No improvements for you says the Union

[torpid]

This reminds me of the episode of This American Life about the school maintenance guy who was both a union rep and manager (and terrorist).

 

[FDF12389]

While it's easy to villify unions in a case like this, it's really not the heart of the problem. The problem starts with legislators who underfund the public education system

No, our public education isn't underfunded, we just aren't using the money efficiently.

 

[Mxylplyx]

While it's easy to villify unions in a case like this, it's really not the heart of the problem. The problem starts with legislators who underfund the public education system, which pretty much forces school administration to cut services like maintenance. The school administrators are often culpable themselves, as they are more interested in protecting their own salaries than in spreading the money around in places where it will more likely help the children. The maintenance guys are just watching their own asses; they probably WANT to install the racks for the kids, but their hands are tied by the budget crisis that they had absolutely nothing to do with. And while it's noble for you to volunteer to do the work for free, ultimately, that takes away from a job that they get paid to do. If someone came into your office and offered to do your job for free, you'd oppose it too if it meant that you wouldn't be paid.

So, yes, I agree that the situation is fucked up. But putting all the blame on the guys in the union and none on the people who control the money isn't fair. Increase the budget for the school district so they have more money to spend on "non-priority" services like maintenance and this problem never would have come up.

If there is more work that needs to be done than labor or capital to do it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with accepting donated labor and materials to accomplish the task. If some union guy claims that isnt fair, even when he has more work than he's capable of doing, then fuck him. Given that this is taxpayer funded overhead, ANY offer from the community for free services should be accepted. Less burden on the taxpayer. The point of the funding is to get the work done, not give a maintenance man a job.

 

[ShawnD1]

While it's easy to villify unions in a case like this, it's really not the heart of the problem. The problem starts with legislators who underfund the public education system, which pretty much forces school administration to cut services like maintenance.

wut?
USA has the most expensive schools in the entire world. Where is this lack of funds you talk about?

 

[bignateyk]

I had a union grievance filed against me one time for moving my computer from my old office to my new office one floor up.

 

[Ns1]

While it's easy to villify unions in a case like this, it's really not the heart of the problem. The problem starts with legislators who underfund the public education system, which pretty much forces school administration to cut services like maintenance. The school administrators are often culpable themselves, as they are more interested in protecting their own salaries than in spreading the money around in places where it will more likely help the children. The maintenance guys are just watching their own asses; they probably WANT to install the racks for the kids, but their hands are tied by the budget crisis that they had absolutely nothing to do with. And while it's noble for you to volunteer to do the work for free, ultimately, that takes away from a job that they get paid to do. If someone came into your office and offered to do your job for free, you'd oppose it too if it meant that you wouldn't be paid.

So, yes, I agree that the situation is fucked up. But putting all the blame on the guys in the union and none on the people who control the money isn't fair. Increase the budget for the school district so they have more money to spend on "non-priority" services like maintenance and this problem never would have come up.

...or the maintenance guy could say "i won't file a grievance against you if you do this"

 

[ShawnD1]

I had a union grievance filed against me one time for moving my computer from my old office to my new office one floor up.

God damn that must have sucked. My office moved all the way across town, and we did it ourselves. Pack our own stuff, load it into the truck ourselves, one of the engineers drove the truck, we unpacked it ourselves, we set it up ourselves. Since we were the ones loading and unloading stuff, we didn't lose anything. I knew exactly where my computer was, and I had it up and running the same day we moved into the new office.

 

[Dirigible]

I've run into that sort of thing when my mountain biking group has volunteered to maintain and improve trails in local parks. Not allowed. So the trails go to shit.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

While it's easy to villify unions in a case like this, it's really not the heart of the problem. The problem starts with legislators who underfund the public education system, which pretty much forces school administration to cut services like maintenance. The school administrators are often culpable themselves, as they are more interested in protecting their own salaries than in spreading the money around in places where it will more likely help the children. The maintenance guys are just watching their own asses; they probably WANT to install the racks for the kids, but their hands are tied by the budget crisis that they had absolutely nothing to do with. And while it's noble for you to volunteer to do the work for free, ultimately, that takes away from a job that they get paid to do. If someone came into your office and offered to do your job for free, you'd oppose it too if it meant that you wouldn't be paid.

So, yes, I agree that the situation is fucked up. But putting all the blame on the guys in the union and none on the people who control the money isn't fair. Increase the budget for the school district so they have more money to spend on "non-priority" services like maintenance and this problem never would have come up.

