Something the Dog Said wrote: Of course your post is intended to mislead, comparing salary plus benefits for teachers compared to salaries only for average worker salaries. The annual salary is about $48,000 per year, which is low for college educated professionals with 20 years experience, many of which have graduate degrees. Also, most teachers work 10 plus hours a day with all of the reporting requirements they are subjected, grading, extracurricular activities they are required to "volunteer" for, parent meetings, etc. Futther, the union has agreed to the cut backs that Hosni Walker has insisted are necessary.
Hosni Walker - that's a good one Dog, did you think that up all by yourself or did you find it at your favorite partisan poison site..........
And I'm sorry Dog, but isn't that what the teachers are portraying themselves as - average workers who are being unfairly treated by the company? Professionals have associations, not unions. Doctors don't have a union, engineers don't belong to a union - none of the highly educated professions that you are seeking to represent teachers as belonging in have a union collectively bargaining for their wages and benefits. Average blue collar workers form unions and engage in collective bargaining, not college educated professionals with advanced degrees and 20 years experience in the field.
archer wrote: I don't think most workers in your "real world" would make it a week as a teacher......especially in some inner city school. This is not an easy job folks, and I am more than grateful there are people willing to take it on. They deserve what the get paid, and then some.
Most of what makes their job hard is the law that children must be at school until they are 16 years old regardless of their behavior in the classroom. When we are willing as a society to allow our public schools to remove them so that the parents and children who value the access to education that the public supplies with their taxes are afforded an atmosphere where education can take place, their jobs will be made much simpler. The digital age makes it possible for a problem child to be removed and still have access to materials from which an education can be derived. We should be making the problem children the problem of their parents, not the problem of the schools and their classmates. IMNTBHO, access to education is a privilege that the taxpayers provide for all of the children, not a right that they must be afforded. It benefits our society to provide that opportunity, and it is one I believe we should provide, but for those who are not interested in affording themselves the benefits of that opportunity I don't believe there exists an obligation to force their attendance at the expense of those that wish to derive the benefit of that opportunity for themselves.
And, FWIW archer, I don't think many teachers would be getting automatic pay raises and generous benefits in the "real world" when they failed to accomplish the primary task for which they were hired to perform. When I worked for others, I decided whether or not I was willing to work for the compensation that I was being offered. No one is forcing these teachers to teach in a system that they feel improperly compensated in. They can leave for greener pastures if they are dissatisfied with their current one, just as I can. If they wish to work as a teacher then they must accept the compensation that the employer deems they are able to afford. Wisconsin is facing not only a fiscal shortfall short term, they are also facing a $44 Billion in unfunded benefit liabilities that are a direct result of the inherent conflict of interest that surrounds public employees collectively bargaining.
FDR himself supported the position of Governor Walker in a 1937 letter to Luther Steward, the President of the National Federation of Federal Employees:
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.
Governor Walker's position is the correct one and the current situation in Wisconsin, with protests in the streets and one party intentionally disrupting the ability of the legislature to attend to the business of the state government, clearly demonstrates the problems that allowing the collective bargaining process for public workers has created by ignoring the inherent conflict of interest that exists. You would not find a stronger advocate for unions than FDR, and even he recognized that the conflict of interest that collective bargaining of public employees creates should not be allowed.
:rofl rofllol 
