Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Time to do the labor cuts

I think there is merit to the idea of putting the brakes on the benefits and salaries of public employees including our Ohio Education Association.

If we look at all of the evidence around us we see time and again where Ohio schools are not keeping up with the other states in this nation and especially those that have large populations and a sizable industrial base.

Unions tend to promote mediocrity, they tend protect the slackers and they break the spirit of those that would be productive. Even with the smaller raises that the Pickerington board recently gave to the Pickerington Teachers Association, I believe that raise went to everyone. I doubt that it gave any consideration for merit.

So then why do the law makers in Columbus continue to impose mandates on local school districts? I would guess that is because many of the students trying to enter into the Ohio Colleges still must take remedial classes before they begin their actual College level classes. In short our High Schools are still failing.

My father worked for the City of Columbus. His salary was very low when compared to what he could make at other private jobs but he had great job security and benefits. His only labor recourse was through a Civic Service Board that would hear labor grievances. Today that same job is represented by ASCME and they can and will go on strike if they don?’t get their way.

The question Ohio must answer is things better now since we have raised public salaries above the comparable private wages? Do we get more and better services? In Franklin County we have the Children Services workers complaining that they don?’t want to pay more for their health insurance. What they are saying is that the non-public employees and taxpayers must pay their deductibles and co-payments. Many of us in the private sector are just happy to have health insurance let alone worry about who pays the deductibles.

These employees at Franklin County Children Services will next parade out the children they care for and use that leverage to get their contract approved to their liking. Who pays? As Mr. Rigelman said it is still the same pair of pants.

Then there are the Columbus Public School teachers and their threat to strike. The is their ?“work to the rule.?” That is working just their obligated 7.5 hours per day. Now where in the world could someone get a part time job and get paid $70,000 to teach second grade?

It is time for our state to grab the bull by the horns and end this insanity. If public employees what to have all of the benefits then they must not have the right to strike. If they retain that right to strike then we should privatize the state schools much like we have had to do with the prison system.

To pay our public employees the salaries and benefits we currently do is bankrupting the entire state. It is time to move the state?’s public employees into the 21st century to compete like the rest of the private sector jobs.

Remember out of a $70,000,000 PLSD operating budget nearly $9,000,000 goes into the teacher?’s retirement.

Teachers' Salaries

I'm not as concerned with the current level of teachers' salaries, or with the collective bargaining system, as some may be.

In comparing their own compensation to what they could earn in the private sector, teachers do need to remember that they work only nine months each year, that their retirement benefits are far better than anyone could get in the private sector these days, that the same goes for their medical benefits, and that they generally have far greater job security than most folks in the private sector can find.

On the other hand, teachers' salaries probably average only in the $40,000 to $50,000 range; $70,000 is near the top of the scale. Teachers are subject to far more onerous continuing education requirements than most other professions. And if teachers today are anything like those I remember from my own days as a student or as a teacher, they take work home most evenings and weekends.

Having grown up the son of a poor truck driver, who was able to eke out a middle class living only due to the strength of his union, I have been a lifelong supporter of collective bargaining. The individual worker is no match for the typical employer.

In my years on the school board, I found the PEA to be a conscientious and responsible organization. The bargained hard, but they bargained fairly. Our main problem in the PLSD is that the school board left bargaining, almost entirely, to an administration that had an inherent conflict of interest in the process, since their compensation and benefits generally followed the teachers'. If I'd had my 'druthers, no administrator would even have had a seat at the bargaining table. The school board should do its own bargaining. Anyone on the board who feels that he or she is not up to that is unqualified to remain on the board and should resign.

If at all possible, I think that we do, as a society, need to compensate teachers at a level that is competitive with what they could earn in the private sector. Until we can steal math and science teachers from private industry and private research institutes, our level of education in those fields will never equal that available in other modern countries.

That does not mean that the PLSD should act unilaterally to raise compensation to those levels. We can't afford it, due largely to our current Ohio public school funding structure.

Also, in return for market compensation, teachers need to face the same demands and expectations that they would face in the private sector. Nonperforming teachers should be weeded out. Teachers should never be hired for their coaching proficiencies, as they clearly are in the PLSD. Compensation should, to at least some degree, be based on merit.

Teachers and Teamsters

I think we are missing the point here if we try to compare a high school educated truck driver trying to deliver goods working for a large trucking outfit and represented by the Teamsters. I would think it is important for an employee with little or no control over their work place to demand and organize within a union. If in this case, the Teamsters were to demand too much and price them selves out of the market with other trucking companies then the company either sells out their contracts or other trucking companies take over their routes and customers. We have seen that happen in the union racks in recent years.

In the case of Public School teachers, who are all college educated and suppose to be professional their working hours and times at school are regulated by state law. A public school is not like a for profit business. The public school elects members of the community to over see the operation of the schools and their employees. If the local teachers price them selves out of the market like the example above there is no alternatives like in private business. Our children are mandated to be educated. We simply can?’t turn over the public school business to another company or let them go out of business.

Mr. Rigelman?’s example makes my point. Yet we continue to allow these teachers to have the right to strike and they are not getting the job done because they can protect the weak teachers in the system. No amount of money or massive State aid will EVER allow us to make our public schools as proficient as the Ohio General Assembly would like and certainly never to the expectations of the parents.

This debate will continue to rage until we address the collective bargaining of Ohio?’s Public employees.


Over 80% of the private workers and employees in this country work without any union protection so why should teachers be any different?

I see your point, but

I guess there is some difference between a blue collar private sector employee, and a college educated public employee. And you are correct that most of us do not belong to unions these days, and have no collective bargaining rights. That includes me.

However, I still believe that an individual employee, left to his or her own, is no match for most employers. That includes even people like me. Furthermore, we receive the treatment we do, in many cases, because our employers fear that, if we are mistreated, we will organize. So, in a sense, unions even protect those of us who do not belong to them. In any case, I can never forget where I came from, and so will always support unions and collective bargaining.

I do agree with you, however, that teachers need to be held accountable, and that poor teachers need to be weeded out. The poorest teachers, in my experience, are coaches who attempt to teach social studies. There seems a strong tendency to treat history as a ''throw-away'' subject, which I find deplorable. So often, schools hire coaches, and then try to find something for them to teach. Believe me, we do that in Pickerington. We need to stop that practice, and begin correcting some of our past mistakes.