[CTU President Karen Lewis makes a poor argument that Chicago teachers are starving.]
I create this post with my caveat:
I am a member of an association that has its roots in unions. Mine has been a “closed shop” for a number of years, which means that I have no voice in where my dues go, nor do I have an ability to stop my dues. With one exception: I can shuttle my dues over to our law enforcement chaplaincy, which I have done. When I was in Homicide, I saw the Good Works that our LE chaplains did on a daily basis.
That said, I first made $5.79 an hour whilst a Fornicalia deputy sheriff in a coastal county in 1978. And that coastal county had (and still has) one of the highest costs in the state for housing. That wage also included my premium hourly 25-cent “shift differential” for working graveyards.
I never entered law enforcement to cut the proverbial fat hog. I lived month-to-month for, literally, two decades at work. Whatever wage or benefit issues were acquired due to negotiations were such that both sides of the table agreed to it.
In the very best of years, I perhaps acquired a 3% to 5% increase — in the 90s.
In Chicago, however, the city teachers have clearly gone “off the rails.”
Apparently the teachers, identical to Mr Obama, are “tone deaf” in re the tenor of the times.
Chicago: the city where Rahm Emanuel is Mayor. The city that spawned Barack Hussein Obama as a community organizer. The city that embraces William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Reverend Michael Pfleger.
The city that has a higher murder rate than New York. The city that has Draconian gun laws.
Chicago: the city where its teachers want a 16% increase in wages. In 2012! A raise that the teachers turned down. City of Chicago teachers already have the highest average salary in the entire nation. Even more than Fornicalia. That in itself is amazing.
Chicago teachers average $76,000 per year prior to the addition of benefits.
For — dare I portray the obvious here — three months OFF per year.
Frankly, I don’t think even the CEO of Exxon-Mobil acquired a 16% raise this year.
BZ
P.S.
9/11 has been over-done. I’ll let others make that post today.
$76k base, plus bennies. Add 16% and you are at $88,160.
Before bennies.
For, basically, nine month’s work and three months not-so-working months. Roughly $7346.66 per month. With that kind of income, none of them better be in debt to anyone. With that kind of income, they should be living very high on the debt-free cash hog.
However, based on the RESULTS of that kind of spending, I am betting that the majority of them have house payments, car payments, and credit card payments that eat up every penny. What ever is left over, is eaten up. Obviously.
Plus these two other aspects, Cary:
1. Teachers want no examinations to test competence;
2. 79% of Chicago 8th graders CAN NOT READ.
BZ
Hit em with a Ronald Reagan/ATC solution… There are a lot of teachers that would KILL to make $76K and bennies.. Fire these bums and get some REAL teachers…
When RR fired the controllers of PATCO in 1981, I was editor for our in-house association magazine, which was mailed to other union organizations in the United States. In an editorial I supported Reagan for the firing of the striking controllers. The editorial I wrote was featured in commentary in the national AFL/CIO magazine as taking a very daring stand considering it was in polar opposite to what was popular; there was also an intimation in the article that it was a daring stand not only philosophically but physically as well.
BZ
It would be a dream come true if I could make $76,000 a year. What the heck is their complaint??
Fire them and get real teachers in there that want to work and care about the students.
I hope you live in a state where $76,000 isn’t considered lower middle class and you’re killed with taxes and regulations as I am in Fornicalia.
BZ