By what measure is the public education system underfunded?

 

[ShawnD1]

By what measure is the public education system underfunded?

They don't have enough useless shit. Quick! We need to build a new stadium right now. What do you mean fix the roof? Stadiums don't even have a roof!

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

By what measure is the public education system underfunded?

They can't afford shelves.

 

[kranky]

The "taking work away" only applies when there will be loss of income or loss of job. Neither applies in this case. Every maintenance person will still work the same hours and get the same pay, so there is no legit reason for them to complain.

I do understand the mentality, though, having been in a union myself. Their position will be "if you let this happen once, you set a precedent and you can't object later on if they do it again. Why, if we don't stop this right now, a year from now there will be volunteers sweeping the school and they'll lay off half our members." It's total nonsense, of course, because you could always address such things on a case-by-case basis.

We had a similar situation last year when a community group did a "clean up day" along the banks one of the bigger streams in the area. The county workers union made them stop because that was a union job. The last time they had union workers cleaning up that area was in 2005, but no matter - the public was not allowed to pick up the trash, because someday, eventually, some union member might be assigned to do it!

If the union claims it's a union job, there ought to be some time period where the work actually is going to be performed. After a year of inaction, it should be clear to the union that they are obviously too busy to ever get to putting up the shelves, so they are putting nothing at risk by letting a volunteer do it.

We once had to run 5 Ethernet cables from one office to the next. My boss told me to contact the maintenance department to get the work done. They told me we were required to have a millwright, a carpenter, an electrician, and a general maintenance guy. I could not touch anything.

The millwright decided how the work would be done. I suppose that was because they believed there was some obscure possibility that an actual machine would somehow be involved.
The general maintenance guy removed the necessary ceiling tiles.
The carpenter put the hole in the wall.
The electrician ran the cables through the new hole.
The carpenter stuffed a piece of foam in the hole.
The general maintenance guy put the tiles back.
The electrician terminated the cables.
The millwright declared the work finished satisfactorily.

All 4 people were there for the entire process which took about an hour and a half (approximately 20 minutes of actual work), costing about $500 + materials.

After my boss got the bill, he told me that to protect me from getting in trouble, he would not ask me to make any arrangements for new cable runs in the future. But from time to time, new cables would appear without anyone knowing (or even caring) how it got done. I'm sure my boss came in on a Saturday and did it himself.

 

[torpid]

By what measure is the public education system underfunded?

Depends on the district, but there are certainly districts here that are underfunded. And any time a referendum comes along to fix serious building issues, it fails lately.

 

[ShawnD1]

They can't afford shelves.

Screw shelves. What we need is a new basketball court and new basketballs. We also need to replace the tiles near the swimming pool then put plamsa televisions in the hallways so students can read announcements instead of just listening to the existing PA system.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

.

If they actually did something then sure, whatever.

They just sit around for awhile while the situation worsens and do nothing while there are people with the free time to do so that cannot do it because NOOO THE UNION WORKERS WONT HAVE A JOB!!!

Forget the kids the union workers are only concerned about themselves.

This is like government making a job that does not exist.

Holes being dug and filled up again is all the government is good for.

 

[Spikesoldier]

The "taking work away" only applies when there will be loss of income or loss of job. Neither applies in this case. Every maintenance person will still work the same hours and get the same pay, so there is no legit reason for them to complain.

I do understand the mentality, though, having been in a union myself. Their position will be "if you let this happen once, you set a precedent and you can't object later on if they do it again. Why, if we don't stop this right now, a year from now there will be volunteers sweeping the school and they'll lay off half our members." It's total nonsense, of course, because you could always address such things on a case-by-case basis.

We had a similar situation last year when a community group did a "clean up day" along the banks one of the bigger streams in the area. The county workers union made them stop because that was a union job. The last time they had union workers cleaning up that area was in 2005, but no matter - the public was not allowed to pick up the trash, because someday, eventually, some union member might be assigned to do it!

If the union claims it's a union job, there ought to be some time period where the work actually is going to be performed. After a year of inaction, it should be clear to the union that they are obviously too busy to ever get to putting up the shelves, so they are putting nothing at risk by letting a volunteer do it.

We once had to run 5 Ethernet cables from one office to the next. My boss told me to contact the maintenance department to get the work done. They told me we were required to have a millwright, a carpenter, an electrician, and a general maintenance guy. I could not touch anything.

