Re: would you rather be an employee or an employer ?
Yep, nowadays Unions are pretty much useless...
This is true in
some factory settings where unions have become greedy and destroyed any sense of profit in the world market, but without unions, more often than not, business would screw their workers; especially corporations that report to stockholders and government based jobs.
Let me explain from a teacher's perspective:
Roughly every six years or so, the political spectrum changes and all of the sudden there is a frenzy where everything in education changes. When NCLB kicked in back in 2001, all types of 'reforms' were hitting and suddenly teachers needed to get 80 hours of training each year, new credentials, new teacher "professional development" tests, and...now standardized testing becomes everything. Now, other than standardized testing,
I don't have a problem with these things because they do help build better teachers, BUT the district/state immediately tried to screw us.
Teachers were suddenly expected to start paying for online classes to get the 80 hours, we were expected to pay to take these tests at $270 a pop, getting my credential cost $17k (although the union fought that and now they have a BITSA new teacher induction program that cut down the cost of credentials). We were also expected to start doing Saturday workdays and two hours a week of afterschool tutoring. I already paid for my four year degree and the initial teacher prep. examp, shouldn't the state/district/fed help pay for all these new requirements?
And standardized testing, it sounds great, "students/schools will be held accountable." But what happens is that principals jobs are on the line if math/reading scores do not hit AYP/API; all of the sudden, art, P.E., social studies, and music was gone from the classroom despite education codes that mandate instructional minutes going to them. Six hours a day of math, math review, math intervention, basal reading, corrective reading, reading workshop, and English Language Development for Spanish students.
And if teacher pay is based on "performance" and "accountiblity on test scores making AYP," which is Obama's new rhetoric, then the good teachers in bad districts are inherently screwed because the principals are going to load the good teachers with the students who need the most help to increase the schools
overall test score.
Trust me, last year I had 9 resouce students-two of which had behavior modification plans- and four level one English speakers. Do you have ANY clue what that did to my test scores compared to the other teachers who had little to no RSP students or EL level ones and can't control major discipline problems? If you only looked at whether or not the students in my class were considered "proficient," I would appear to be a horrible teacher. However, my principal loaded me because she knew that I would increase the students from far below grade standards to basic; closer to proficient which improves the school's overall AYP and makes the school as a whole look better.
Now that California is 40 BILLION dollars in the red, politicians are looking for ways to cut; I understand that. But
without the union, we would have 40+ students in a classroom, our pension would disappear even though we have worked towards it for years, the pay we receive for the extra 80 hours required by us would be cut, and so on.
Sorry, rant off...
), than work in another union job, ever again in my life.
