The Rochester Teachers Association endorsements for next Tuesday appeared in my mailbox at school today. They were surprisingly balanced, at least on the local level -- also rather confusing, what with eight different parties to consider (D = Democrat, R = Republican, C = Conservative, L = Liberal, I = Independence, G = Green, W = Working Families, RTL = Right to Life):
It looks like the alliance between Democrats and unions is very weak in the Rochester area, at least among teachers. I haven't been in town long enough to know why this is so, and whether other unions are similarly ambivalent.
Posted by Dr. Weevil at November 01, 2002 07:41 PMIs it that the unions are ambivalent, or is it because they've got their local Republicans on a tether?
Could go either way you know.
As a former NEA member, the #1 thing that would make my skin crawl about going back into that sector would be the prospect of being forced to rejoin them. There's no more despicable union in the country. I'm not generally anti-union at all, but brrrr!
Posted by: Dean Esmay on November 2, 2002 01:01 AMI haven't been able to figure out whether my union is related to the NEA or not. It's the RTA (Rochester Teacher's Association) and the letterhead mentions the NYSUT, which must be the New York State Union of Teachers. I would have assumed that it's part of either the NEA or the AFT, but they don't seem to advertise either connection.
Posted by: Dr. Weevil on November 2, 2002 06:59 PMNYSUT is affiliated with AFT, though this information is buried a couple of directories down on their Web site.
Posted by: CGHill on November 3, 2002 02:50 PM
My mom's a public school teacher. She gets something like that in the mail from her state teachers union every election year, and (if I recall correctly) I believe she also got something from the NEA in 2000. The endorsements are always straight party-line Democratic from President of the United States to county auditors (whatever it is they do). She then goes and votes straight Republican. Heh-heh-heh.
Posted by: me on November 4, 2002 09:37 PMUnion politics sometime backfire.
My disgruntle is focused at the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers). 2 years ago, I was part owner of an electrical contracting firm (non-union). Just FYI: we paid the same wage rates as the union, and provided full insurance benefits for all of our employees. In Washington state, at that time, there was a drastic shortage of electricians, so we tried to hire a couple of guys from Canada that were out of work, had families to support, and didn't mind comuting.
We were told at the border that it would take over a year to get their visas processed, if then. It appears that the electrical union had lobbied SO HARD to protect "American" (you may interchange with "Union") jobs, that it was a very lenghty process to prove that we had done everything possible to hire American workers first (which we had).
I called INS in Washington DC, asking for some way to expedite the process, explaining, "We don't need an electrician in a year, we need one this week." He informed me that the IBEW had in effect "shot themselves in the foot" with their lobbying. According to INS, the union was desperate for electricians also, and they couldn't get any electricians from Canada either.
Really got me to thinking though, who runs this country and makes the laws? the citizens and taxpayers? or the Unions?
Perhaps unions started out with a noble purpose, but they have been so currupted as to have lost any redeeming features, in my personal opinion.