Either EU gets euro to work without austerity, or it has to abandon it. Demanding sacrifices from the common people who's reward is having less say in their own local affairs is quickly discrediting the entire union.
That was a design bug known from the very beginning. Or, if you're a banker, a design feature. The less prosperous EU nations were interested in having other, more prosperous countries help finance their social programs' largesse. Of course those holding the purse strings saw an opportunity there.
I wish I had mod points, you're so excruciatingly correct. Have you ever checked out the Austrian School economists, who reject empiricism largely in favor of recognizing that individual actions drive economic activity? You might like it. Look up "praxeology".
That's because game economies are like real economies in many ways and they know that economies collapse when you have too much debt...when too little debt is paid back.
"You get what you pay for when you understand what you're buying" is true more often than the simpler form you offered, which implies what you're buying is a known quantity. As many of us know, STEM talent is quite difficult to gauge effectively for most management teams.
All it takes is a few bad apples to mess it up for everybody.
Your company was covering their ass so that if someone does that in the future they can point to the training and say "you were warned".
Agreed on both counts. The thing that confuses the heck out of me is why anybody would think an hour long session like that is going to change anybody who's really got problems with different people. It seems a totally pointless waste of time and effort instead of just dealing with assholes directly and effectively. And that's why even though I agree with you, I still see the PC police as making things sucktastic. It's like paying a tax to fund a completely wasteful program.
No, you're missing the point. I was sent to "diversity training" with coworkers. At my table were immigrants from China, India, Syria, Ireland, South America, and a natural born US Citizen (me). The thing that made it sucktastic, which we all agreed it was, was wasting our time with infantile bullshit about understanding each other, which we already did.
Mocking someone for being ignorant and biased, and then not being able to spell the name of the person you're mocking, is not helping your case. It makes you look like you're ignorant and biased.
Excellent. This brings me to question something: While people more concerned with AGW often point to positive feedback loops which will increase warming (i.e. clathrate release), they don't talk much about negative feedback. Slowing suggests there are negative feedback loops in action. I'd like to know more about them. There have to be forcings on both sides, right?
But libertarians have a strong sense of belief in our (I am one) ability to make decisions independently. The judicial system doesn't want citizens to know about jury nullification, because it's one of the strongest tools we have in the fight against bad government. Non-libertarians are MUCH more likely to behave as told when sitting on a jury.
No, it's just the kind of thing you'd expect where there is a stronger showing of libertarians, who often believe (wrong or right) that they an make better decisions than the government agencies.
Yet the school district signed it. Did the School District offer to double the teacher's pay, rather than halving the specialist's pay? Did the School District offer contracting roles to anyone doing the work, even if they were already employees? What did the school district do in negotiations, other than complain about the union, while agreeing with the union (proved by their signature on the agreement)?
The district did not offer to double the teachers' pay. There is no higher contract rate for teachers during the summer because there are more teachers willing to work the hours than available hours.
The district DID offer to make contract rates available to the specialists.
The specialists discussed the idea of taking the non-employee contract and doing the work that way.
It was obvious to the specialists that if they took the non-employee contract rates offered, the teachers would not cooperate during the summer work season, or ever again. Unstated, but obvious, because the union bullies people who can do better on their own. If you think a teachers' union won't make work unbearable and impossible for others, you're in a dream world.
So yes, the district WAS WILLING to offer higher rates, but the people were afraid to take advantage due to political repercussions of union belligerence.
Fine, here you go, but I really can't give more specifics: Non-teaching faculty covered by the collective agreement who have special expertise were afforded summer work rates at about 60% of what a contractor doing the same work could get. The work was optional for the faculty, but had to get done by the school. Generally, the employees did the work over the summer, despite being able to get better pay doing contract work for other districts, simply out of goodwill. The teachers in the union complained about this and insisted the specialists get paid the same hourly rate as teachers, which brought the rate to about 30% of market. This ended up causing the faculty doing out of goodwill to take an additional 50% cut, and also cost the school more, because outside contractors brought in to do the work NOT done by faculty due to the lower rate (some but not all) got paid market. Smart fucking move, union. And it ALL came, 100% of it, from the teachers on the union. NOTHING to do with the school district. In fact, the administration expressed to the specialists that they felt they had the specialists' interests at heart more than the union reps, who were supposedly supposed to represent the specialists, too.
