Union membership in this country has declined from 24.1% in 1979 to around 10% today.
And why is that?
By your logic, things should be much better now that the bast majority of workers are on their own.
And quite possibly they would have been, we'll never know for sure. The rise of China's manufacturing economy at the same time (and our own industry and government leaders aiding and abetting their pillaging of our economy) makes any relative determination difficult. The goal is not just to transfer as much wealth from corporate coffers into the workforce's pockets, regardless of its effect on company health. That kind of thinking is no better than a typical MBA's decision to sell of an R&D division to make the numbers look good now. Yet that kind of shortsightedness is typical of union leadership.
The problem with many unions is that they just went too far. Are unions bad in principle? No, and there are times they are necessary. Are they often very bad in practice? Absolutely. I'm sorry, but I worked in a lot of manufacturing plants during the eighties and nineties, and I saw the abuses firsthand. I saw a guy whose job consisted of moving barrels of lubricant back and forth, because the union prevented management from installing a fucking pipe. Should he be making seventy or eighty grand a year, and be parking his brand-new Winnebago in the company lot? When unions crossed the line from a legitimate counter to corporate abuse of the workforce into extortionate operations... well, they became criminal gangs and deserved to be disbanded.
Oh boy I gotta agree with this. I have a good friend who is from Ukraine.
I know someone from there as well: he referred to it once as "that Communist hellhole I left when I was 11" or words to that effect. He has no desire to go back.
Let's face it, most of the people on this site who are complaining about the United States have probably never actually met an American. Or if they have, they believe they can extend that experience to encompass a nation of some three hundred million people, which is patently ridiculous. I've known people from other countries who were truly abominable human beings, but I don't automatically assume that everyone from that same nation is equally awful. Now, I agree with them that a lot of what our government has done in our name is reprehensible, but that doesn't make all of us evil... and I have no doubt the same could be said for them. Those who cast stones, etc.
Visa officers always have problems interviewing Mexicans who want to go to the USA
Which I find hilarious. Let's hassle the people are entering the country through legitimate channels, and basically ignore the ones who aren't. Oh well... whoever said government was rational.
The President largely has a security service to protect him from lunatics. No foreign power would assassinate the President of the USA for political reasons, because it would have exactly the opposite effect to the desired one.
That depends upon your definition of "lunatic", I suppose. Some countries are owned and operated by lunatics.
Funny... I know a number of Russians and people from other places that were once members of the USSR. They tell me you're full of shit, and if they do "hate" the U.S., they emigrated here because they hate their own governments more. You may consider watching less State-sponsored television, and use your Internet connection to get news from a more unbiased source. Personally, I can recommend the BBC: their journalistic standards are much higher than you'll find in most U.S.-based news organizations, or any totalitarian country for that matter.
And, after educating yourself, you still see nothing wrong with the original poster's comment, well, it just means you're a willfully-ignorant bigot. I can't help you with that, although ignorance is a curable condition.
Wow. And you accuse him of believing idiotic propaganda?
Yeah, wow. I had the same reaction. Interesting how he lumps us all together as "the US", as if nobody here objects to many of the things our government does in our name. I wonder how he'd react if we judged everyone in his country by the actions of his government?
I know, it's anecdotal. But the teachers' union and tenure cause fewer problems that poor administration do.
Yes, I agree with that, and in another comment I point that out. Nevertheless, just because someone is a good teacher (or a good anything) it does not follow that they will always be so. Some people excel because it's all they know how to do: others require additional motivation, and fear of losing one's job is sufficient to keep most people trying hard. Take that away, and many individuals will simply fail to keep up. That's why I object to tenure: no-one should be so secure in their jobs that they don't have to try.
The other side of the "Right To Work" laws that unions never really want to mention is "Right to Quit"
Yes, I live in a Right to Work state, and you're right: it's a double-edged sword. I guess whether you like it or not depends upon how employable you think you are.
He's too high-profile to be killed off without it being obvious.
I dunno... the CIA, Mossad and KGB, for example, have plenty of experience in making people either disappear, or simply die of "natural causes". A simple car accident will do the trick. And, if he just vanished without a trace, well, how would you pin that on anyone?
