $54,620. Once you add on the extras, the figure tops $100K.

http://investmentwatchblog.com/report-average-city-teacher-salary-tops-100000/

PS…I didn’t say that teachers don’t work hard. What I am critical of teachers for is the results they glean as detailed in the second video in the source above.

Also, while teachers may indeed put in long hours during the school session they also enjoy multiple breaks during the year up to, and including, summers off. So, while their working weeks may be >40 hours…it more than balances out when you calculate their down time.

What next, whine about how TSA’s modern day SS don’t get paid enough?

I’d be happy to. Making airport security a profession, instead of what you do when the airport Chick-Fil-A isn’t hiring, can only improve things. Real collective bargaining and the right to strike might actually have resulted in those pat-downs having been nipped in the bud. Remember how BB was full of Marie Antoinettes demanding that the TSA rank-and-file quit in protest? You know, “well if you hate fondling my balls so much why don’t you quit?” etc.? Imagine what an empowered, organized workforce could have done then. It never would have gotten past the memo stage.

This legislation will remove the right to collectively bargain for most public sector employees.

Inaccurate.

The collective bargaining changes included in this legislation specifically exclude salary.

In case you have forgotten, the reason that percentage has always been relatively small is because historically that was the trade-off for public sector employment: lower salary for better benefits.

So…an average salary of nearly $53K is “lower” in your mind?

Really?

Then, you add on a bennie package worth approx $40K…

Pretty soon, you’re talking about big money.

This is not about the budget, which has a shortfall due to actions taken by the current Governor in his first days in office.

Hmmm…surely you didn’t fall for that one now did you?

Under the legislation, employees will be contributing 12% toward their insurance (currently they pay 6%) and 5.8% toward their pensions which they currently contribute nothing toward.

A modest proposal indeed.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/18/the-first-blow-against-public-employees/wisconsins-governor-is-fiscally-modest-politically-bold

But this “fuck over your neighbor because you perceive he’s got it better than you do” attitude that’s so prevalent now, I don’t understand.

You’re right.

The American left has always wanted to go after the “rich” to get as much as they possibly can when, in reality, it’s those people who help keep the economy chugging along.

I don’t understand it either.

I was a teamster, and the union was so corrupt I could not relate the stories and be deemed credible, though they are true, it was like an upton sinclair book. My wife paid tons of money into her health worker union and they used it to lobby for pro-life stuff we don’t support. (neonatal care is a huge chunk of health care $$$ in the US)

Our local police union has fought police drug testing for years their excuse “we’d lose 25% of the force to meth alone.” Having worked in the field I can tell you, meth head cops are a denger to everybody.

San Francisco is going bankrupt over $190K retirement pay for firefighters, without a union the pay would even out.

The age of the sweatshop is over, we have decent laws about overtime etc. If somebody wants to leave their $43K job for any reason, I’ll take that job right now, no benefits, and I’ll do it for $35K.

I think the era where unions were necessary in the US is over, I will never voluntarily work a union job again.

Did I mention I also pay taxes? I’m awfully surprised to find that I’m getting rich. Cause I feel like I’m barely treading water. After these cuts go through, it looks like it’s going take about $400 a month from my take home pay. My union dues run me about $372 per year, so Scott Walkers plan that I can make up for my lost wages by not paying union dues would cover me for about one month. What do you suggest I do to make up the loss for those other 11 months out of the year?

Might I also mention, I’m fine with taking those cuts. I love my state, and I don’t want to see it suffer while I “prosper”, but I’m absolutely not willing to give up my rights (not collecting bargaining privileges, collective bargaining rights) just so our new governor can fill a one year hole in a budget deficit that he created.

You are quite right. Teachers are paid professionals indeed. Their pay should be commensurate with the jobs they do and the results that they get. It is outrageous, however, that they should expect the taxpayer to carry both their salary and benefit packages without a reasonable contribution from them.

So you think the work teachers do isn’t a “reasonable contribution” worthy of the salary they’re paid. Thanks for clarifying that you think Wisconsin teachers are unworthy of their hire. No wonder you don’t think teachers should be able to collectively bargain.

The American left has always wanted to go after the “rich” to get as much as they possibly can…

Totally unlike the American right, who think taxation is tantamount to theft.

…when, in reality, it’s those people who help keep the economy chugging along.

Yes, the rich certainly are the only ones who keep the economy going. Certainly not the poor, the middle class, or teachers. What a nonsensical statement.

I don’t understand it either.

Well, you wrote it.

But if we’re paying for results, we, as a country, are getting burned. US education sucks so ridiculously bad we should disband our public schools and go to a voucher only system, let people make their own choices.

I homeschool mine because the schools are draconian, orwellian, inefficient and ineffective. Why should I give chicken lips about the salary/benefits of someone who works for a system I would never consider using because it sucks so badly?

What next, whine about how TSA’s modern day SS don’t get paid enough?

What sort of turnover rate does these mediocre wages generate?

Are there any Wisconsin teachers who pick up and move across state lines to get a better paying job, as I have done three times in the last fifteen years?

Or do they prefer a small, but tightly clutched, iron rice bowl?

