Union Teachers Refuse To Work 25 Minutes More Per Day, So Town Fires Them!

[Michael Tee]

It's also hilarious how they constantly bitch about the joys of working for Comrade Stalin and how inferior must be the work that is coerced out of Communist "slaves" who are incapable of creating anything worthwhile if not given substantial fiscal incentives to do so, but OTOH are all for the bastard teachers putting in extra hours for chump change or getting fired en masse if they don't.

[Kramer]

I do know this: after reading sirs' silly posts for years, I know that he knows nothing useful about anything. He oozes pure negativity from every pore. The main difference between him and Rich, Kramer and the Multiplicity of Christians is that it takes him a lot more words to be annoying.


God forbid that anyone should ever put him in any classroom.

Teaching involves a lot of outside preparation. In the first several years, getting it all together is overwhelming; after three or four years, one can use the materials , handouts, and tests one has prepared over (there are computer programs that will write tests from a database, so they will never be identical), and then work on improving the instruction of the points that seem most difficult for the different types of learners one has in his class. It is a lot more complicated to be a good teacher than to be a good sanitation worker.


Every union is a reflection of the people in that union. The few times when I have taught in a union school (five years total, out of forty), the unions were extremely interested in the development of the students, except for the UTD here in Dade County. I taught there for four months, replacing someone who quit, and the place was so annoying that I left and never considered returning. Administration was a ghastly, ponderous bureaucracy, and the union was complicit with them. Two years afterward, Pat Tornillo, the UTD president was exposed in a scandal and forced to resign.



What I said was that there was insufficient information in the story about the RI teachers to make any informed comment. Of course, when it comes to not being paid for work, I have been there and done that. Once, all the Humanities and Math professors were told that we would be paid to tutor students preparing to take a state exam for half a semester. When we had completed this, we were told that we would not be paid, but we would not be forgotten, whatever that meant. Then two years later, the administration changed and no more was ever heard about this again. It is difficult to be placed in a position where you have to sue your employer to get paid as promised. Of course, we were only given a verbal promise, and no one was allowed to opt out of the plan. The teachers in the business division and those who taught religion and other subjects were not recruited. Nearly all of them had much smaller classes and many were paid a lot more.


It is crap like that that cause teachers to form unions.


The majority of voters in any school district do not have children at all. So it is always difficult to get proper funding. It is more difficult in Florida, where we have a lot of retired people and wealthy people who do not care about the public schools because they send their kids to private schools.

Let me make this short and to the point -- we don't need unions, government workers don't deserve better retirements plans than non-government workers, they don't need more PAID holidays, they don't need representation -- what they need to do is work hard for a decent wage. Just about every day I'm exposed to unionized government workers and 20 to 1 they are a bunch of non-motivated lazy overpaid complainers. In NJ a recent case came to light of a government worker that retired at 47 and invested only $126,000 into his retirement account but will receive over $3.5 million over the life of his retirement. These numbers don't add up. This is insanity. Obama and Democrats are in the union pocket. They operate as a team. You, Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the unions are cancer and YOU PEOPLE have ruined my country! In that same boat are plenty of Republicans as well. I'm a Conservative not a republican and definitely not a liberal. The different belief systems clearly show that Liberals are insane and conservatives are logical. This is a point that can't be debated. People like you can't debate facts because, you can't defend lunacy. That is why YOU name-call people as DOLTS and stupid and so on. You need shock therapy. You and your ilk need to be locked into asylums. Get the hell out of my life and stop ramming your insane programs down America's throat!

[sirs]

I do know this: after reading sirs' silly posts for years, I know that he knows nothing useful about anything. He oozes pure negativity from every pore.  The main difference between him and Rich, Kramer and the Multiplicity of Christians is that it takes him a lot more words to be annoying.

Oh the irony, especially that which keeps validating the point I made about the standard reponse by the leftists still here.  Thanks Xo.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I am overjoyed that unions and whomever have disturbed the life of Kramer. He is an ignorant, bigoted, simplistic toad./.

Dolts like him are why unions are needed.

[Michael Tee]

Labour unions are responsible for all the advances in working conditions in the U.S. since the 19th century, including the 8-hour day, the five-day work week and vacations with pay.  They are benefits enjoyed by every working American, Kramer included, and it is a shame that he doesn't seem to know this.

[sirs]

Yep, as I said, what was a once honorable entity.  So sad to see its mutation in all its current glory

[Kramer]

Labour unions are responsible for all the advances in working conditions in the U.S. since the 19th century, including the 8-hour day, the five-day work week and vacations with pay.  They are benefits enjoyed by every working American, Kramer included, and it is a shame that he doesn't seem to know this.

I know plenty and one is unions are outdated not to mention corrupt. Your ignorance is glaring. We aren't living in the 19th Century any longer.

[Christians4LessGvt]

unions are outdated not to mention corrupt.

Leader of Carpenters' Union and 9 Others
Indicted in Corruption Inquiry

By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

August 5, 2009

Nearly two decades after federal authorities moved to loosen the mob's grip on the New York City's carpenters' union and end a culture of contractor bribery, they announced new corruption charges on Wednesday against the union's leader and nine other union officials and contractors. The charges include racketeering, bribery, fraud and perjury.

Document: The Indictment (pdf)The men were named in a 29-count indictment that alleges crimes similar to some set out in a civil racketeering lawsuit that Manhattan prosecutors brought against the union, the New York District Council of Carpenters and Joiners of America, in 1990. That case led to a 1994 consent decree and, later, a court-appointed corruption monitor; both are still in place.

