While thinking about garbage-collection workers, make room for teachers
Priority check time: Garbage-collection workers are already paid more than teachers. Which can we afford to upgrade first? [“Strike looms as talks continue,” NWTuesday, March 30.]
As long as society values garbage collection more than education, we will remain knee-deep in muck. A good garbage strike will only give us a deeper pile to sort through.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m as pro-union as they come. Garbage collection is one of society’s highly necessary and most dangerous jobs. Union workers have every right to stand up to unfair management practices of intimidation, mandatory overtime, threats of job loss and more. Lets not get into exposure to disease, violence and daily backbreaking toil.
How is this a different for a teacher?
In some schools, the psychological intimidation factor from administrative superiors and students would curdle your coffee on a regular basis. Mandatory overtime is written into the contract and covered under professional expectations —it comes with the job and it is unpaid.
Threats of job loss and more? After three years, teachers are impossible to cut loose without just cause and a good lawyer, but wait until June when budget cuts hit home. We’ll see what a guarantee of employment means when the pink slips go out.
— Al Tietjen, Seattle
Workers don’t realize how lucky they are
Is the union insane or simply hubristic?
With unemployment hovering at 10 percent, they should be glad to have jobs at all.
Let’s face it — garbage collection doesn’t require an advanced degree. There are many able-bodied people who would jump at the chance to make the kind of money and get the benefits garbage collectors receive.
If the garbage collectors go on strike, I hope Waste Management and Allied Waste will have the guts to hire permanent replacement workers. Some people don’t know when they’re well off.
— Daniel Gilmore, Des Moines