Tone it down, no need to start throwing crap around. As it happens, my wife's pay was negatively impacted by union policies at an underperforming school, so there's nothing at all irrational about my dislike for unions. And sorry, I really can't get into more details.
Bah. That's too strong a claim, and doesn't lay nearly enough responsibility on the teacher unions for having something to bring to the table. When have you heard about widespread support for merit pay reform from a teacher's union? Never. If they never bring anything to the table, they'll always be reacting to what others bring to the table.
Are you saying the employer will be allowed by the union to let them work for less, but will pay them scale anyway?
I'll throw this one at you - do you seriously think if the school district hired someone well above scale for a computer science job, that the union would allow that?
My experience was more of the fingers-in-ears, foot-stompy variety while I tried to explain that the system wasn't punitive, and about an hour later I got them off the ceiling and they said, "hmm, that sounds reasonable."
Even if the teachers who are favorable towards this would move it to discussions, since all decisions regarding education are political in nature (within and outside the teacher union and the school board and the legislature), I very much doubt it will succeed. There is too much riding on it failing.
The union only squashes that which the employer signs, and no more. The employer is 50% responsible, if not more.
Not true. People applying for teaching positions MAY NOT agree to work for less than the union-scheduled wages in most/all states, even if they are not part of the union.
Hell, you're probably right it's not all the union's fault here, but I've known more than enough teachers, and more importantly, ex-teachers, to know that the union pretty well squashes anything approaching a performance oriented pay system. If I didn't get a pay benefit for being a better developer than others at my company, I'd leave.
Slashdot Mirror
Either EU gets euro to work without austerity, or it has to abandon it. Demanding sacrifices from the common people who's reward is having less say in their own local affairs is quickly discrediting the entire union.
That was a design bug known from the very beginning. Or, if you're a banker, a design feature. The less prosperous EU nations were interested in having other, more prosperous countries help finance their social programs' largesse. Of course those holding the purse strings saw an opportunity there.
I wish I had mod points, you're so excruciatingly correct. Have you ever checked out the Austrian School economists, who reject empiricism largely in favor of recognizing that individual actions drive economic activity? You might like it. Look up "praxeology".
Swiss francs.
That's because game economies are like real economies in many ways and they know that economies collapse when you have too much debt...when too little debt is paid back.
FTFY.
"You get what you pay for when you understand what you're buying" is true more often than the simpler form you offered, which implies what you're buying is a known quantity. As many of us know, STEM talent is quite difficult to gauge effectively for most management teams.
All it takes is a few bad apples to mess it up for everybody.
Your company was covering their ass so that if someone does that in the future they can point to the training and say "you were warned".
Agreed on both counts. The thing that confuses the heck out of me is why anybody would think an hour long session like that is going to change anybody who's really got problems with different people. It seems a totally pointless waste of time and effort instead of just dealing with assholes directly and effectively. And that's why even though I agree with you, I still see the PC police as making things sucktastic. It's like paying a tax to fund a completely wasteful program.
I need a viable replacement for TurboTax that will handle stocks and contract work.
No, you're missing the point. I was sent to "diversity training" with coworkers. At my table were immigrants from China, India, Syria, Ireland, South America, and a natural born US Citizen (me). The thing that made it sucktastic, which we all agreed it was, was wasting our time with infantile bullshit about understanding each other, which we already did.
Being preached at about non-problems sucks.
Invalid SSL cert at linked site.
Mocking someone for being ignorant and biased, and then not being able to spell the name of the person you're mocking, is not helping your case. It makes you look like you're ignorant and biased.
Excellent. This brings me to question something: While people more concerned with AGW often point to positive feedback loops which will increase warming (i.e. clathrate release), they don't talk much about negative feedback. Slowing suggests there are negative feedback loops in action. I'd like to know more about them. There have to be forcings on both sides, right?
Probably much moreso in public employee unions, not so much in private employee unions.
