Janus: "If you want my money, you have to earn it now."

"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
06/28/2018 at 11:34 • Filed to: None

My union charges $108/mo in union dues only to so w chaos and prop up mediocre teachers. That’s 1.8 % of the gross salary at $60k/yr and 10 monthly deductions. (It’s true that our administration is inept, but are they as inept as the union presents them to be?)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/us/teacher-unions-fallout-supreme-court-janus.html

DISCUSSION (35)

ttyymmnn > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 11:45

Quit the union? Now that the SC said that non-union members can’t be charged dues, why stay in? Are you in a closed shop? In Austin, non-members of the AF of M can opt out of having dues deducted from our pay. However, nonunion members enjoy the benefits of the contracts they negotiate with the orchestra.

facw > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 11:47

Of course, under this ruling, even if the union does do a good job representing its members, non-members can still probably get all the benefits, and not have to pay dues. Which ultimately will weaken the union and make sure they can’t negotiate a good deal.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > facw
06/28/2018 at 11:49

Or, if the union begins to actually earn the members’ dues...

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn
06/28/2018 at 11:51

I just read that New York passed a law that says unions don’t have to represent non-paying members in grievances. So would management pick on those they know not to be paying dues? Or the opposite, in order to weaken the union(s) further? Perhaps absent strong unions, some real education reform can take place.

facw > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 11:58

Right, but if they do, there’s still a huge incentive for non-members not to join (and for existing members to leave).

BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 12:06

My union (NTEU) does not require membership, and has for quite some time. They are still required to bargain for all employees and represent all employees in grievances (although admittedly will not go out of their way for non-members). They still have high membership percentage due to doing a mostly not-sucky job and having a mission that the employees support. Amazing.

deprecated account > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 12:15

Wait... Y’all get paid $60k/year out there ?

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > facw
06/28/2018 at 12:16

Yep. But there will still be enough marginal employees who will still wanna pay. After all, it’s the good employees who really don’t need the representation, right? The duds are who prop up the union. And mgmt will have a list of names of who’s a member and who isn’t. I can see an entire new political dynamic coming along here.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind
06/28/2018 at 12:18

This is precisely the sort of outcome I am hoping will happen as a result of Janus.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > deprecated account
06/28/2018 at 12:20

More than that after you’ve been around a while. But I have to pay 100% of my family’s medical insurance premium out of that, which in my case, is something like $14,000/year for the cheapest coverage. But I’m paid more than $60k and don’t qualify for the Obamacare insurance subsidy.

deprecated account > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 12:28

Well I guess when you think of it as s alary vs. c ost of l iving it makes sense. It just kind of shocked me at first as I went to a private high school in Memphis and I believe teachers got something like $45-50k/ year. And is that a typical bill for medical insurance?!?

AkursedX > BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind
06/28/2018 at 12:34

NTEU member here too. I have no real issues with them and they have done pretty right by us. Our local chapter is phenomenal and this place would be a nightmare to work for without them.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > deprecated account
06/28/2018 at 13:31

The teacher pay salary scale in my district tops out at ~$105k/yr. But you have to pay for your benefits entirely. As I’ve said, mine cost about $13k/yr and this is cheaper than what the union/district have negotiated for us. I go out and buy my own, though ACA makes for fewer choices. This is all a resul t of a deal negotiated by the union years ago when the union was led by women who all got their health insurance through their husbands’ jobs. This fact is not widely known or understood by the sheeple in my union local.

deprecated account > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 13:44

Holy shite that’s a lot of change, even when you factor in paying for benefits .

As an outsider, I’m pretty anti-union just because of the mob mentality and the mistreatment and harassment of non-unionized workers. A nd as you just said, they can be really ineffective. You can obviously speak more from experience, but to my eyes a union can be just as exploitative as a corporation.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > deprecated account
06/28/2018 at 13:54

Totally exploitative. And it’s not about ideology, but about some individuals worshiping at the altar of political power and influence, plain and simple.

It’s also worth noting, regarding the salary levels, that an inexpensive home in my area is well north of $500k. I got into my home 20 years ago during a freakish slump in the market.

M.T. Blake > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 13:55

Opt out of the Union if they have a clause where you can be an associate member and pay for any legal protections or other perks. You’ll pay 1/4 of that amount and still get all the benefits. Even if you weren’t in the union you still get the raise just like anyone else. They negotiate pay and benefits by job not by union members vs non-members.

deprecated account > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 13:59

Right, that’s what I was saying about cost of living. $500k in a nice part Memphis gets you a whole lot of house.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > M.T. Blake
06/28/2018 at 14:15

Interesting. Thanks for the tip. I have come to the conclusion that if you are a solid, consistent, dependable employee, you don’t have a lot of need for the union. At least not in teaching where I work...

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > deprecated account
06/28/2018 at 14:17

$500k in my area, if you’re lucky, gets you a dump with people discharging firearms in the street. And breaking into your house when you’re not there. Like large swaths of Memphis, I should think. We visited Memphis a few years ago and I was shocked by how blighted it was, mile after mile.

M.T. Blake > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 14:20

Typically not but you never know what could happen. If you guys pay into some legal protection or something similar that’s about the most you should NEED.

