You're not wrong, but the unions have been pointing to a lot of problems in the railroad industry that may have led to this specific incident. Respecting union rights would be a half measure - really the issue is the major railroads are particularly awful at actually running a railroad (not just this incident, but the whole "precision scheduled railroading" implementation), and should probably be nationalized.

Unions generally do campaign for elected officials. However, that's not a magic wand. The person might not get elected, and they are also not all-powerful.

The ability to strike is a rarely-used tool that is only done when the union feels they have no alternative. It isn't used willy-nilly, or they'd quickly lose all public support, and without public support they have nothing.

Teacher strikes are hard on families? Do you know how hard teacher wages are on teachers? That was a very self centered take and you need to understand that teachers and schools are not your babysitters.

Striking is a fundamental, foundational part of Democracy and Republican government dating all the way back to the Pre-empire Roman Republic.

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The Trump administration loosened the restrictions on hazardous materials on railways. Biden didn't back the unions.

Dems aren't great, but they're still miles better that the GQP. It's the difference between vanilla ice cream with a shit-flavored swirl vs a cup of actual disease-laden shit. We can press the Dems to be better without, "both sides,"-ing our way into Fascism.

Every time I mention a democrat veto proof supermajority doing nothing I get downvoted by MA liberals who are too nervous to realize they can’t blame republicans in MA

"I'm not anti union I just repeat anti union memes and don't say anything positive."

In this case, it's less puritans & more corporate focused politicians.

I just came from VT which started as a whites only cult - I promise I won't be too shocked lol.

Districts have been low balling teachers for years - providing them with a 1-2% raise after dragging on negotiations for a few years. And all the teachers are working without a contract. I think other districts are seeing the success of striking and thinking it’s a risk worth taking. These districts better start negotiating in good faith to avoid strikes.

I have lived in Brasil in places where some people work under other families under a lifelong "contract". Do you actually want to argue that I don't know what serfdom is?

They strike anyway and prosecutors don't investigate and charge those illegal strikes. We should just give them the right to strike. It's just matching the law with reality. A short waiting or negotiation period might be appropriate so strikebreakers could be hired, since those services are essential.

All most kids take away from it is a free vacation.

-source my school went on strike a billion years ago. Not a single kid gave a shit.

Kramer?

You realize in mass teacher contracts go for multiple years and automatically extend if no new contract is ratified, so there isn’t a period when teachers aren’t cover by a contract right? Districts meet various federal and state requirement for grants, PD, and other items during the summer. A summer strike still causes pain for the district, admittedly not as much as during the school year.

Yes- I fully see how strikes are intend to get districts to the table to negotiate, specifically by inconveniencing them. I’m saying that the entity that inflicts that inconvenience and the nature of that convenience should not be a closure of schools, but rather other mechanisms as caused by the state law/reg I’m advocating be out in place.

One example could be an arbitration process. No new contract by x date? Forced arbitration run by the state. To extend the example, look how baseball handles their arbitration, each party (player and team) puts in what they think the pay should be for the next season. The arbitrator, using formulae decided by CBA (in this case it would be state law), determines what the number should be, and picks which ever is closer the player or the teams number. No splitting the difference so no incentive for one side to cook their number, and it frequently incentivizes teams/players to come to agreement before arbitration.

A solid portion of teachers work in the summer in mass, be it summer school, PD, prepping for the upcoming year, that’s all labor they can withhold then that’s critical to the district. Idk where you’re from that teachers don’t work during the summer. I meant “non-teaching” as not with the whole student body in front of them.

Once teachers and districts let things get to a point where students don’t have class because of the dispute, the kids already involved. Idk how you can’t see that.

I quite literally proposed an alternative way to bring about contract agreement.

Teachers work over the summer, obviously not as much as during the normal school year, but there is summer school, PD and other activities.

Yes! The government should’ve done way way more, I blame local districts way more than teachers unions. But at the same time it’s typically 10-20 morons in district/gov doing it. I’m saying the legislation needs to weaken their ability to be that moronic and set up more stringent rules for them to follow in negotiations to prevent work stoppages from that end.

The parents are only part of a voting populace! What about people without kids? Or whose kids are fully grown or two young? Never mind the fact the don’t directly vote for teacher pay but rather school committee members and even then that’s only ever 2 years. Yes- those elected officials may get voted out, but they are insulated until their next election.

This isn’t one kid out for a week. It’s an entire district. We just saw what happened when learned is disrupted, students academic performance and learned regressed massively over the pandemic. We saw how important it was to keep kids in school, and students are still clawing out of it. Any loss of learning is a significant loss and I’m saying state government needs to take action to prevent that from happening while protecting and strengthening teachers. Sure, the most recent strike in Woburn MA, was 1 week, but no one knew how long it would be day 1.

I’m not saying teachers need to be ground to the dirt. I’m saying the state legislature should take this nuclear option off the table and instead tie the hands of districts to negotiate in good faith.

>However, a teacher for example, is given their summer pay as a lump sum at the end of the year instead of being distributed through their working hours. In practice this means that teachers who leave before the school year's end lose 25% of their yearly pay. This would be similar to if you quit your job, 25% of your pay was held as a punishment. No private employer would get away with this.

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Umm... not even close. The pay you get is for 185 work days. If you leave during the year, you will be paid for the number of days you worked. If the amount you were paid doesn't cover all of the days you worked, the difference will be added to your last check.

The "summer pay" you speak of is the district paying out the balance owed on your contract if you decided (or the district required) your pay to be split into 26 checks instead of 21. The only reason why it's doled out in a balloon payment is because the year-to-year contracts expire on June 30 (before the start of the next fiscal year on July 1), so they can't have any remaining obligations on their books.

Teachers only get paid in lump sums at the end if that's how they distribute their paychecks. They still get paid for the days they work, fair and square. You don't lose out on that pay if you quit - that's the same as any other job. It's just chunked up a bit differently.

While I’m sure other districts pay teachers like this, not every single one does and many give individual teachers options (out of a set) on how they want to be paid.

Many other jobs/employers also have claw back provisions on compensation so teachers wouldn’t be unique in this regard.

It's actually the opposite, teachers' passion for education and care for their students is typically held against them to discourage them from striking and demanding better conditions, hence why teaching is one of the most underpaid professions requiring a graduate degree and there is a dire shortage across the country. As someone going into education, I think more teachers need to realize their empathy is being taken advantage of and realize we can only care for students as much as their taxpayer parents do, which as it stands is very little.

What about using made up public safety and made up children as bargaining chips in online arguments?