The indictment was unsealed in Federal District Court in Manhattan hours after a 6 a.m. roundup in which seven of the defendants were arrested, some as they prepared to go to work. It charges that in exchange for bribes valued at about $1 million, they helped corrupt contractors steal millions of dollars more from the union and its benefit funds by allowing contractors to pay members cash wages below union scale without benefits, hire illegal aliens and nonunion workers and skip contributions to the union?s benefit funds.

The 20,000-member district council, which oversees 11 local unions around New York City, has remained not only a major player in the city's labor movement but also a major force in its politics, despite a history of mob influence, labor racketeering and bribery.

Indeed, six weeks ago, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's re-election campaign put out a news release announcing that the union had endorsed his bid for a third term.

The release included a video clip showing Michael J. Forde, the district council's executive secretary-treasurer, who is now indicted, giving the mayor a rousing introduction at a union event and sealing his support for Mr. Bloomberg with a hug.

Mr. Bloomberg, asked on Wednesday for his response to the indictment, said he was surprised and that he hoped the union members themselves would not be hurt, calling the situation "sad."

"I don't know whether any of the charges that I read about late this afternoon are true or not, I'll leave that to the courts," he said. "It's the men and women of the carpenter's union that have endorsed me, and I'm thrilled to have it."

The charges, a result of a lengthy investigation by Manhattan prosecutors, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Labor Inspector General's Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations, were not Mr. Forde's first brush with such accusations. He and another district council official went to trial on bribery charges involving the union in state court twice in recent years, with the first case ending in a conviction that was later overturned, and the second in acquittal.

Lev. L. Dassin, the acting United States attorney, who announced the charges in a news release, said that the union's leaders had failed to protect their members.

"Instead of protecting the financial interests of union members and their families, corrupt union officials and the contractors who bribed them are charged with betraying the carpenters' union and its benefit funds to enrich themselves," he said.

Gary Rothman, a lawyer for the district council, said he was reviewing the indictment. "We understand that the charges are serious, but we also believe in the presumption of innocence and we will have a further statement as the situation becomes clearer," he said in a brief statement.

Two years ago, prosecutors unsuccessfully sought to remove the union's court-appointed monitor, known as the independent investigator, saying his investigations were "superficial" and "incomplete." The investigator, William Callahan, defended his tenure on Wednesday, saying he had been "aggressive" and "effective."

Among the others charged in the new indictment with Mr. Forde and the other union officials was Joseph Olivieri, a benefit funds trustee and executive director of the Association of Wall, Ceiling and Carpentry Industries of New York. F.B.I. reports and law enforcement officials say Mr. Olivieri has a long history of ties to the Genovese crime family, the powerful Mafia clan that for generations has held sway over the union.

While the indictment makes passing mention of another Genovese figure, it does not charge that organized crime wielded any influence over the union. But law enforcement officials said the investigation was continuing.

"Rather than doing what they were elected to do safeguarding wages and benefits for union members" they took cash and other bribes to turn a blind eye on contractors? schemes to cheat the rank and file," Joseph M. Demarest Jr., who oversees the New York F.B.I. office, said in the news release.

Mr. Forde, who was attending a conference in Canada, surrendered about 3 p.m. after returning to New York. The prosecutor in the case, an assistant United States attorney, Lisa Zornberg, said at his arraignment that he had tested positive for cocaine and marijuana.

His lawyer, Andrew M. Lankler, declined to comment, and a lawyer for Mr. Olivieri did not return a call seeking comment. Two defendants, Finbar O?Neil, a contractor, and Michael Brennan, a shop steward, remained at large.

An earlier version of this article misstated the outcome of Mr. Forde's second trial as a mistrial.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/nyregion/06indict.html

[Plane]

It's also hilarious how they constantly bitch about the joys of working for Comrade Stalin and how inferior must be the work that is coerced out of Communist "slaves" who are incapable of creating anything worthwhile if not given substantial fiscal incentives to do so, but OTOH are all for the bastard teachers putting in extra hours for chump change or getting fired en masse if they don't.

It is a matter of several degrees diffrence.

Stalin would have shot those teachers and their Union officers .

[Plane]

  My Union is the AFGE , their negotiations determine for me the pay , vacation and insurance I can get.

   I don't think they are particularly good , but who elese is ready to do this job?

    When I really appreaciate them is when I am in troubble and have no clout , but I have to deal with authoritarians who have clout.

     When I don't appreaciate them is when I attend a hall meeting and disorder is the order of the day , or when they give to Democrats moneys that they haven't earned and won't.
      I think they should now and then give Republicans moneys that they haven't earned and won't.


      http://www.afge.org/Index.cfm?page=NSPSBackground

  Recently they beat the NSPS, a new system of eveluation and promotion of personell. Maybe there is a need to reform but depending more on the judgement of supervisors who are themselves severely demonstrateing the "Peter Principal" might not really help all that much.

[sirs]

It's also hilarious how they constantly bitch about the joys of working for Comrade Stalin and how inferior must be the work that is coerced out of Communist "slaves" who are incapable of creating anything worthwhile if not given substantial fiscal incentives to do so, but OTOH are all for the bastard teachers putting in extra hours for chump change or getting fired en masse if they don't.

It is a matter of several degrees diffrence.  Stalin would have shot those teachers and their Union officers .

And that's if he was in a good mood

[BT]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Lanark

[BT]

Robert Owen had raised the demand for a ten-hour day in 1810, and instituted it in his socialist enterprise at New Lanark. By 1817 he had formulated the goal of the eight-hour day  and coined the slogan Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

[Xavier_Onassis]

Robert Owen was not the man who made an eight hour day a reality. That was done by the UNIONS, along with the five-day week.

[BT]

Robert Owen, an industrialist and a socialist, instituted voluntarily long before the unions successfully demanded it. By almost 110 years for US workers.