Why? Can you dispute the original comment, rather than making another stupid anti-America rant? Haiti certainly benefited from our parking a giant hospital ship off of its shores, and while we were doing all that, other countries were complaining that we had created "too large" a presence there (meanwhile sending no aid of their own) as if thousands of dead or dying people could give a damn about that. In fact, they wanted more of our help.
I might add that the nations who we buy oil from make a pretty damn good piece of change from it, so your implication that the U.S. just attacks any country with oil reserves and takes it from them is just, well, utterly full of shit. Unbelievably so, in fact. You might ask the good people who were once subjects of the Soviet Union how they would feel about your comment. They know what it's like to have something taken from them at tankpoint.
Sorry, that was just truly deserving and I don't need to put quotes around it.
I laugh at your 'really nice pension': my dad was a career state employee
I laugh at his choice of employer. There's a guy down the block who retired at fifty from a teaching job, gets his salary plus full benefits for the rest of his life. That's pretty cushy. Hell, the garbage collectors in my area make $80,000 plus full bennies. Out of my pocket, I might add, and if that's an example of the wonderfulness of unions I'll take vanilla. I will also note that out of my real-estate taxes, 56 percent currently goes to "education". That overshadows all other local government expenditures, all of them... police, fire department, hospitals, road repair, everything. That money is going somewhere, and a lot of it is going into pension funds. And for all that money we still have a third-rate education system: something's wrong and the Teachers Union is not going to fix it. They are, in fact, diametrically opposed to fixing it, because that would mean they would have to take a hit. And like most of us, like most union workers, they care more for themselves and their families than anyone else. Period. It's just human nature.
And I'm sorry, but your rosy view of unions is not borne out by the facts. Face it, people with power will tend to abuse that power if they are not held accountable for their use of it and union leaders are just as subject to that as corporate executives.
I agree, life is not bliss now that the "Global Economy" has reared its ugly head, however unions are not some saving grace. The reality is that if unions had not been so abusive, had not believed that the gravy train would last forever, it might have slowed the shift of our manufacturing base to China, and might have kept our remaining manufacturers competitive. Unions have done nothing but accelerate the loss of U.S. jobs in our Brave New World Order. And why is that? Because they refused to accept that they would have to take less back when it might have mattered... and now they have nothing.
So keep on believing that unions are bastions of light and goodness. There are well-managed, enlightened unions: but the Teachers Union and most industrial/manufacturing labor organizations are anything but. They're run by bloodsucking vampires that are just as corrupt and self-serving as any modern CEO, or any politician for that matter. And they are that way because their constituents, pardon me, members, want them to be. Yes, left to themselves corporations will tend to mistreat their workers, but unions are not blameless here. There is greed and selfishness on both sides of the equation.
Nobody in my family has ever had a pension: if we retired with anything it was because we took our money and planned for the future. You'll pardon me if I don't feel that people who spend themselves into oblivion and are unable to take care of themselves properly deserve to be coddled at my expense. There are plenty of ways to save for retirement, plenty of ways to invest. Use them, and don't depend upon my checkbook.
Unions eliminate that problem. It balances things out and interferes with management's ability to take advantage of individual greed and fear
No, they don't "balance things out." They simply tip the scales. Whether employers have power, or union leadership has power, it generally gets abused and a lot of people get screwed. That's how it works for the most part.
In the case of the Teachers Union, it's the kids getting screwed over, and the taxpayer being screwed over. Your balancing act obviously isn't working.
Yea, I was originally thinking of backing the newspaper, but I just tried to apply this to myself. I get evaluated at work, but the evaluations stay INSIDE my company. My clients do not get to see these evaluations. Perhaps the bigger issue is that the Unions make it impossible for the Schools to do anything about teachers that have poor evaluations. If the School was more capable of firing incapable teachers then it wouldn't matter if the public knew or not.
Yes, but there's a couple of things to consider. You work for a company. You are not a public employee, and your competence (or otherwise) is only relevant to your employer.
These are public employees responsible for the education of children belonging to members of their respective communities, parents whose taxes pay their salaries. Perhaps if the school system hadn't spent so much time and effort attempting to deceive the public over the years there'd be no need for this. But they have, and it's about time this comes out. Maybe those teachers who survive the coming debacle will be more inclined to do their goddamn jobs.
