Do You Want to Know Why Unions Suck? Here it Is
John Morrison
Age: 62
Gender: Male
Occupation: Teacher
This is from Fox News:
John E. Morrison, a 62-year-old a music teacher at Romeo Elementary School in Florida, is charged with lewd and lascivious molestation and one count of battery for allegedly inappropriately touching two female students, ages 7 and 8, in May.
Police said Morrison admitted to putting his hand in the 7-year-old’s pants to touch her leg and to putting his hand in the 8-year-old’s shirt to touch her chest, according to various media reports. They said he also admitted to touching the 8-year-old’s buttocks.
Morrison continues to get paid as he awaits his trial, which is scheduled to begin next month.
Tammy Clinton
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Occupation: Teacher
Tammy Clinton, a 39-year-old teacher at Farnell Middle School, has been charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation and two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct after allegedly forcing a 14-year-old student to touch her breasts, fondling his buttocks, and enticing him to leave the campus twice so they could commit sexual acts.
Police said Clinton admitted to the accusations after her arrest, the Orlando Sun-Sentinel reported. She is banned from school grounds but will continue to receive her paycheck pending a complete investigation.
The L.A. school system has 160 teachers getting paid to not work
The housed are accused, among other things, of sexual contact with students, harassment, theft or drug possession. Nearly all are being paid. All told, they collect about $10 million in salaries per year — even as the district is contemplating widespread layoffs of teachers because of a financial shortfall.
Most cases take months to adjudicate, but some take years.
The Times says that it is extremely difficult for the district to fire teachers because they are union-protected.
New York City has “Rubber Rooms” that house hundreds of teachers at a cost of $35 million dollars a year. m
Is this a good use of taxpayer money? Paying admitting child molesters to sit and do nothing because the union is too strong. This is pathetic. If I did anything like this I’d be fired yesterday. No questions asked. Teachers unions (and almost all others) need to go away forever. There is no reason for our hard earned money to go to these sex offenders in the form of taxes just because they happen to belong to a union.
Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
I whole heartedly agree…where are the rest of the teachers in the union on this I wonder? You know the ones that might get laid off cause of financial distress? I would think they would be the first to say wait a minute my collegue here is getting paid and is an admitted offender while I get laid off cause the school doesnt have enough money. I think if people want to have a union so be it thats their choice to give up personal gain by joining with the ranks and all getting what ever collective gain they can but they should be the ones mad about this cause its money that could be given to them.
@Peter
That’s a great point. Think of all the teachers that have lost their jobs because of budget cuts around the country. It is ridiculous that we spend this money that could be used to fund the actual good teachers we do have.
100% agree! That is unless I can join one and also get paid to not work… :p
@Lawson
But if you joined you would move to change that rule because it hurts you and the rest of the good teachers which is what true unions are supposed to be about, helping the collective. Seems unions though have turned into monopolies of workers so biz can’t run efficiently. I dont have anything against unions cause the people joining just think they can do better as a collective then on their own. Thing is the good workers should be able to do individually and that would mean they would be held back by a union and they should leave though thats not happening and im not sure why. Could be the way the rules evolved like healthcare….no one planned for it to turn out this way it just evolved into a mess.
Yeah unions are great for all the mediocre workers out there, but they hold back good workers. This creates an environment where nobody has a desire to excel. It’s very similar to creating a mini communism-like society inside a business. It looks great on paper but in reality it fails. Just ask Detroit.
@Derek Clark
Exactly so why do good workers put up with it? Are there laws that evolved over time that forces all workers into a union? Why can’t a worker work at a plant and choose not to join the union? There must be a reason good workers put up with this cause it doesn’t make sense. Cause I believe all of these guys want to do better and make more money. Though from the sounds of it with the great health benefits and great retirement benefits maybe the unions have gotten a better deal then a good worker could get and until these business’s go out of business they won’t be able to revert back to a true cost of labor for the product going out the door.