DipodomysDeserti > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 14:20

You can come to Arizona and make half that, but won’t have to worry about a union! Teaching has been a side hustle for my wife and I since getting out of school, because it definitely doesn’t pay down here. You can make money, but you have to hustle and work 3-4 other jobs.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > M.T. Blake
06/28/2018 at 14:22

Yes: professional insurance. Good point.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > DipodomysDeserti
06/28/2018 at 14:24

My district pays above average for the area. The union beats up the district every negotiation, then reports back what I am certain are a bunch of spins and lies. But a preponderance of the teachers are devoted to the union because the like the koolaid that the union president serves. We could be a great force for good, but we are instead a champion of mediocrity an the status quo. The employees all view raises as entitlements.

deprecated account > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 14:26

How long ago is a few years ago? We’ve still got plenty of problems, but the past few years or so there’s been a good bit of revitalization and grassroots organizations that have been doing a lot to help some of the really blighted areas.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > deprecated account
06/28/2018 at 15:38

I hope that didn’t come across as me throwing any shade on Memphis. We’d made a cross country trip and stopped to visit Graceland and the National Civil Rights Museum and these were highlights of our trip.

Probably about 8 years ago.

patd67 > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 16:21

Run for a Union Rep position. It can be good fun to see how the sausage gets made. I served for several years as a Rep and then did a two year stint on the Board of Directors. You learn a lot and working with labor and management you can see the BS on both sides.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > patd67
06/28/2018 at 16:53

I could be the rep just by volunteering. We’ll have a new principal next year and I could be very influential. Imagine: a union rep who is honest and someone the principal could actually trust. Unheard of in my district. My union president is someone who is drunken on political power and influence and she knows that I realize this about her. And she knows that I know this about her, and so on. I’ll tell the members before the vote: Don’t vote for me if you expect me to ever be anything less than 100% honest because it ain’t gonna happen.

deprecated account > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/28/2018 at 19:36

Oh, it’s fine. You get used to it and there’s plenty of shade to be thrown, believe me. And yeah 2008 hit almost everyone here pretty hard and no one really bounced back til maybe 4 or 5 years later so I’m not surprised .

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > deprecated account
06/28/2018 at 20:17

Graceland was great, but they’ve sold the airplanes, which is what brought me there.

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/29/2018 at 19:56

In fairness, that’s in likely in part because you have a strong Union. I’ve worked in multiple districts that either have weak as shit unions or no unions, and there’s definitely a difference. I see them as a necessary/lesser of two evils.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter
06/29/2018 at 20:10

There’s strong union and then there’s fascist union. I can live with the former when it’s not the latter. When the wave of people wanting to save $1000+ per year on union dues comes, I’ll be riding that wave. Mediocre teachers though, and they know deep down inside who they are, would be smart to keep paying the dues, since it’s the mediocre -- or worse -- teachers who make our union strong.

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > deprecated account
06/29/2018 at 20:21

I see being anti-union as kind of like being anti-vax: the people who think the vaccine is worse than the disease haven’t ever seen the disease. Do a bit of reading on the history of labor in the US: it’s quite literally bloody. The idea that labor unions are somehow unnecessary is something I find quite baffling.

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/29/2018 at 20:32

Education reform isn’t going to happen until a) they stop trying to make every poverty problem an education problem and b) stop chasing the latest fad to resolve the “crisis” in education. By and large, the crisis in education has little to do with the education system (although there’s some definite nits I could pick) and has a lot to do with the kids (or rather, the families of the kids) we’re trying to shove through it. I taught math at a Title 1 school this year. We had a speaker come who asked the kids how many of them had a family member incarcerated on drug charges. Fully half the school raised their hands. My wife also teaches in a Title 1 middle school. She’s got kids who are living with an aunt because both parents have been locked up. You can throw all the money you want at that kid, but it’s totally unreasonable to expect the education system to graduate a healthy, productive member of society from a situation like that.

But damned if we’re not going to try. I’ve been in and out of the educational sphere for about a decade now, and it seems like every three years or so there’s a new thing that’s going to “save” education. Smart classrooms. iPads. Chromebooks. Blended learning.

You can’t fix the things that are actually wrong with education if you can’t distinguish those from the things that are wrong with society in general.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter
06/29/2018 at 21:38

I think we are mostly in agreement here. (I wrote my final paper for my masters degree on how iPad was only good for Spec Ed kids and Old Men...)

For my part, and I’ve been teaching math and administering* for fifteen years, having begun at age 38, in Title 1 schools and my approach is two-tiered. Number 1 is test scores — and Common Core — be damned and Number 2 is relationships first and if there’s time, then do some math. And I really like the math and the kids can tell, but they can’t remember anything from one day to the next. I was high school for ten years, now middle school (8th grade).

When public education got going, American society was more homogeneous than it is now and more kids fit into the factory and more kids were more consistently whipped by their old man if they messed up in school. They were also much more consistently one ethnicity or another in any given school or system.

Personally? I don’t see what’s next, but I think public education’s ship has sailed and we’ll see what weakening of unions does to weaken or strengthen it further. I benefit from tenure, sure, but I’m also a competent teacher who can manage a classroom and keep parents happy, by and large.

deprecated account > dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter
06/30/2018 at 00:06

In my APUSH class we talked plenty about the history of unions, so I have a pretty general understanding of that history. I think that, while they may have been necessary back then, companies are subject to such scrutiny already (and are run by generally less scummy, exploitative people than in the 19th and 20 th centuries) that unions are somewhat superfluous and serve as obstructions to the production of goods and rendering of services, and to the livelihoods of those who are forced to unionize by their employers or pressured to do so by unionized co-workers. I don’t think that corporations should be held hostage by unions, I think they should be held hostage by the consumers, and I don’t think workers should be held hostage by either corporations OR unions.