But libertarians have a strong sense of belief in our (I am one) ability to make decisions independently. The judicial system doesn't want citizens to know about jury nullification, because it's one of the strongest tools we have in the fight against bad government. Non-libertarians are MUCH more likely to behave as told when sitting on a jury.
No, it's just the kind of thing you'd expect where there is a stronger showing of libertarians, who often believe (wrong or right) that they an make better decisions than the government agencies.
Yet the school district signed it. Did the School District offer to double the teacher's pay, rather than halving the specialist's pay? Did the School District offer contracting roles to anyone doing the work, even if they were already employees? What did the school district do in negotiations, other than complain about the union, while agreeing with the union (proved by their signature on the agreement)?
The district did not offer to double the teachers' pay. There is no higher contract rate for teachers during the summer because there are more teachers willing to work the hours than available hours.
The district DID offer to make contract rates available to the specialists.
The specialists discussed the idea of taking the non-employee contract and doing the work that way.
It was obvious to the specialists that if they took the non-employee contract rates offered, the teachers would not cooperate during the summer work season, or ever again. Unstated, but obvious, because the union bullies people who can do better on their own. If you think a teachers' union won't make work unbearable and impossible for others, you're in a dream world.
So yes, the district WAS WILLING to offer higher rates, but the people were afraid to take advantage due to political repercussions of union belligerence.
What do you think? Union free of blame here?
Fine, here you go, but I really can't give more specifics: Non-teaching faculty covered by the collective agreement who have special expertise were afforded summer work rates at about 60% of what a contractor doing the same work could get. The work was optional for the faculty, but had to get done by the school. Generally, the employees did the work over the summer, despite being able to get better pay doing contract work for other districts, simply out of goodwill. The teachers in the union complained about this and insisted the specialists get paid the same hourly rate as teachers, which brought the rate to about 30% of market. This ended up causing the faculty doing out of goodwill to take an additional 50% cut, and also cost the school more, because outside contractors brought in to do the work NOT done by faculty due to the lower rate (some but not all) got paid market. Smart fucking move, union. And it ALL came, 100% of it, from the teachers on the union. NOTHING to do with the school district. In fact, the administration expressed to the specialists that they felt they had the specialists' interests at heart more than the union reps, who were supposedly supposed to represent the specialists, too.
Tone it down, no need to start throwing crap around. As it happens, my wife's pay was negatively impacted by union policies at an underperforming school, so there's nothing at all irrational about my dislike for unions. And sorry, I really can't get into more details.
Bah. That's too strong a claim, and doesn't lay nearly enough responsibility on the teacher unions for having something to bring to the table. When have you heard about widespread support for merit pay reform from a teacher's union? Never. If they never bring anything to the table, they'll always be reacting to what others bring to the table.
Interesting. Do you know if that applies in other states?
Are you saying the employer will be allowed by the union to let them work for less, but will pay them scale anyway?
I'll throw this one at you - do you seriously think if the school district hired someone well above scale for a computer science job, that the union would allow that?
My experience was more of the fingers-in-ears, foot-stompy variety while I tried to explain that the system wasn't punitive, and about an hour later I got them off the ceiling and they said, "hmm, that sounds reasonable."
Even if the teachers who are favorable towards this would move it to discussions, since all decisions regarding education are political in nature (within and outside the teacher union and the school board and the legislature), I very much doubt it will succeed. There is too much riding on it failing.
As I said, there's a bit of work to do this in regular MSIs, but it's not quite as off-the-beaten-path as with RPM: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rflami...
The union only squashes that which the employer signs, and no more. The employer is 50% responsible, if not more.
Not true. People applying for teaching positions MAY NOT agree to work for less than the union-scheduled wages in most/all states, even if they are not part of the union.
People (union and otherwise) have come out in support of performance pay. The question is, how do you define performance.
Have you ever tried to start that conversation with a teacher? What was their reaction?
Hell, you're probably right it's not all the union's fault here, but I've known more than enough teachers, and more importantly, ex-teachers, to know that the union pretty well squashes anything approaching a performance oriented pay system. If I didn't get a pay benefit for being a better developer than others at my company, I'd leave.