Keep this in mind: We the People are their employers, not a particular school. The only problem that I see with this disclosure is that it focuses solely on the teachers: the fact is, school administrators are at least as much to blame for the poor quality of eduction in this country, and many of them should be fired for cause as well. The environment created by a school's administration (after all, they control the purse strings, they decide how money is spent, not the teachers) can degrade the efforts of the very best instructors. So I'd say this report, while a good start, is far from complete.
We all know where the schools get their revenue from.
So it is a good thing this info gets out. The more information the taxpayers have about the performance of the schools, the more pressure the schools will be under to explain themselves if they are underperforming.
Of course this is only one facet of the impact on schools.
True, but it's an excellent start and is, after all, what our "Free Press" is supposed to be doing. Matter of fact, if they hadn't fallen down flat on the job the past forty-odd years our school systems probably wouldn't be in such a mess.
There's a difference between negotiating your price as an individual, and negotiating price as a group. At that point, you're now "negotiating" at gunpoint which is a whole different animal.
I'm a software developer: I'm not a member of any "Union", and I survive simply because there's a demand for my services, and I negotiate the best price I can with my employer. Furthermore, how much I can demand is tied pretty directly with my overall competence. I'm motivated to remain good at my job because otherwise I won't have one. Explain to me why a teacher should be treated any differently than any other worker. Are they so special that they can do a crappy job, get tenure, and then retire on a really really nice pension?
Worse yet, unions have, in many cases, gone from protecting workers from exploitation to becoming the very thing they decry, and often do more damage than they're worth. All those "think of the children!" types ought to be up in arms about this.
To compete with wikileaks, they must become wikileaks. Things are looking up for the media. Amazing - maybe now they'll have to do their jobs and report on the government with brutal facts, instead of placating the party line.
Yes, however they'll only do that if they see that there's eyeballs (and hence greater sales) in it. In this particular case, the relevance of the information is obvious to most people: if you have kids, you want to know that they're being taught competently. So people will buy the paper to find out. There are many other issues of equal or greater importance that are more complex, and it is up to the journalists to help people understand the relevance to their own lives. If they can do that, both inform and, to a degree, educate, then they'll regain my respect.
The truth is that journalism in the U.S. today is not what it used to be... but this kind of report is exactly what journalists are supposed to be doing. That is, informing the public about what their government and its various organs are up to: it's why the Press has such standing in the Constitution. So the Teacher's Union might like to keep their performance (or lack of it) a secret, but as public employees they should not entitled to that. Fact is, such unaccountability is at the root of our school system's problems, and I'm glad this newspaper is giving it to them good. They deserve it, and frankly the fact that they're objecting so strongly indicates that they know there's a problem here, and are self-serving enough to want to continue the cover up.
This point is rather interesting, as in e.g. Norway (which has very similar legal system) you can and often will get a year or more prison sentence if you knowingly falsely accuse someone of rape.
That is interesting. I mean, it's an acknowledgement that a. rape is a serious crime and that b. an accusation of rape can have terrible consequences for the accused, even if eventually proven innocent.
I dunno, though: here in the U.S. the system is generally pretty biased towards the woman, and if they tried to pass a law like that here, the complaint would be that it would make a woman afraid to report a rape, or attempted rape, because she might go to prison (mistakes do get made.) That does give women considerable power to really screw a man over if they want. I have no idea how often that happens.
Slashdot Mirror
A crackhead that pays for crack is still a crackhead...
Now, that is arguably the most stupid thing I've read on Slashdot all week.
Union membership in this country has declined from 24.1% in 1979 to around 10% today.
And why is that?
By your logic, things should be much better now that the bast majority of workers are on their own.
And quite possibly they would have been, we'll never know for sure. The rise of China's manufacturing economy at the same time (and our own industry and government leaders aiding and abetting their pillaging of our economy) makes any relative determination difficult. The goal is not just to transfer as much wealth from corporate coffers into the workforce's pockets, regardless of its effect on company health. That kind of thinking is no better than a typical MBA's decision to sell of an R&D division to make the numbers look good now. Yet that kind of shortsightedness is typical of union leadership.
... well, they became criminal gangs and deserved to be disbanded.