I am not discussing policy or politics or whatever you think this issue is about. I am discussing math. As for tax cuts for the wealthy try this on for size:

“The top-earning 5 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $159,619), however, still paid far more than the bottom 95 percent. The top 5 percent earned 34.7 percent of the nation’s adjusted gross income, but paid approximately 58.7 percent of federal individual income taxes.”

Check out the Tax Foundation’s website for more. It is hard to argue with the numbers.

The salary figures that you cite are cash figures only and do not take into account the additional employee benefits ie insurance, pension, and social security.

When you add those, the average jumps dramatically.

For instance, the Milwaukee figure quoted in your source is $54,620. Once you add on the extras, the figure tops $100K.

Your totals are irrelevant. Do you think other professionals do not earn benefits like insurance, pension and social security? The difference is in the contribution rates, not the total benefits package. To tout the totals as if only unionized state employees earn those kinds of benefits is deliberately misleading.

Believe what you will – I live in Sweden and have no horse in this race. These are just numbers, not political commentary. If you think that the US economy is doing great, more power to you. Time will tell.

The collective bargaining changes included in this legislation specifically exclude salary.

It also specifically limits salary increases to no greater than cost of living increases without a referendum vote.

It also makes union dues voluntary and forces the unions to re-vote every year on whether to remain unionized. When your union has had it’s hands tied, there’s little incentive to remain unionized.

This move is orchestrated by the Koch brothers and is designed to cripple the unions and consequently destroy the major contribution base for the Democratic party.

(I don’t know what any of this has to do with pay-for-performance. As far as I’ve heard, that is not one of the current issues.)

“Firefighters and law enforcement are exempt. These two groups back the current protests, no doubt in part because they see the writing on the wall and know their collective bargaining rights will be targeted next.”

Not according to this article.

http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-102010-open-sky,0,7341989.story

You may not have a right to a $100k job, this is true. It just happens to be true of less than 1% of the people seeking union representation in Wisconsin. People do have a right to make a living wage, and this law would take 30% of union workers below the living wage once they make their ‘contributions’ to their pension. This is not right.

You do have a right to dictate how a state is run, it’s called participatory Democracy. Everyone should have their say, and the current shortfall is being created by giving tax breaks to the rich. 90% of the benefit is going to the top 10% of wage earners, and there is nothing democractic about that.

Sorry, I must have missed the place where BoingBoing organized into a political party. There is no line to tow here, but goofy fascist outlooks with heads buried in the sand are not appreciated anywhere.

You that gets up every day, goes to work, pays your mortgage, buys your gorceries.

Teaches the children of the nation… Picks up the nations garbage….. writes the nation’s code.

YOU ARE NOT WORTH ANYTHING.

Why don’t you understand that? The rich are rich for a reason, why else would they be rich (it’s certainly not inherited privilege, that certain never happens).

Only your rich masters keep the economy going, it’s certainly not you doing your job.

________________________

You know, what’s funny, those prognosticating the above rational tend to be big fans of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas shrugged”. A book about the rich up and quitting, *striking* if you will, and thusly proving their value.

You’d think if the workers are worth so very little, it would conversely stand to reason that *their* striking would be harmless…. And yet they have to go so far as to legislating such an event’s prevention in order to keep things going.

A bit hypocritical don’t you think?

Its time America stops voting for a party and starts voting for people with common sense. We are getting fleeced by big gov and big business and yes they are both the same.

Its time you vote not for a party but for people who stand by their word and care about the working class.

Ron Paul or Gary Johnson former GOV of NM for example come to mind maybe their are others. they may not have all the anwsers but they have some comman sense and they care about the working class whether they work for the government or private businesses if their is such a thing anymore.

Faus

“Well it doesn’t work, so we ought not give it the funding it needs to work”

Here’s why you should “give chicken lips”. Because money attracts talent, and talent makes things work. It’s good enough logic to be applied to CEO’s that make millions a year, but apparently not to public education.

Your attitude sabotages the system, and then once the system is sabotaged, you used that as justification for the original attitude.

The collective bargaining changes included in this legislation specifically exclude salary.

Allow me to explain how this works. The Unions want to discuss salary. The State says, “We cannot discuss salary until the budget is set.” Once the budget is set, the Union says, “Can we discuss salary now?” The State says, “There is no point in discussing salary, the budget is set.” This is how salary “negotiations” have gone for the last 10 – 15 years in Wisconsin.

Under the new legislation, expect to see any “raises” granted to be absorbed by further increases in what the employees must pay for their benefits, additional furlough days, etc.

I see you conveniently ignored the explanation about how compensation in public service has worked historically.

So…an average salary of nearly $53K is “lower” in your mind?

That’s not what I said at all, but I suspect you know that.

Hmmm…surely you didn’t fall for that one now did you?

You accuse the state fiscal bureau of malfeasance? If you have evidence of such, please by all means present it to the legislative audit bureau.

Then who’s paying most of ALL of those taxes? the richest five percent?

No.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/wisconsin-union-battle-a-convenient-distraction-from-the-real-culprit-in-state-budge-woes.html

But I know, you think lower taxes now on the richest Americans would solve the problems of the poorest and sickest Americans, right away. Provided that the poor paid more for everything, and got less in total.