Pope thinks child buggery isn't so bad

[Rum]

You are right (quick somebody check his pulse!) about teaching unions here in the UK, not concerning child protection, but concerning their closed shop/work to rule and conservative attitude to change and innovation. They are a pain to deal with and here in the UK are one reason why ten years of high spending on eduction did little to improve standards.

I am a proud member of my teacher's union.

We don't care if we piss Education Department bureaucrats off!

We are there to support each other and to obtain reasonable and fair conditions of employment. Union forever!

This may well be true of Australia, but as far as I am concerned the teaching unions in this country have at times put their own interests before the improvement of teaching methods and systems and therefore ultimately the education of children, though of course it is never presented as such. Their rigidity and resistance to change is legendary here.

I'm sure that from time to time we may have done a little of that, but I strongly reject the Sethian implication of church-like cover-ups of child abuse...

I don't know if you have followed the thread, but ( and I can only speak of my own experience here) I don't suggest that for a moment. In fact I saw child protection systems improve enormously over the last ten years of my career and came across exactly one case of a cover up - and that was a head teacher reprimanding someone and not taking the matter further as he should have due to his own ignorance as much as anything

[JimC]

That's why I said "Sethian implication" - I certainly wasn't laying that at your door, old chap...

And If I held a job like yours, I'm sure I'd get pissed off at unions from time to time myself...

[klr]

That's why I said "Sethian implication" - I certainly wasn't laying that at your door, old chap...

And If I held a job like yours, I'm sure I'd get pissed off at unions from time to time myself...

Jim has just invented a new word.

[Audley Strange]

You are right (quick somebody check his pulse!) about teaching unions here in the UK, not concerning child protection, but concerning their closed shop/work to rule and conservative attitude to change and innovation. They are a pain to deal with and here in the UK are one reason why ten years of high spending on eduction did little to improve standards.

I am a proud member of my teacher's union.

We don't care if we piss Education Department bureaucrats off!

We are there to support each other and to obtain reasonable and fair conditions of employment. Union forever!

This may well be true of Australia, but as far as I am concerned the teaching unions in this country have at times put their own interests before the improvement of teaching methods and systems and therefore ultimately the education of children, though of course it is never presented as such. Their rigidity and resistance to change is legendary here.

I like you Rum. I like your posts and this one especially. Every experience I've ever had with any unions (and I've had a LOT both professionally and socially) always lead me to suspect it was about sinecures for the top brass and disappointment for the members. The rigidity of the unions here is out-weighted only by their apathy. However the self righteous quotient is high amongst such folks, so I'd have to agree that they would not collude to hide child abuse, however, I would not put it past some schools themselves to have sometimes covered things up.

[Seth]

You are right (quick somebody check his pulse!) about teaching unions here in the UK, not concerning child protection, but concerning their closed shop/work to rule and conservative attitude to change and innovation. They are a pain to deal with and here in the UK are one reason why ten years of high spending on eduction did little to improve standards.

I am a proud member of my teacher's union.

We don't care if we piss Education Department bureaucrats off!

We are there to support each other and to obtain reasonable and fair conditions of employment. Union forever!

Public employee unions should be illegal. Public employees work at the pleasure of the People, and only at their pleasure, and because the bargaining relationship between one public employee (the bureaucrat in charge of negotiation for the People) and another public employee (the teacher's union) is far too "buddy-buddy" there is an obvious conflict of interest that cannot be permitted because it leads to exactly the problem we see today with public-sector union employees: they have wages far above those of privately employed persons in the same trade, and worst, they have pension benefits and plans that are threatening to beggar the economies of cities and states all over the US.

No public employee work contract should be subject to collective bargaining, and all public employee work contracts should be both subject to voter approval and voter amendment/termination at will, by referendum.

[Svartalf]

Hogwash, unless the city holds a couple thousand citizens at most, and can work via direct democracy, public employees are functionary of a governmental administration, which, even though the heads may change at 'the people"'s whim, is NOT "the people", and facing such a system, unions are a dire necessity, I've seen first hand what the misuse of personal powers granted to some heads can do, and the workers need checks and balances.

[Seth]

Hogwash, unless the city holds a couple thousand citizens at most, and can work via direct democracy, public employees are functionary of a governmental administration, which, even though the heads may change at 'the people"'s whim, is NOT "the people", and facing such a system, unions are a dire necessity, I've seen first hand what the misuse of personal powers granted to some heads can do, and the workers need checks and balances.

Sorry, but if you work for the people, who pay your wages and will have to pay your pension, then your contract must be subject to THEIR approval, or at least disapproval. By democratic vote, the people of any community should be able to fire ANY government employee at ANY time. Only in this way is public corruption to be controlled. Just think of Blago and his cronies. If the public had been able, by referendum, to fire everyone in his office they thought connected to corruption, even if he didn't agree, he would have been far less free to engage in corruption.

With teachers it's particularly necessary that parents in a school district be able to fire a bad teacher, because teacher's unions exist to protect bad teachers and prevent them from getting fired, which should not be permitted. A simple vote by the parent OF THE SCHOOL, or indeed the parents of students taught by a particular teacher should be enough to terminate that teacher. After all, it is the parents who are being compelled to grant in loco parentis powers to the teacher and who are being compelled to place their trust, and their children's safety and education, in that teacher's hands, so it should be the parents who get to decide if that teacher is allowed to do so. That would quickly weed out the bad, incompetent teachers, who would be replaced with teachers who can actually do the job properly.

[Svartalf]

if we go back to an evergetic system where the citizens personally take charge of public works, rather than just anonymously pooling taxes into a general budget, you'll have a point.
Save your considerations for situations where they are at least remotely relevant.