@Peter
I’m a bit confused as well, but I think mostly the companies have done a terrible job negotiating. At least with the auto companies, everyone was getting paid more than what the skills required were worth. Now the problem is that it ran the companies into the ground, forced them to go bankrupt, and many of the workers lost their jobs. But while it lasted there wasn’t any reason to go against the system.
@Peter
Generally the unions have cut amazing deals and as a teacher I’d think the perks of being in the union would definitely make me want to be in the union.
Also, at least in terms of teachers, I don’t think opting out of the union would change anything for you. They would still pay you on the same god awful pay scale / rate as they do with the unionized workers so it’s likely in your best interest to just join the union.
Part of the reason auto workers union got such great deals is because the management basically had to say, “It will cost us X$ to hire and train new people… These people want Y dollars to stay around”. While Y is generally greater than X it also has a down time where no cars will be built. So each side has expert negotiators the union’s side asks for the maximum they can until it makes more sense to hire new people and the management will accept a deal as long as it’s not more than their financial wizards calculate it will cost to replace / retrain / miss a season of cars.
The problem is that the car manufacturers financial wizards failed, from the very beginning, to account for the steep decline in American auto sales, the rise of Japanese cars, the housing bust, etc. Their numbers were all very faulty the same way the numbers were faulty for the people investing in securitized mortgages.
It’s a double edged sword. While I can’t stand the teacher’s union because it protects them from everything, the teachers do need to be protected because American parents are losers. I hate to say it, but the majority of Americans are not accountable for their own actions or the actions of their children.
For example, if a child fails a test, what is the first thing they say? “Damn it, my teacher failed me.” Fuck that…If you fail an exam, it’s because YOU failed. I bet TJ will agree with me on this and say that students are not accountable for their actions.
Now, here comes a parent who can’t admit that little Johnny is messing up and thinks it is the teacher’s fault. He blames the teacher and tries to get him fired. The union protects against that. But, at the same time, because the teachers can’t get fired, they grow lax. I think the union should be weaker, but still needs to be there.
@Jacob
Now you do have a point, but this can also be solved by administrators standing up for the teachers. There has to be a method by which a teacher can get fired. As it is if you survive past a year or two you basically can’t be fired which is silly.
@Derek Clark
True, but have you really understood Jacob’s point here? I don’t think the Administrator gets to *do* anything. We have all of these regulations, mostly federal, describing the test scores students must get for a teacher to be considered competent. As a teacher it seems like it would be ridiculous to be considered an awful teachers because half of the howler monkeys in my classroom didn’t show up / smoked to much pot / have never completed an assignment and therefore can’t pass a fairly trivial test.
There isn’t much for the administrators to do when society, backed by the federal government, have decided this is what makes a good teacher. Hell, in TN they are about to pass legislation that links teacher raises with student performance on standardized tests. Well, I guess those Urban teachers won’t be making more than there suburban counter parts anymore… because they sure as hell won’t be getting the big raises.
Again; completely biased reporting. Why people who admit crimes continue to be paid is beyond me. I am pissed that this report somehow blames union leaders (Implied) for supporting the actions of the molester. These contracts between the workers and their employers were agreed to by management but it’s the worker and the union that always gets the blame, F@#K off!!!!
The poor working stiff fights for just a little piece of the pie; it’s agreed to by management, and when management f@#ks up the union gets the blame. WHAT? Get your heads out of your @ssess.
@Union Organizer
I didn’t say anything about union leaders. I think that there is a problem with unions. If you’ve read many of my articles you know I blame the management plenty, they should have never agreed to many of the contracts that they do. That being said, many unions have been very greedy and lazy, and that is at least part of the reason the auto companies for example went bankrupt.
I know people that work in these factories. They were told to stop working so hard because they were making everyone else look bad. Unions were a big part of the downfall of these companies whether you like it or not. If you are a good worker, you have no need for a union. All it does is protect and overpay the mediocre workers. If you are good, you should be getting paid more than guy next to you who goofs off and doesn’t get any work done.