Bad Apples

[Detector]

Source: Teacher Unions Targeted As Obstacle To Reform - News - nbc4i.com -

BOSTON -- An advocacy group is offering 10 public school teachers it deems the nation's worst $10,000 each to quit teaching.

The Center for Union Facts on Tuesday will launch a campaign arguing that teachers' unions block education reform such as teacher merit pay and impose union rules that make it virtually impossible to fire bad teachers. Teachers unions say the group is spreading misinformation.

The Washington-based nonprofit group is spending $1 million on ads and a billboard in New York's Times Square, and launching a Web site with data it says it collected from public records requests documenting what it considers to be the extreme lengths unions go to protect bad teachers.

It's also inviting nominations for a contest to determine the nation's worst unionized teachers. The "winners" will be offered $10,000 each if they permanently resign or retire from any career in education - if they sign a release agreeing to have their name and the reasons for their selection published by the group.

[K C Muffin]

But that's exactly the whole reason to unionize in this legal climate. Hubby says the unionized employees at the fed office where he works are all lazy, come to work when they want, in whatever condition they may be. Hell, they even use illegal drugs on the job. It's impossible to fire them.

So.

When that happens, what is the purpose of trying to be a model employee? None. Because pay is based on longevity and he who survives the longest, no matter what he does, will end up with the most toys. Unions are a farce now, with equal opportunities laws. The only folks that get rich are the organizers.

[Army_of_One]

Here's just one example of the uselessness of unions and how they cost the tax payers money....

WHY IS THE CITY PAYING 757 PEOPLE TO DO NOTHING? - New York Post


September 30, 2007 -- Just before 9 a.m., they file into large, sometimes windowless rooms.

In some cases, they punch time cards; in others, they scribble their names on a sign-in sheet.

They take their places in plastic chairs either grouped around tables or scattered haphazardly.

Some immediately pull out crossword puzzles or books. Some knit. Others hold golf-putting contests. One takes out his guitar and strums.

One day last week, another, wearing a leotard and tights, spread out on the floor and stretched before practicing ballet against a wall in a corner.

Nearby, gazing out a window, a man slowly fell asleep, his head in his hands.

It's all in a day's work on the city payroll.

For seven hours a day, five days a week, hundreds of Department of Education employees - who've been accused of wrongdoing ranging from buying a plant for a school against the principal's wishes to inappropriately touching a student - do absolutely no work.

In an investigation inside the nine reassignment centers called "rubber rooms" where these employees are sent, The Post has learned that the number of salaried teachers sitting idly waiting for their cases to be heard has exploded to 757 this year - more than twice the number just two years ago - at a cost of about $40 million a year, based on the median teacher salary.

The city pays millions more for substitute teachers and employees to replace them and to lease rubber-room space.

Meanwhile, the 757 - paid from $42,500 to $93,400 a year - bring in lounge chairs to recline, talk on their cellphones and watch movies on portable DVD players, according to interviews with more than 50 employees.
"The reason the rubber room exists is because of worn-out and, quite frankly, irrelevant union contracts that do more to protect people's jobs than they do to protect kids," said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, based in Washington, D.C.

The DOE says it's handcuffed by a clause in the teacher contract saying rubber-room residents cannot be given "non-teaching duties," but the UFT says administrative work is just fine.

[old timer]

Should be a new face to employees in area when the unions come with the casino. Wonder if the meat factories will get real unions too -- there they would be great for the workers rights and protection.