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People should be free to choose what is best for themselves as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others to do the same. I created this blog to discuss issues I have with big government, liberal media,and to talk about my support for capitalism and the Iraq War.
2 comments:
While I am generally pro-union, I don't dislike this contest. The thing I hate worst about unions is when it does protect bad teachers (of which there are plenty). Mainly because this makes both the union look bad and teachers look even worse. However, unions can do good for their membership.
I have two basic thoughts about this, I haven't thought either completely through but:
1. You could make the argument that no government employees should be allowed to unionize, and instead their worker's rights should be ensured by the voters. For normal employees, it's important to allow employees to unionize because consumers don't have much control over how employees are treated; therefore unions are useful to make sure that the balance between employee rights/pay and corporate profit/efficiency is maintained. Since voters do have control over the government, and since we care more about ensuring government efficiency because the voters have to pay for it, maybe we shouldn't have unions for government employees. But I'm not really sure that this would work.
2. I think this may be another issue where campaign finance reform is the reasonable solution. Teacher's unions (and other government-employee unions) have a particularly high stake in elections, because they're essentially electing their bosses and therefore want to elect people who will give them raises and job security. Therefore teachers (and other government employees) become very vocal and active advocates for their candidates, making them a very valuable demographic, ensuring that whoever gets elected will be in favor of strong teacher's unions. Campaign finance reform would make support from the teacher's unions much less important to candidates, allowing them to have more practical approaches to these issues.
I know that you believe 'giving people money == free speech', but as far as I can see, the influence on politicians created by campaign contributions and lobbyists just keeps creating more and more problems that you are upset about. I think you may eventually have to choose which you care about more.
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