The attendance of the children is the major problem. Schools in the city have an 55% DAILY attendance rate. How are the teachers suppose to be held responsible for the students that rarely ever attend a five day week.
And teachers in the suburbs don’t have close to the same problems as teachers in the city. They typically get their raises, don’t have to worry about attendance problems, and have to worry about the benefits they do have being stripped from them.
Before you bring non union suburb teachers into the conversation make sure your talking apples to apples. Suburb teachers don’t get assaulted by their students. But you don’t hear about that in the news. A friend of mine taught in the city and loved his job. He ended up leaving because he was more like a bouncer in a nightclub than a teacher. And when two or more students are brawling in a hallway, it’s the teachers who are suppose to break it up. But at the same time aren’t suppose to touch the children. You think these kids are gonna stop because they are told to? And when force is used to break it up, parents are quick to try to sue the teachers, the city, or anyone they can. All of a sudden they care a lot. About a payday. These students aren’t kicked out of school, ever. They might be moved to another school, but that’s about it. Most of the time, not even.
So what good does the teachers union do?? They protect the teachers. From lawsuits, from losing benefits and fighting to keep the benefits they do have and to hopefully get the teachers raises that they deserve. Im sure you’d be pissed if you were stuck making the same amount that you did ten years ago in your line of work. But according to everyone that watches channel 2 or reads the Buffalo News, unions should be completely eradicated because, “unions are outdated and don’t serve a purpose.” Unions came about as a result of working conditions and unfair wages. Sounds to me these problems are still problems. Ones that a union can help with.
So if you are asking, what good has the teachers union done? Go ask a Buffalo Teacher. Not, "my friend that teaches in Clarence or Williamsville doesn’t have a union and they get by just fine. "
It is not the same thing.
And what I wrote about the union electricians working to restore power was to again show that no one commends these workers on what they are doing. Media just itches for any little thing to talk shit about the unions. Instead of saying what a good job these men and women are doing, they cry about one non union shop going home empty handed.
And with trade unions, the contractors pay their workers well. Usually more than what non union shops pay their employees. To make money and actually get contracts for jobs, they have to be able to make up the pay difference. How do they do this?? They get the jobs done faster with less man hours. So for anyone saying union guys don’t work hard, maybe manufacturing is different, but in the skilled trades, if you don’t work hard, your company isn’t making money, and you’ll be the first to be collecting unemployment.
You should really be asking why the non union guys can’t get it done as fast. Training might have a little something to do with it.
What good have unions done?
Everybody enjoy weekends? How about paid holidays??
You can thank unions for that.
Local trade unions donated workers time and materials to build new structures for Cradle Beach camp recently and help many other charities as well.
Local trade unions also supply the larger developers with an almost never ending supply of trained workers. If non union shops need workers, you know what they do? Hire whoever looks good. No training, no problem! If you can turn a screwdriver you can do electrical right? Yeah good luck with that! Enjoy your home or business that’ll be on fire soon because Turing a screwdriver is the only skill you need.
Trade unions just bring in more skilled workers from other locals.
