Wisconsin Union Fiasco Round-Up

I think the core question is this ... are the government schools run primarily for the benefit of taxpayers, parents, and students? Or for the benefit of teachers?

Athens in Mad Town - WSJ.com: "Under Governor Walker's proposal, the government also would no longer collect union dues from paychecks and then send that money to the unions. Instead, unions would be responsible for their own collection regimes. The bill would also require unions to be recertified annually by a majority of all members. Imagine that: More accountability inside unions. ... Public unions have a monopoly position that gives them undue bargaining power. Their campaign cash—collected via mandatory dues—also helps to elect the politicians who are then supposed to represent taxpayers in negotiations with those same unions. The unions sit, in effect, on both sides of the bargaining table."

Are Public School Teachers Overpaid or Are Private School Teachers Underpaid? - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine: "The National Center for Education Statistics puts it this way: Using 2007-2008 data (the latest available), the average 'total school-year and summer earned income' for public school teachers was $53,230 . The equivalent for private-school teachers was $39,690. That's a whopping $13,540 differential on salary alone."

George Will: Union leaders fear loss of dues: "'I am convinced,' he says, 'this is about money - but not the employees' money.' It concerns union dues, which he wants the state to stop collecting for the unions, just as he wants annual votes by state employees on recertifying the unions. He says many employees pay $500 to $600 annually in union dues - teachers pay up to $1,000. Given a choice, many might prefer to apply this money to health care premiums or retirement plans."

Medical Fraud in Wisconsin - Ideas On Liberty: "I asked this doctor what he was doing and he told me they were handing out excuses to people who were feeling sick due to emotional, mental or financial distress. They never performed an exam – he asked me how I was feeling today and I said I’m from California and I’m not used to the cold, so he handed me a note."

The alternative to unions: "The effect of unions, to the extent they are effective at all, is to make it harder for people to find work in particular areas. Unions try to raise wages above what they would otherwise be. Employers respond by trying to substitute capital for labor or more skilled workers for less skilled workers. You want negotiating power? Get educated. Get a skill. What keeps wages up in a world of 7% unionization in the private sector is that I have alternatives. So stay in school and study something serious that has value alongside whatever else you’re interested in. Or study something interesting that has little market value. But if you do that, don’t complain about your low salary and lack of a union."

Additional links:
Markets, Not Unions, Gave us Leisure
A History of Labor Unions from Colonial Times to 2009
The Myth of Voluntary Unions