[Seth]

if we go back to an evergetic system where the citizens personally take charge of public works, rather than just anonymously pooling taxes into a general budget, you'll have a point.
Save your considerations for situations where they are at least remotely relevant.

Sorry, there is simply no need, and many reasons to prohibit public-sector employee unions.

For one, no public sector job should EVER pay more than the average wage earned in the community of interest, no matter what. Public sector jobs should always be a last-resort place of employment, not jobs where someone goes to make a career. Ensuring that public sector jobs are poorly-paid ensures that few people will want to do them, and it means that the people won't have to pay a lot for their public services and won't have to support public workers in their retirement.

Anything that really needs to be done can be done by hiring private contractors to do the work, which is always better because THEY have a profit motive that drives them to keep labor costs down.

The problem with public sector jobs is that there is absolutely NO incentive whatsoever to keep labor costs down, so public employee wages constantly go up as the bureaucrats in charge of setting those wages pander to the people who will make them look good (or bad), which affects the bureaucrat's pay scale.

That perverse incentive must be carefully controlled by making sure that no public employee (including elected officials) gets paid enough or has enough job security to try to make a sinecure for himself on the public's dime.

It would be far better for there to be NO "public" employees, but only private contractors hired by elected politicians, who themselves make minimum wage.

[Svartalf]

Yeah, right, because public workers being bullied around, and doing their duties in unsafe conditions for substandard wages is JUST the surefire way to ensure that the job that so needs doing that the state hires people to do it rather than just leave it to private initiative is done properly, and equally serves all citizens.

It behooves that the only people to have an education worth mentioning should be the sons of the wealthy who can afford private schools, because public ones should be so underfunded that no teacher worth the salt will work there, and nobody working there will even apply themselves. Do you have enough sense of history to remember what roads were like when building and maintaining them was the province of local government (who'd toll the hell out of anybody using them, and twice as much when it was freight), or when judges were unpaid, or received only a symbolic allowance? (hint, do you know what spices are in judicial parlance?)

[Rum]

The Tory government here subscribe to Seth's approach. They are trying to make it easier for people to set up businesses which provide anything from support to schools (of the kind I used to manage) to social care services and help for the housebound, not to mention more bricks and mortar type functions.

The problem is people can't make a profit out of these things very often without the service being degraded - sometimes massively so.

It is all about the kind of society you want to live and and of course can afford. For people of Seth's ilk any public service paid for by taxes is the first step on the road to ruin. For me and many on the left it is about a struggle for fairness and building a decent environment for us and our children that isn't crumbling around us.

[Seth]

Yeah, right, because public workers being bullied around, and doing their duties in unsafe conditions for substandard wages is JUST the surefire way to ensure that the job that so needs doing that the state hires people to do it rather than just leave it to private initiative is done properly, and equally serves all citizens.

It's public workers who do the bullying...of the taxpayers. There's not a thing that they do that could not be done by a private contractor who competes with other private contractors for the state's business. Absolutely nothing. The ONLY public employees we require are our elected representatives, who should get a salary fixed by a vote of the people.

It behooves that the only people to have an education worth mentioning should be the sons of the wealthy who can afford private schools, because public ones should be so underfunded that no teacher worth the salt will work there, and nobody working there will even apply themselves. Do you have enough sense of history to remember what roads were like when building and maintaining them was the province of local government (who'd toll the hell out of anybody using them, and twice as much when it was freight), or when judges were unpaid, or received only a symbolic allowance? (hint, do you know what spices are in judicial parlance?)

And why shouldn't those who pay to create a road exact a toll from those who use it? And why should those who DON'T use it be compelled to pay for it?

And nobody is suggesting judges be unpaid, merely that they be paid by a contractor who employs them who has competed with other contractors for the contract for judicial services. Judges should be paid what the market thinks they are worth, not what they think they are worth. The same is true for every other public employee.

[Svartalf]

nuh huh

[JimC]

Hogwash, unless the city holds a couple thousand citizens at most, and can work via direct democracy, public employees are functionary of a governmental administration, which, even though the heads may change at 'the people"'s whim, is NOT "the people", and facing such a system, unions are a dire necessity, I've seen first hand what the misuse of personal powers granted to some heads can do, and the workers need checks and balances.

Sorry, but if you work for the people, who pay your wages and will have to pay your pension, then your contract must be subject to THEIR approval, or at least disapproval. By democratic vote, the people of any community should be able to fire ANY government employee at ANY time. Only in this way is public corruption to be controlled. Just think of Blago and his cronies. If the public had been able, by referendum, to fire everyone in his office they thought connected to corruption, even if he didn't agree, he would have been far less free to engage in corruption.

With teachers it's particularly necessary that parents in a school district be able to fire a bad teacher, because teacher's unions exist to protect bad teachers and prevent them from getting fired, which should not be permitted. A simple vote by the parent OF THE SCHOOL, or indeed the parents of students taught by a particular teacher should be enough to terminate that teacher. After all, it is the parents who are being compelled to grant in loco parentis powers to the teacher and who are being compelled to place their trust, and their children's safety and education, in that teacher's hands, so it should be the parents who get to decide if that teacher is allowed to do so. That would quickly weed out the bad, incompetent teachers, who would be replaced with teachers who can actually do the job properly.

Given that I work in a private school, all your points are null and void anyway...

However, it applies equally to my colleagues in government schools, who have a fit and healthy union that can laugh in the face of mindless Amerikan libertarian bullshit...

So stick your ugly political philosophy where the sun don't shine, and fume endlessly as the real world moves on without you...

[Svartalf]

Remember he wants a "no central government" neo feudal approach. Police, justice, military, and other Regalian functions to be performed by private employees of the local lords