The problem with many unions is that they just went too far. Are unions bad in principle? No, and there are times they are necessary. Are they often very bad in practice? Absolutely. I'm sorry, but I worked in a lot of manufacturing plants during the eighties and nineties, and I saw the abuses firsthand. I saw a guy whose job consisted of moving barrels of lubricant back and forth, because the union prevented management from installing a fucking pipe. Should he be making seventy or eighty grand a year, and be parking his brand-new Winnebago in the company lot? When unions crossed the line from a legitimate counter to corporate abuse of the workforce into extortionate operations
Oh boy I gotta agree with this. I have a good friend who is from Ukraine.
I know someone from there as well: he referred to it once as "that Communist hellhole I left when I was 11" or words to that effect. He has no desire to go back.
... and I have no doubt the same could be said for them. Those who cast stones, etc.
Let's face it, most of the people on this site who are complaining about the United States have probably never actually met an American. Or if they have, they believe they can extend that experience to encompass a nation of some three hundred million people, which is patently ridiculous. I've known people from other countries who were truly abominable human beings, but I don't automatically assume that everyone from that same nation is equally awful. Now, I agree with them that a lot of what our government has done in our name is reprehensible, but that doesn't make all of us evil
Visa officers always have problems interviewing Mexicans who want to go to the USA
Which I find hilarious. Let's hassle the people are entering the country through legitimate channels, and basically ignore the ones who aren't. Oh well ... whoever said government was rational.
The President largely has a security service to protect him from lunatics. No foreign power would assassinate the President of the USA for political reasons, because it would have exactly the opposite effect to the desired one.
That depends upon your definition of "lunatic", I suppose. Some countries are owned and operated by lunatics.
Also, it's a joke.
My bad then. I will admit, the "JDAM a day" bit made me laugh.
no sane person outside US likes US
Huh?
and everyone in ex-USSR hates you.
Funny ... I know a number of Russians and people from other places that were once members of the USSR. They tell me you're full of shit, and if they do "hate" the U.S., they emigrated here because they hate their own governments more. You may consider watching less State-sponsored television, and use your Internet connection to get news from a more unbiased source. Personally, I can recommend the BBC: their journalistic standards are much higher than you'll find in most U.S.-based news organizations, or any totalitarian country for that matter.
And, after educating yourself, you still see nothing wrong with the original poster's comment, well, it just means you're a willfully-ignorant bigot. I can't help you with that, although ignorance is a curable condition.
"no sane person outside US likes US"
Wow. And you accuse him of believing idiotic propaganda?
Yeah, wow. I had the same reaction. Interesting how he lumps us all together as "the US", as if nobody here objects to many of the things our government does in our name. I wonder how he'd react if we judged everyone in his country by the actions of his government?
I know, it's anecdotal. But the teachers' union and tenure cause fewer problems that poor administration do.
Yes, I agree with that, and in another comment I point that out. Nevertheless, just because someone is a good teacher (or a good anything) it does not follow that they will always be so. Some people excel because it's all they know how to do: others require additional motivation, and fear of losing one's job is sufficient to keep most people trying hard. Take that away, and many individuals will simply fail to keep up. That's why I object to tenure: no-one should be so secure in their jobs that they don't have to try.
The other side of the "Right To Work" laws that unions never really want to mention is "Right to Quit"
Yes, I live in a Right to Work state, and you're right: it's a double-edged sword. I guess whether you like it or not depends upon how employable you think you are.
What I really wanted was a digital picture frame I could poke...
And there we have the definitive description of an iPad. If I hadn't just finished my drink it would have been coming out of my nose.
He's too high-profile to be killed off without it being obvious.
I dunno ... the CIA, Mossad and KGB, for example, have plenty of experience in making people either disappear, or simply die of "natural causes". A simple car accident will do the trick. And, if he just vanished without a trace, well, how would you pin that on anyone?
Well, his pickup line was "Hey, I've got a secret... in my pants."
"Hey, is that a rolled-up secret document or are you just glad to see me?"
there will forever be that stigma in whispered tones at the edge of conversation, "Julian Assange? I heard two girls accused him of rape".
More an indictment of human nature than of Julian Assange.
