Crying Wolf, Take II ...

When I began reading Mr. Bob Herbert's column this morning, I was hopeful -- he's one of the few columnists these days, it seems, who still remembers what it's like to have his feet on the ground, in my humble opinion.

Rarely do we see a column starting out with old-time reporting tactics -- telling the stories of real people out there, where the writer subsumes his own opinions in telling the real-life stories of others.

Sadly, while his reporting was welcome -- of unemployed people struggling to keep their heads above water -- his conclusions today are off.

Those who still think of unionized teachers, police officers and firefighters as "working class", instead of protected government class, are living in the past. Some posts back, I referenced my work at the WPPA -- Wisconsin Professional Police Association union. At the time, we worked in a rented building at 340 Coyier Lane in Madison. Down the street from Badger Bowl, and fenced in by the Beltline, it was in the kind of neighborhood where you took care after hours, if you came in late from a roadtrip say, or wanted to stop into the office after dark.

Down the lane from us, past the newly installed roundabout, was the newly built Wisconsin Education Association Council union, -- WEAC building* -- (compound is perhaps a better word?) --, at 33 Nob Hill Road. With the help of Google maps, you can see what an amazing piece of property they purchased there, and built upon. All paid by mandatory union dues. The parking lot alone was a masterpiece, and even my fellow police union brethren used to refer to it as a type of Taj Mahal for teachers...

In Googling today, I see the WPPA itself has now moved to a rental suite in a fancy building on John Nolen Drive. Not that there's anything wrong with that, necessarily. As I mentioned, we rented, and the building itself was in need of general maintenance upkeep -- perhaps it was more cost efficient to move.

However:
When we read of the end of collective bargaining, for teachers say, and perhaps cops, we ought to be honest about what's really being curtailed, and what's being promised. If I wanted to serve as a public school teacher, why shouldn't I have the right to CHOOSE whether or not I wanted to be collectively represented by the unions -- paying the mandatory dues that go into financing the "Taj Mahal" building, and all the well-paid administrative staff that now works in those fancy offices.

If I came up conservatively -- knowing my dimes from dollars in a necessarily aware fiscal environment -- why should I be forced to help these unions grow ... beyond most columnists' wildest dreams? If the public unions have no self restraint themselves, taking in the dues monies and hiring essentially lobbyists to work the Madison political circles, wouldn't it be a better balance to allow the workers themselves -- the classroom teachers and beat cops -- to decide whether they and their families could better spend the dues money, which if you calculate over a full working career, adds up to plenty?

If I am the type of insurance customer who rarely or never puts in a claim, and I'm the type of cop or teacher who never faces disciplinary action or needs the union "protections", why must I necessarily join the others and throw in my lot with the rest? Why -- in order to serve as a teacher in a Wisconsin public classroom -- must I be required to support the WAY LARGE teachers' union, and help them build up like this, with "benefits" well beyond basic job protections?

I like Mr. Herbert's work, in general. He doesn't go for the cheap laughs, not realizing the rest of the country is no longer laughing, nor do I think he is plain out-of-touch with workers who struggle, and has no daily contact with such folk.

But I do think he ought to come to 33 Nob Hill Road. He ought to enter those buildings -- the WEAC credit union and trust, as I understand it, are housed separately -- and ask himself if all this is really necessary to protect teachers and benefit public education, or if there is a new white-collar government-administrative class to these organizations, that need their powers necessarily curtailed in order to best spend the money the public still does contribute, in the wisest fashion.

If not now, when?
If not us, who?
If not voluntarily -- competing to convince workers that these protections and services indeed benefit their families and communities as a whole -- then tell me: how big can they grow before they necessarily collapse under their own (greedy) weight?

This union-choice fight really isn't about protecting the "working class" public servants at all; truth be told, it hasn't been, for some time now.

Open your eyes; look up to the skies and see...


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*If you click the link for that map, and zoom in, please note that the large building above the Google marker, as well as the surrounding lots, are ALL part of the Madison WEAC administrative buildings. Really, it's only possible to do the ... people's work in such luxurious surroundings? Nevermind the need to build up the administrative staff levels to actually fill those buildings.

Think of the teachers throughout the state whose pocketbooks could be full of that cash, or at least spent more wisely as the actual workers themselves see fit, at the local levels.

Bring back the Choice, and the Competition will follow. Then, who knows? Maybe MORE of our American public classrooms and schools can begin to lift themselves, and become truly great once again.

Hope for Change!

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ADDED: Always good to find sympathetic friends in the comments sections:

nelson9NJ
February 26th, 2011 2:16 pm

This makes me mad.

I am sorry for the people in this story, and the people having hard times who do not make it into newspaper stories.

But I do not like the sly mixing by the columnist of these people with well-paid and well-protected unionized workers. Policemen, firemen, teachers, auto-plant employees all make far more than I ever did as a teacher (starting salary $10,500 because I had an M.A.; otherwise it would have been 10 even). And then have terrific insurance as well as pensions that, if less than what they counted on, sound pretty good to me.

I do not like painting millionaires and billionaires, bankers and businessmen, as single glob of evil driving to penury the out-of-work truck drivers and the union members who do not want to pay anything for their own health insurance.

Frankly, I think it is the millions of union workers, especially government workers whose every dime, including the double-dip dime that is common in New Jersey, is paid by me. And I think it is this element, not Warren Buffet, not Bill Gates, not reputable businessmen and bankers, who are taking from the least among us.

School superintendents where I live make in excess of 200k a year. The cops, some of whom I gave poor grades when I taught high school, make 60 and above, and can do anything they like short of murder in front of a few hundred witnesses, without penalty. The blue line, you know. The firemen have it made too. The unionized workers at big plants are set, as long as they keep their jobs.

These are the people with whom the unemployed trucker and his ill wife are losing out to.