Chicago Teacher's Strike

[BigBallinStalin]

id fire every teacher that went on strike,f*ck the unions,just proves teachers are like unions....greedy

I do now know as much of the details as I do about the Wisconsin strike, so I can't say the same....yet. But I thought all the Wisconsin teachers should have been fired. When you are involved and this goes down in your backyard, you hear about the real effects of the union strikes. Such as parents missing a couple days out of their work-weeks and some people even told about having to choose between picking up their kid from school that day or finding a new job, extra day care costs, totally screwing up the whole families schedule. I mean, if there are 400,000 kids out of school, that probably effects around 2 million people. On the bright side, I bet you there is hardly any traffic and everyone else is making it to work a little bit early.

What's your alternative? You seem to find fault with the effects of their strike. Should they be forced to work for the wages they received prior to their strike? That seems strange.

I think of unions like the competitive balance for corporations in the free market system. I haven't worked out that theory in any way, but I like it for now. In sum, I have no problem with any union striking. I will, however, scoff at the ridiculous salaries these teachers make. Scoff!

Well, the reason why they have such high salaries is because they engage in rent-seeking. What prevents competition from undercutting their profits? It seems that the union has a state-mandated monopoly on teaching in that area (and probably for only public schools). In this sense, that union is crony capitalist, which is anathema to free markets.

I actually wrote a whole analogy to my own job. I deleted it before posting because I anticipated what you were going to type. MWAHAHAHAHAHA.

My analogy was thus: If everyone at my firm went on strike, the partners would be left holding the bag and clients would suffer (with, for example, getting tax returns filed timely).

Your response to my analogy is partially above and partially thus: Clients could go to other firms. Children can't go to other public schools.

Well, my response is not at all about clients or kids. In regarding to your point, sure, the inability for children to move to other schools is legally mandated by the municipality, State, and/or federal government (Dept. of Edu), which creates this unintended consequence of providing kids with 0 education during the time of a strike. For clients, they have the legal ability to contract with other companies, if such a company proves to be less productive/profitable. Given that your company would wish to avoid that, they have a profit-and-loss incentive which compels them to address the tax lawyers' demands--unless of course in a relatively more free market, the company could find a cheaper substitute (e.g. somehow hire many tax lawyers and effectively ignore the strikers' demands).

My response is completely about the inability of non-union/non-striking teachers to work at those schools during a strike. Some people use derogatory labels such as "scabs" to describe them. I view them as a necessary function of the social economy to keep wages at actual levels of productivity, thereby rendering ineffective the rent-seeking of unions as they seek to increase their wages far beyond their actual labor productivity.

[BigBallinStalin]

Not to excuse the union in this, because I don't (I find the idea that they can't hire other teachers during a strike to be ridiculous), but remember...they're not the only ones signing those contracts. The school district must have agreed to this at some point. To blame only the unions isn't really rational.

I didn't want to get into bureaucratic incentives, which would lead to a much longer post, so given this, it was rational for me to only focus on unions.

But you do make a good point. Of course, if the union is strong and monopolistic, the school board may have little choice in determining the conditions of a contract. And this would also get us into federal regulations and so and so forth (thus becoming a longer post).

With posts, it's about marginal benefits and costs. Incurring marginal costs greater than marginal benefits would be irrational--depending on one's goals and valuation.

[Phatscotty]

id fire every teacher that went on strike,f*ck the unions,just proves teachers are like unions....greedy

I do now know as much of the details as I do about the Wisconsin strike, so I can't say the same....yet. But I thought all the Wisconsin teachers should have been fired. When you are involved and this goes down in your backyard, you hear about the real effects of the union strikes. Such as parents missing a couple days out of their work-weeks and some people even told about having to choose between picking up their kid from school that day or finding a new job, extra day care costs, totally screwing up the whole families schedule. I mean, if there are 400,000 kids out of school, that probably effects around 2 million people. On the bright side, I bet you there is hardly any traffic and everyone else is making it to work a little bit early.

What's your alternative? You seem to find fault with the effects of their strike. Should they be forced to work for the wages they received prior to their strike? That seems strange.

The parents of the striking children are feeling the fault. The teachers should not be forced to do anything except for what they have agreed to do contractually. Likewise, they should not be preventing children access to an education or forcing the parents to clean up the mess they have chosen to make.

[Woodruff]

id fire every teacher that went on strike,f*ck the unions,just proves teachers are like unions....greedy

I do now know as much of the details as I do about the Wisconsin strike, so I can't say the same....yet. But I thought all the Wisconsin teachers should have been fired. When you are involved and this goes down in your backyard, you hear about the real effects of the union strikes. Such as parents missing a couple days out of their work-weeks and some people even told about having to choose between picking up their kid from school that day or finding a new job, extra day care costs, totally screwing up the whole families schedule. I mean, if there are 400,000 kids out of school, that probably effects around 2 million people. On the bright side, I bet you there is hardly any traffic and everyone else is making it to work a little bit early.

What's your alternative? You seem to find fault with the effects of their strike. Should they be forced to work for the wages they received prior to their strike? That seems strange.

The parents of the striking children are feeling the fault.

Which is intentional, of course.

The teachers should not be forced to do anything except for what they have agreed to do contractually.

For instance, supporting the strike that was declared.

Likewise, they should not be preventing children access to an education or forcing the parents to clean up the mess they have chosen to make.

You're contradicting yourself again.

[Phatscotty]

The red shirts have filled their bellies and are satisfied.....for now. They can stop breaking the law and finally let the children into school to get one of the crappiest educations in the country.