Anyway what's on my mind currently is the labor union debate going on in Wisconsin. First let me just put it out there that I am in favor of unions that serve a purpose rather than provide job security. It can be argued that job security is the purpose of unions and to this I disagree. The best way to explain this is to use an example so let’s take teachers in our public schools for that example. The teachers union is there so that the teachers can focus on teaching. By getting rid of the union the teachers will have to split their attention from the students to things like getting better teaching material or newer schools, and we are not even talking about about pay here, just imagine the amount of time and resource it would need if every teacher had to go to the government to ask for a raise. Without a union the ones suffering won’t be the teachers, it will be the students. With that said the part of the union that can be changed is how teachers are retained and paid. This is the job security part of the union I see a problem with. A teacher with experience in years should not trump a teacher that provides a more quality classroom experience. Just like any private employee of a company a teacher should be reviewed on a regular basis and rewarded based on performance. What performance means is a whole other discussion but the point I’m trying to make is that to reign in cost of public unions is not to get rid of them but to change their structure so that the workers of the union is compensated based on performance rather than seniority. The last thing I want to say about teachers is that they are the most overworked and most underpaid of all public employees. They also are the first ones to make concessions in the economic down turn. Teachers, in general, should be appreciated, not demonized.
Upcoming Post: More on public unions and the new 43k union created by Obama last week.
