May Day

Happy May day!!!

Go out an support your Union.


Unions are great things.....They gave us the eight hour work day and some of us the 5 day work week. But sometimes they just seem to get in the way.

As at home parent I don't really need a Union, I am almost constantly in negotiation with my bosses. Sometimes I am the unsympathetic Dictator and other times I am just a clueless war monger. (If your brother tries to take your toys, Ruthie, hit him back but I might have to intervene by imposing sanctions. Then when your military is at its weakest I will invade for made up reasons, depose you then.....wait she's my daughter.)

Seriously folks. My only real experience with unions is through my wife. When she started teaching for OUSD(Oakland Unified School District) Things were looking really good for us; The new superintendent was raising teacher pay. Just months into my wifes first year or so, oops! the district discovered that they had lost 100 million dollars!! The sup gets tossed out with the bath water, and replaced with state appointed administrator. The Union says "oh gosh, the teachers would love to help. Here we"ll take a 4% pay cut. But you have to promise and cross your heart that the pay will get raised to present levels."

Of course the pay was never readjusted and the teachers protested and, it seemed, the teachers were threatening a strike for the whole 5 years my wife taught in Oakland. It made me wonder why the union leaders were even there.

Finally, last year, the state administrator and the union came to an agreement. (just before we left Oakland and the administrator moved to SoCal) They would "raise" teacher pay by 6%. My Wife, the math teacher, after looking at the numbers assured me and everyone we knew that they had not really received a raise at all. (of course I realize that without divulging the numbers non of this makes much sense)
Chronicle Article

Again, I think unions are a great idea but sometimes they end up screwing the workers and not supporting them.