Sometimes I wonder how we ever climbed out of the muck.
Sorry, that was just "truly deserving" ; ).
Why? Can you dispute the original comment, rather than making another stupid anti-America rant? Haiti certainly benefited from our parking a giant hospital ship off of its shores, and while we were doing all that, other countries were complaining that we had created "too large" a presence there (meanwhile sending no aid of their own) as if thousands of dead or dying people could give a damn about that. In fact, they wanted more of our help.
I might add that the nations who we buy oil from make a pretty damn good piece of change from it, so your implication that the U.S. just attacks any country with oil reserves and takes it from them is just, well, utterly full of shit. Unbelievably so, in fact. You might ask the good people who were once subjects of the Soviet Union how they would feel about your comment. They know what it's like to have something taken from them at tankpoint.
Sorry, that was just truly deserving and I don't need to put quotes around it.
I laugh at your 'really nice pension': my dad was a career state employee
I laugh at his choice of employer. There's a guy down the block who retired at fifty from a teaching job, gets his salary plus full benefits for the rest of his life. That's pretty cushy. Hell, the garbage collectors in my area make $80,000 plus full bennies. Out of my pocket, I might add, and if that's an example of the wonderfulness of unions I'll take vanilla. I will also note that out of my real-estate taxes, 56 percent currently goes to "education". That overshadows all other local government expenditures, all of them ... police, fire department, hospitals, road repair, everything. That money is going somewhere, and a lot of it is going into pension funds. And for all that money we still have a third-rate education system: something's wrong and the Teachers Union is not going to fix it. They are, in fact, diametrically opposed to fixing it, because that would mean they would have to take a hit. And like most of us, like most union workers, they care more for themselves and their families than anyone else. Period. It's just human nature.
And I'm sorry, but your rosy view of unions is not borne out by the facts. Face it, people with power will tend to abuse that power if they are not held accountable for their use of it and union leaders are just as subject to that as corporate executives.
I agree, life is not bliss now that the "Global Economy" has reared its ugly head, however unions are not some saving grace. The reality is that if unions had not been so abusive, had not believed that the gravy train would last forever, it might have slowed the shift of our manufacturing base to China, and might have kept our remaining manufacturers competitive. Unions have done nothing but accelerate the loss of U.S. jobs in our Brave New World Order. And why is that? Because they refused to accept that they would have to take less back when it might have mattered... and now they have nothing.
So keep on believing that unions are bastions of light and goodness. There are well-managed, enlightened unions: but the Teachers Union and most industrial/manufacturing labor organizations are anything but. They're run by bloodsucking vampires that are just as corrupt and self-serving as any modern CEO, or any politician for that matter. And they are that way because their constituents, pardon me, members, want them to be. Yes, left to themselves corporations will tend to mistreat their workers, but unions are not blameless here. There is greed and selfishness on both sides of the equation.
Nobody in my family has ever had a pension: if we retired with anything it was because we took our money and planned for the future. You'll pardon me if I don't feel that people who spend themselves into oblivion and are unable to take care of themselves properly deserve to be coddled at my expense. There are plenty of ways to save for retirement, plenty of ways to invest. Use them, and don't depend upon my checkbook.
Unions eliminate that problem. It balances things out and interferes with management's ability to take advantage of individual greed and fear
No, they don't "balance things out." They simply tip the scales. Whether employers have power, or union leadership has power, it generally gets abused and a lot of people get screwed. That's how it works for the most part.
In the case of the Teachers Union, it's the kids getting screwed over, and the taxpayer being screwed over. Your balancing act obviously isn't working.
eaching is the only profession that continually demands NOT to be evaluated or held accountable,
You forgot to mention politics. How many politicians willingly accept impartial evaluation of their efforts and expect to be held to account for them?
Of course, the wonderful people in charge of the Teachers Union are pretty damn fine politicians in their own right.
Yea, I was originally thinking of backing the newspaper, but I just tried to apply this to myself. I get evaluated at work, but the evaluations stay INSIDE my company. My clients do not get to see these evaluations. Perhaps the bigger issue is that the Unions make it impossible for the Schools to do anything about teachers that have poor evaluations. If the School was more capable of firing incapable teachers then it wouldn't matter if the public knew or not.
