Chicago Public School Teachers Prepare to Strike

[freeAgent]

CPS teachers claim that increasing the school day by 90 minutes will give them 30% more work (meaning they currently only work 5 hours/day), and they are therefore demanding a 30% raise.  People in Chicago have been discussing it on local forums and I have the hardest time convincing them that we already overpay CPS teachers.  In fact, the average CPS teacher makes over $70,000/year from the school system (not counting any summer jobs).  The 30% raise they want would mean their average salary would jump to around $95,000.  This is on top of the extremely generous public-sector benefits they get and their pensions.  In order to prove this to people in Chicago, I had to download a PDF of salary data from the CPS website and extract it all into Excel.  They didn't believe it.  There were also several teachers who posted their opinions about how hard they work, how little they make, and how we should literally kiss their asses (I'm not kidding).

Anyway, over 90% of the union members voted to authorize a strike, and I hope they do it.  I hope the media starts reporting these jokers' salaries in the news every day along with the miserable achievement statistics when they report on the strike.  Honestly, if I was the city, I would use their ridiculous 30% raise request along with their already high compensation to force them to take a pay cut or quit entirely.  Screw 'em.

[Turd Ferguson]

Let it burn.

[Diogenes The Cynic]

I believe in a group of peoples right to unionize, but I think its retarded for employers to respond to them.

Nevertheless, I hope they do strike, for months, and the people of Chicago will find other, better methods to educate their children, and realize they don't need public schools.

[freeAgent]

I believe in a group of peoples right to unionize, but I think its retarded for employers to respond to them.

Nevertheless, I hope they do strike, for months, and the people of Chicago will find other, better methods to educate their children, and realize they don't need public schools.

Yeah, I think it's fine to form a union.  I just don't think you should get special treatment from the government such as codified laws about how employers have to deal with them.  I don't see unions as inherently bad, but they have become bad in practice (at least for the most part).

[Turd Ferguson]

In todays age of instant connection to thousands of people at any given time, theres no reason labor unions should even exist where they take fees from you for their services, at least not in the capacity they exist today. If people really wanted to, all they would have to do to get together and make decisions with all of their co-workers, would be to just sign up as a group at a social networking site and all agree on an issue. For example, unfair wage issues could be instantly voted on and a strike could be agreed upon within a matter of minutes without a "boss" making the call.

Seems to be a no brainer to me.

[freeAgent]

In case anyone wants to see the ongoing thread, I'm David J on Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/topic/chicago-teachers-strike

None of the teachers who have posted seem willing to divulge the extent of their benefits, but I have compared their salaries in excruciating detail because it's public information.  They're now trying to claim that they're underpaid because they work such long hours (over 11.5/weekday).  Yeah, right.

[Diogenes The Cynic]

I believe in a group of peoples right to unionize, but I think its retarded for employers to respond to them.

Nevertheless, I hope they do strike, for months, and the people of Chicago will find other, better methods to educate their children, and realize they don't need public schools.

Yeah, I think it's fine to form a union.  I just don't think you should get special treatment from the government such as codified laws about how employers have to deal with them.  I don't see unions as inherently bad, but they have become bad in practice (at least for the most part).

A lot of Republicans, and quizzically, libertarians bitch about collective bargaining. I have yet to hear an actual coherent argument against it other than the fact that "they don't like it." People can form whatever associations they want. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act be damned!

Totally agree with you again.