Until I read the article below, I had not considered the fact that collective bargaining for government employees essentially taxes local citizens without representation. They have no one at the bargaining table and no input on decisions that will raise their taxes. Isn't "taxation without representation" what we fought a war over?
Beverly Gunn wrote a fascinating article that relates to the current teacher strike in Wisconsin. In 1980 teachers in Sierra Vista, TX struck for six weeks and the wives of officers at a local army fort took their places in the classroom. After reading about Beverly's experience I hope the Wisconsin governor sticks to his guns. As for the teachers they have set a sorry example for their students lying, pretending to be sick, using fake sick notes, etc. Should they not receive at the very least the same punishment that students would get for such behavior?
On a side note the teachers' unions have never been about teaching the kids or even about teachers' rights. They are all about advancing the leftist agenda and power for the unions. Here are the goals of the National Education Association (NEA) from their 2010 convention summarized by Phyllis Schlafly in a
Townhall article. Note the leftwing agenda, much of which has nothing to do with education. And one other thing, 95% of NEA contributions go to Democratic candidates and to lobby for radical political issues. Here are their goals with my comments in parens.
-- Mandatory full-day kindergarten attendance for all children, with federal money if the state can't afford it. (Get the kids early for more indoctrination in the leftist agenda.)
-- Substantial increases in federal education funding. (This lets the feds set the curriculum and limits local control.)
-- Repeal of the right-to-work provision of federal labor law. (This means forced unionization. What about "choice" for teachers?)
-- A tax-supported, single-payer health care plan for all residents of the U.S., its territories and Puerto Rico. (What about "choice" in health care?)
-- Federal funding for the education of illegal aliens. (The left encourages illegals because it gives them more foot soldiers to work for Democrats who promise multiple goodies, including amnesty.)
-- Federal programs to teach schoolchildren about different sexual orientations. (Advancing sexual perversion starts in kindergarten. No local control.)
-- Legislation to prohibit religious organizations that accept federal funding from basing hiring decisions on religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or HIV/AIDS status. (What about the so-called "separation of church and state? How come it allows the government to control religion?)
-- Affirmative action to redress historical patterns of discrimination. (More goodies to buy voters.)
-- Legislation to study possible reparations to African-Americans to address residual effects of slavery. (More goodies to buy voters.)
-- Statehood for the District of Columbia. (Two more liberal senators and a rep to vote for liberalism.)
-- Opposition to tuition tax credits, vouchers and parental option or "choice" in education programs. (Gotta keep the kids on the liberal plantation, especially in the inner cities. No "choice" for you!)
-- Opposition to denying student aid to illegal alien college students. (Buying more support regardless of the injustice to legal aliens and citizens.)
-- Opposition to using draft registration as an eligibility criterion for financial aid. (They loath the military.)
-- Opposition to the testing of teachers as a criterion for job retention, promotion, tenure or salary increases. (This might expose how many of their union members are functional illiterates.)
-- Opposition to legislation that denies illegal aliens' access to public schools. (Again...buying support with goodies.)
-- Opposition to designating English as the official language of the United States. (Keeps people 2nd class citizens and dependent.)
-- Opposition to the use of voter ID cards for voting in local, state and national elections. (This might limit the ability of dead folks to vote.)
-- Opposition to privatization of Social Security. (What's this got to do with education?)
-- Opposition to any constitutional amendment limiting taxes or the federal budget. (Ditto? They want their grubby hands in the taxpayers' pockets!)
Note how few of these items have to do with education. They have everything to do with promoting liberalism. Fight the NEA at every opportunity!
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When Teachers Strike: A Memoir
By Beverly Gunn
In the early fall of 1980, our family was stationed at an Army Post named Ft. Huachuca, Arizona. The town next to the base was Sierra Vista, Arizona. The teachers of Sierra Vista schools became a testing ground for collective bargaining by the NEA, in one of their early excursions into union control vs taxpayers. But a strange turn of events happened that fall that bear revisiting, since the strikes in Wisconsin center around collective bargaining, and as a consequence, local taxes.
In 1980, teachers at all the schools in the town of Sierra Vista decided to go on strike. They were encouraged by the NEA to do so, since the NEA was powering up to unionize in other states and to try to control local issues usually decided by local tax districts and local taxpayers. The teachers called the strike and schools closed, but the Mayor and Superintendent of schools in the town of Sierra Vista conferred with each other and agreed that collective bargaining would take away from local taxpayers the ability to control local taxes. Collective bargaining may work in a private institutional setting, but when local taxes are involved, collective bargaining essentially means loss of local control, or taxation without representation.
Complete article here...
