Time to Support Teachers' and other Public Employees' Rights!

Time to take a stand. The last thing we need to do is to pit public employees against private employees. Unions make easy scapegoats, but the reality is that unionized employees have lost wages and benefits along with everyone else over the last few decades, and the power of unions has greatly declined. Can anyone really think this is just a financial issue? Doesn't this seem to be union busting, pure and simple, with deficit reduction put forward as a convenient justification?

As long as we squabble and fight each other for meager resources, then the trend of stagnant and declining wages for the middle class will continue, while the richest will continue to get richer (and avoid taxes). Hurting public unions will not raise the wages of the average worker. It will hurt everyone--it will continue the expansion of the inequality of wages between the top and bottom earners. And, in case we need the reminder, we need teachers, police officers, fire fighters, and other public employees. 

A good Family and Consumer Scientist stands on the side of what's right, rather than waiting for the right thing to become popular. Support your teachers and all the other hard working public employees. Collective bargaining is, after all, as American as apple pie, and as democratic as the ballot box. 

Let's pay for the things that really matter, and fix the things that are actually broken. And to my Wisconsin brothers and sisters: overcome!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/18/wisconsin-union-protests  

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/11/wage_inequality.html