
Worst Union in America (2012) - jelliclesfarm
https://www.city-journal.org/html/worst-union-america-13470.html
======
awinder
“The union had persuaded March Fong Eu, the CTA-endorsed secretary of state,
to alter the proposition’s heading on the ballot from PARENTAL CHOICE to
EDUCATION VOUCHERS—a change in wording that cost Prop. 174 ten points in the
polls.”

Those devious villians, forming a cabal to change the name of the proposition
to accurately reflect what effect it was to have!

~~~
cm2012
Both headlines are factually accurate.

~~~
geezerjay
> Both headlines are factually accurate.

"Parental choice" is however uninformative (speaks of the perceived results
and not the action about to be voted), highly subjective, and without any
meaningful information.

~~~
gojomo
‘Parental choice’ isn’t at all a ‘subjective’ result of such voucher programs.
It’s both the intended and actual effect wherever such programs are offered.

Parents wind up sending children to different schools than they would have
otherwise attended, in accordance with the parents’ choice.

Even the CTA opposition to the proposition implicitly conceded that, because
they predicted doom for public schools after many children left for other
schools. If after the proposition passes, children are going to new, different
schools – parental choice will have undeniably been exercised.

------
Aloha
This is written like a political hit piece, and while an interesting
viewpoint, it's about as useful to foster a rich policy discussion as any
other partisan media - meaning, not very.

~~~
advisedwang
The site is the magazine for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a
conservative thinktank. Not really surprising

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lsiebert
"Such pleas seem impudent coming from the highest-paid teachers in the nation,
with an average annual salary of $68,000"

Those monsters.

~~~
mattigames
The average rent (3-rooms) in LA is 3,596 so $43.000 per year, in SF is $5,143
so $61.716 per year, so yeah $68.000 is nothing to brag about -at least on the
main cities-

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chasing
That fact that public schools are a shambles in this country is fucking insane
given how much we purport to value education.

Also, it's fine to bitch about unions. They're not all perfect and there are
certainly trade-offs. And (like anything) they can be perverted and misused.
But overall they've done great things for the middle class in this country and
we should all be very wary of powerful forces trying to hobble them.

Especially when it comes to teachers and education.

~~~
tjr225
I've been in a Union and hated it, however I would advocate for their purpose
with a whole heart.

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egypturnash
“Troy Senik is a senior fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom and an
editor at Ricochet.com.”

“The Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) is an Alexandria, Virginia based
U.S. nonprofit conservative policy advocacy organization, founded on the
principle of securing individual freedoms as embodied in the United States
Constitution and state constitutions. It was founded in 1998 by former tobacco
industry executives who sought to counter government restrictions on smoking,
but is no longer associated with tobacco or smoking.” - Wikipedia

Oh no, it’s horrible. Teachers get paid well! This might attract great people
to the job of educating the next generation! And they have banded together to
represent their interests! This shall not stand.

~~~
ebullientocelot
Your comment is literally the first time in my life that I have seen the words
"teachers get paid well" in what seems to me to be a serious fashion. Someone
quoted below that the highest paid teachers are pulling something like 68k..
I'm east coast, and not smack dab in a major metro, but still--calling 70k
"well-paid" seems pretty unrealistic.

~~~
mirimir
You missed the implied /s in "teachers get paid well". It's a parody, based on
his quote from TFA.

~~~
ebullientocelot
:facepalm:. Yea that makes much, much more sense. My bad.

~~~
mirimir
Hey, we all get pwned by Poe's Law, sometimes. Especially when it's about
something that's important to us. So no blame.

And I apologize for going off-topic, but Poe's Law arguably underlies much of
the recent drama about online censorship. Twitter, Mastodon, Patreon, etc.
That is, many who feel strongly about various sorts of hate speech have zero
tolerance for stuff that parodies and satirizes that hate speech. But of
course, there are also lots of trolls out there, whose only goal is upsetting
people and generating lulzy reactions. So confusion is understandable.

And that's how it is with Poe's Law. When you see and hear (for example) Lenny
Bruce, Dave Chappelle, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor or Chris Rock, you know that
it's parody and satire. But when you read stuff online, there's no context.

Anyway, it's sad.

------
tryptophan
I recall that a supreme court case about a year ago said that unions are no
longer able to demand membership fees from members. I wonder how that is
affecting these unions, if at all.

~~~
humanrebar
The ruling was that, for public sector unions, mandatory fees for _non-
members_ violate the First Amendment.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME)

~~~
hak8or
Thay sounds very resonable actually. If you are not a member, how on earth
does a union have a mechanism to force you to pay a member due? What if I
don't agree with how the union runs or the goals of the union?

~~~
twblalock
> What if I don't agree with how the union runs or the goals of the union?

The argument is that you benefit from the union whether you are a member or
not because you get the same benefits as union members because of the union's
bargaining with the management, so you should pay.

I don't really agree with it, but that's the argument.

~~~
cup
What don't you agree about?

~~~
jeffdavis
Benefit is in the eye of the beholder. Non-members may not actually be
benefiting if the results are not really what they want.

------
chb
>"the CTA—now the single most powerful special interest in California"

Show me whatever numbers you're using to bolster that assertion and then show
me the same metrics for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association
(CCPOA).

~~~
danielvf
CCPOA has approximately 40,000 members. CTA has 325,000 members.

------
hitekker
The opening diatribe against “strikes” certainly sets a plutocratic tone for
this hit piece.

------
jelliclesfarm
USA slid from #6 place in 1990 to #27 in 2016 for education and healthcare.

~~~
GridOps
There is probably some correlation to demographic shifts in that slide...

------
jelliclesfarm
[https://youtu.be/xzYgiOC9cj4](https://youtu.be/xzYgiOC9cj4) : Milton Friedman
- The Real World Effects Of Unions (1980)

------
heyjudy
City Journal -> Manhattan Institute for Policy Research -> conservative trusts
and think tanks

This is an anti-union, libertarianism propaganda piece, at best... please
don't fall for it.

------
nerdbaggy
I wonder how it is now 7 years later. Probably worse

Edit: yup still at it
[https://twitter.com/WeAreCTA](https://twitter.com/WeAreCTA)

------
padseeker
City Journal is part of the Manhattan Institute, and uses content generated
from conservative sources like National Review. Its hard to take a publication
like this seriously when their political bent is already anti union. There may
some substance and truth behind the content, but the title of the article is
definitely subjective rather than objective. By definition every union is
their eyes is bad.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
It is still a point of view. Should we not read anti union opinions from
someone who has conservative views?

That’s like saying we can’t take the teachers union claims about teachers
demands because they support teachers rights?

~~~
Spooky23
When a union organizer yaks about the evils of corporate <insert topic>, a
critical reader discounts the rhetoric because of the source. If you want to
form an opinion about the Verizon CEO, don’t use the CWA as your primary
source.

Similarly, these folks have an agenda that drives everything they write. Read
it, but do so with a critical eye and remember that the authors employment is
tied to the positions/opinion that he is expressing.

The answers to the problems we have with education are nuanced and numerous.
The convservative portfolio of solutions is narrow, and never, ever changes.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
Do you think that conservatives have a real and legitimate membership just
like progressives have a real and legitimate membership in political
discussion groups?

Imagine if conservatives dismiss all progressive points of view...and vice
versa..won’t we all be talking to each other in our little echo chambers?

~~~
around_here
They do dismiss it. They are in an echo chamber.

~~~
burlesona
They being both left and right.