Yes, but there's a couple of things to consider. You work for a company. You are not a public employee, and your competence (or otherwise) is only relevant to your employer.
These are public employees responsible for the education of children belonging to members of their respective communities, parents whose taxes pay their salaries. Perhaps if the school system hadn't spent so much time and effort attempting to deceive the public over the years there'd be no need for this. But they have, and it's about time this comes out. Maybe those teachers who survive the coming debacle will be more inclined to do their goddamn jobs.
Keep this in mind: We the People are their employers, not a particular school. The only problem that I see with this disclosure is that it focuses solely on the teachers: the fact is, school administrators are at least as much to blame for the poor quality of eduction in this country, and many of them should be fired for cause as well. The environment created by a school's administration (after all, they control the purse strings, they decide how money is spent, not the teachers) can degrade the efforts of the very best instructors. So I'd say this report, while a good start, is far from complete.
We all know where the schools get their revenue from. So it is a good thing this info gets out. The more information the taxpayers have about the performance of the schools, the more pressure the schools will be under to explain themselves if they are underperforming. Of course this is only one facet of the impact on schools.
True, but it's an excellent start and is, after all, what our "Free Press" is supposed to be doing. Matter of fact, if they hadn't fallen down flat on the job the past forty-odd years our school systems probably wouldn't be in such a mess.
There's a difference between negotiating your price as an individual, and negotiating price as a group. At that point, you're now "negotiating" at gunpoint which is a whole different animal.
I'm a software developer: I'm not a member of any "Union", and I survive simply because there's a demand for my services, and I negotiate the best price I can with my employer. Furthermore, how much I can demand is tied pretty directly with my overall competence. I'm motivated to remain good at my job because otherwise I won't have one. Explain to me why a teacher should be treated any differently than any other worker. Are they so special that they can do a crappy job, get tenure, and then retire on a really really nice pension?
Worse yet, unions have, in many cases, gone from protecting workers from exploitation to becoming the very thing they decry, and often do more damage than they're worth. All those "think of the children!" types ought to be up in arms about this.
To compete with wikileaks, they must become wikileaks. Things are looking up for the media. Amazing - maybe now they'll have to do their jobs and report on the government with brutal facts, instead of placating the party line.
Yes, however they'll only do that if they see that there's eyeballs (and hence greater sales) in it. In this particular case, the relevance of the information is obvious to most people: if you have kids, you want to know that they're being taught competently. So people will buy the paper to find out. There are many other issues of equal or greater importance that are more complex, and it is up to the journalists to help people understand the relevance to their own lives. If they can do that, both inform and, to a degree, educate, then they'll regain my respect.
... but this kind of report is exactly what journalists are supposed to be doing. That is, informing the public about what their government and its various organs are up to: it's why the Press has such standing in the Constitution. So the Teacher's Union might like to keep their performance (or lack of it) a secret, but as public employees they should not entitled to that. Fact is, such unaccountability is at the root of our school system's problems, and I'm glad this newspaper is giving it to them good. They deserve it, and frankly the fact that they're objecting so strongly indicates that they know there's a problem here, and are self-serving enough to want to continue the cover up.
The truth is that journalism in the U.S. today is not what it used to be
What can you expect? Can you really trust a guy with "Ass" in his last name?
I'm guessing you have a problem with your moral compass too.
where the wifes charges the husband of rape, and thus the wife get soil custofy of the child
So, in other words, he gets the kid and she gets the used diapers?
This point is rather interesting, as in e.g. Norway (which has very similar legal system) you can and often will get a year or more prison sentence if you knowingly falsely accuse someone of rape.
That is interesting. I mean, it's an acknowledgement that a. rape is a serious crime and that b. an accusation of rape can have terrible consequences for the accused, even if eventually proven innocent.
I dunno, though: here in the U.S. the system is generally pretty biased towards the woman, and if they tried to pass a law like that here, the complaint would be that it would make a woman afraid to report a rape, or attempted rape, because she might go to prison (mistakes do get made.) That does give women considerable power to really screw a man over if they want. I have no idea how often that happens.
Assange is the Allah of certain geeks. If you draw funny pictures of him you could get the axe.
Nah ... just a denial of service.