Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

[SOREHOOF]

Originally Posted by Riot

Teacher works.
Teacher earns money.
Teacher gets paycheck.
That money belongs to the teacher.

Union dues come out of that paycheck.

Taxpayers thinking they have a right to say what union dues money is spent upon is ... beyond absurd. They have zero claim to that. Just like they have zero claim on the employee choosing to send $1 of their tax money to a wildlife fund.

Teachers are free agents. They have every right not to take a job where they have to join a teachers union. Private schools pay about 5% more in pay and benefits than Wisconsin public schools.

Trying to make the argument that union-busting is for the benefit of the employees is touching, but completely unbelievable

Although it is nice to see, now that the union has agreed to all Walkers demands regarding pension contribution, pay cut, etc., yet Walker is going forward with his main concern, being busting the unions (as verified by his unbelievable silliness in sharing his plan for threatening workers with the imaginary "David Koch") - that it's crystal clear the whole point of this has less to do with budget deficits (like maybe caused by Walker giving $140 million in unfunded tax credits to business, oh wow, that's a huge deficit hole that could be filled by ... teacher pensions and pay cuts! But the damn unions are standing in the way ... hummmmm) and everything to do with typical Republican demagogary.

Is it absurd to think that the taxpayers should have some say in how much the teachers are paid in the first place? You mention the public teachers make 5% less than what private schools teachers make. Does that include benefits? That is what this is about. Are the public teachers not free to get a job at a private school?

[Riot]

Originally Posted by SOREHOOF

Is it absurd to think that the taxpayers should have some say in how much the teachers are paid in the first place?

You do. You always have. It's called collective bargaining.

You mention the public teachers make 5% less than what private schools teachers make. Does that include benefits?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezr...and_local.html

Consider this analysis the Economic Policy Institute conducted comparing total compensation -- that is to say, wages and health-care benefits and pensions -- among public and private workers in Wisconsin. To get an apples-to-apples comparison, the study's author controlled for experience, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship and disability, and then sorted the results by education. Here's what he got:



If you prefer it in non-graph form: "Wisconsin public-sector workers face an annual compensation penalty of 11%. Adjusting for the slightly fewer hours worked per week on average, these public workers still face a compensation penalty of 5% for choosing to work in the public sector."