Fred,
Gee – I know you don’t like it, but last I heard, this was still a semi-sorta-theoretically free country. If money is the issue, work in the private sector. If you choose to take a job known to pay a poor rate, isn’t that sort of – like – your choice? But I’m sure you’ve got a jim-dandy argument about how that choice is irrelevant to you unionistas.
-Jim Dandy
Dear Jim,
I am pretty sure that, at least in this state, we are still free to organize, join a union, bargain a contract and strike. That’s our choice too.
– Fred
Fred,
When comparing compensation to private sector you must include the value of all benefits, including pension and its associated guarantee. That guarantee is HUGE, and is worth something.
Take Fred for instance. The pension should have put aside something in the vicinity of $2,500,000 for his pension. There are very few private pensions that do that any longer. How much is that Fred, on an annual basis.
Teachers also work 3/4 of a full year, so you must take that into consideration also.
The numbers add up quickly folks. All is not as it appears.
-A troll
Dear A,
You know nothing about pensions if you believe that the pension systems “put aside” a quarter of a billion dollars for each retiree.
Our salary compensation is based on a per diem. No paid holidays. No paid vacation. If, as you suggest, teachers work on a 12 month contract, we would need to be compensated for it. Like administrators. Or did you think that would be free?
-Fred
Fred,
The Chicago Teachers Union seems to be going out of its way to expose each member’s individual vote. The Chicago Sun-Times’ Lauren FitzPatrick reports, “The process — conducted in some school hallways where passersby also could see — is in stark contrast to the secret ballots used in December and in 2012. That means that anyone voting can see what their colleagues already decided.”
-Keep it Secret Stupid
Dear KISS,
The Chicago Teachers Union is the most democratic union in the country. There is nothing in the rules about secret ballots. In my own union I have voted on contacts and to strike – or not to strike – by voice vote, by petitions, by mail-in ballots and secret ballots.
In fact, the vote by the Illinois legislature to require Chicago teachers, and only Chicago teachers, to authorize a strike by not less than a 75% super majority., was not done in secret.
Oddly, none of them were elected to office requiring a 75% super-majority.
Did you object to that?
-Fred
Fred Klonsky 
Mr. Dandy – gee, by gosh by golly, I guess that most fair minded people would kinda sorta expect that ol’ fashioned contract law, even as pertaining to underpaid state employees’ pensions, would provide a jim-dandy argument. Gee whizzers, perhaps this reasoning would/should be relevant even in the nifty private sector.
You are beautiful. Those who wants secret votes can volunteer to count.
I noticed those who want to say teachers are well paid because of the pension…are the same ones who want to cut them
Those who think that teachers are well paid or otherwise on a gravy train are fools for not becoming teachers.