The millwright decided how the work would be done. I suppose that was because they believed there was some obscure possibility that an actual machine would somehow be involved.
The general maintenance guy removed the necessary ceiling tiles.
The carpenter put the hole in the wall.
The electrician ran the cables through the new hole.
The carpenter stuffed a piece of foam in the hole.
The general maintenance guy put the tiles back.
The electrician terminated the cables.
The millwright declared the work finished satisfactorily.

All 4 people were there for the entire process which took about an hour and a half (approximately 20 minutes of actual work), costing about $500 + materials.

After my boss got the bill, he told me that to protect me from getting in trouble, he would not ask me to make any arrangements for new cable runs in the future. But from time to time, new cables would appear without anyone knowing (or even caring) how it got done. I'm sure my boss came in on a Saturday and did it himself.

liberals will find a way to think your boss is compensated more than the average union jackoff so he deserves to come in to do the job by himself for free, to see the extreme working conditions our poor union members must suffer on the job. i mean he is RICH im sure he makes over 90K a year. 90 THOUSAND A YEAR!!!! hes loaded!

 

[Gunslinger08]

No, our public education isn't underfunded, we just aren't using the money efficiently.

Seriously, talk to some teachers. The money is there to do what needs to be done, it's just spent on other things that aren't necessary. Schools don't need 5+ vice principals, guidance counselors, PE instructors, etc. They also don't need smartboards in every classroom, iPads or laptops for every kid, wifi, sports programs that lose money, etc. They need small class sizes, teachers who are held accountable for their students test scores, and parents who actually care about their children.

 

[torpid]

Schools don't need guidance counselors and PE? That's news to me...

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Am I in bizzaro world? I'm anti-union, but typicall the posters here are rabid pro-unioners.
Weird to see such a concensus against unions.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Schools don't need guidance counselors and PE? That's news to me...

I meant 5 or more of them. And I don't really think PE is a necessary part of school anyway. Teach the health section in the standard science courses. Actually exercising isn't something a school needs to be responsible for. That's a parenting thing.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

liberals will find a way to think your boss is compensated more than the average union jackoff so he deserves to come in to do the job by himself for free, to see the extreme working conditions our poor union members must suffer on the job. i mean he is RICH im sure he makes over 90K a year. 90 THOUSAND A YEAR!!!! hes loaded!

I thought 60k was absolutely outrageous for salaries? No one in a school should be making over 25k a year period.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

While it's easy to villify unions in a case like this, it's really not the heart of the problem. The problem starts with legislators who underfund the public education system, which pretty much forces school administration to cut services like maintenance. The school administrators are often culpable themselves, as they are more interested in protecting their own salaries than in spreading the money around in places where it will more likely help the children. The maintenance guys are just watching their own asses; they probably WANT to install the racks for the kids, but their hands are tied by the budget crisis that they had absolutely nothing to do with. And while it's noble for you to volunteer to do the work for free, ultimately, that takes away from a job that they get paid to do. If someone came into your office and offered to do your job for free, you'd oppose it too if it meant that you wouldn't be paid.

So, yes, I agree that the situation is fucked up. But putting all the blame on the guys in the union and none on the people who control the money isn't fair. Increase the budget for the school district so they have more money to spend on "non-priority" services like maintenance and this problem never would have come up.

But their dollar would go further if they didn't have to deal with the unions.
The only people left in America that care about unions are those that benefit from them. They only care because they know they are screwing everyone by forcing employers to pay higher wages than what the job really requires.

 

[MotionMan]

No, our public education isn't underfunded, we just aren't using the money efficiently.

It is very easy to know how I will vote on any proposition: If it involves any new money to the government (be it a "tax", "fee" or by any other name), I will vote against it. I will continue to do so until the government can show me that they will spend it wisely.

I firmly believe that the government (local, state, regional, national) brings in plenty of money, they just piss it away. The California state government in particular. School districts are some of the worst offenders.

MotionMan

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Am I in bizzaro world? I'm anti-union, but typicall the posters here are rabid pro-unioners.
Weird to see such a concensus against unions.

Where have you been posting the last several years... ATOT/PN are generally rabidly anti-union. I'm personally more of a lets look at this with some reason kind of person, but that pits me against the rabid no matter what side they're on.

 

[MotionMan]

do it anyway

install them at night like a ninja

This. I bet the union guy would not even notice because that would take effort.

BTW, go look up "ghost gang".

MotionMan