Bargaining Rights

First Wisconson, now Ohio. Who’s next? 

As Republicans in some states continue to strip away the collective bargaining rights of unions, according to the USA Today, the majority of Americans strongly oppose these measures. 

According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll, 61 percent of Americans would oppose a law that would take away the bargaining rights of public employees.  33 percent favor it.

 

And if you talk to cops and firefighters in states where these rights are on the chopping block, like in Ohio, it's easy to see why.

According to an article by the Associated Press, "police and firefighters won’t be able to bargain with cities over the number of people required to be on duty. That means they can’t negotiate the number of staff in fire trucks or police cars, for instance."  

Obviously the police and firefighters might be concerned about how many people ride in a squad car with them or run into a burning building with them, it's not just their jobs, but their lives.  

But we should be concerned too.  After all, it's us they are running in for.

It might be easy for some in the private sector to bash teachers, who have things like pensions and health benefits, because the corporations have slowly done away with this kind of thing.

But again, it's our kids, and their brains, that teachers are in charge of every day, eight hours a day.

Perhaps when we try to squeeze a buck from here or there, we should start from the top.  In fact, some estimates claim we could have saved almost a a trillion dollars by eliminated the Bush tax cuts, but that's old news.  

Now all we should do is ask, "are teachers, firefighters and cops really the kind of people we should be holding upside down and shaking for every last dime?"