Is there going to be a revolution in Tennessee?

Bill to stop collective bargaining for teachers passes committee

A bill to stop teachers associations from collective bargain has passed the state Senate Education Committee by a 6 to 3 vote in Nashville this morning.

State Sen. Jim Tracy (R-Shelbyville) is among those who voted for the bill, sponsored by Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro).
The bill states that "no local board of education shall engage in mandatory collective bargaining with a professional employees association or union."


Educators are angry about legislation that would end collective bargaining for teacher associations. Even though state law doesn't allow teachers to strike, they say the union gives them the ability to negotiate pay, insurance and work conditions with local school boards.

http://www.dnj.com/article/20110216/UPDATE/110216006


A blitzkrieg of Republican-sponsored bills to limit the collective bargaining power of teachers unions has been proposed in Indiana, Idaho and Tennessee, as well as in Wisconsin. An article in Education Week published last week outlines the proposed challenges to bargaining, which the publication calls the "foundation of teacher unionism."

Only Tennessee's pending legislation, which would totally abolish collective bargaining rights for teachers, is more restrictive than the legislation Gov. Scott Walker has proposed for all public employees in Wisconsin. If enacted, the Wisconsin law would limit collective bargaining to wages, which are in turn tied to the Consumer Price Index (1.5 percent, last year).

In Indiana and Idaho, collective bargaining for teachers would be restricted to wages and benefits, but would exclude such issues as the length of the school day or hours.

In an odd quirk of timing, a national conference under way in Denver this week focuses on the importance of collaboration between labor and management. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Anne L. Bryant, the executive director of the National School Boards Association, are touting the benefits schools can reap when teachers unions, communities and school leadership work together. Given the unfolding situation here in Wisconsin, the headline on a New York Times story about the Denver meeting seems ironic: "Role for Teachers Is Seen in Solving Schools' Crises."

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/blog/article_de35ed52-3945-11e0-b7a9-001cc4c03286.html

n/t

Starfish.

As in

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

http://www.amazon.com/Starfish-Spider-Unstoppable-Leaderless-Organizations/dp/1591841836/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1297882086&sr=1-1

Brafman and Beckstrom, a pair of Stanford M.B.A.s who have applied their business know-how to promoting peace and economic development through decentralized networking, offer a breezy and entertaining look at how decentralization is changing many organizations. The title metaphor conveys the core concept: though a starfish and a spider have similar shapes, their internal structure is dramatically different—a decapitated spider inevitably dies, while a starfish can regenerate itself from a single amputated leg. In the same way, decentralized organizations, like the Internet, the Apache Indian tribe and Alcoholics Anonymous, are made up of many smaller units capable of operating, growing and multiplying independently of each other, making it very difficult for a rival force to control or defeat them. Despite familiar examples—eBay, Napster and the Toyota assembly line, for example—there are fresh insights, such as the authors' three techniques for combating a decentralized competitor (drive change in your competitors' ideology, force them to become centralized or decentralize yourself). The authors also analyze one of today's most worrisome "starfish" organizations—al-Qaeda—though that group undermines the authors' point that the power of leaderless groups helps to demonstrate the essential goodness and trustworthiness of human beings.

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One might see a pattern here.

from what I read in a headline only yesterday was that the state senate there wants to eliminate the Kentucky public employee pension fund. I don't have a link but DU Google is your friend.

I googled it, it's true.


Carry on, regardless

We must stop these Republicans NOW!

every time you make me think I can't me more embarrassed to live here you go and prove me wrong.

to destroy teachers and their unions
and now he is trying to sing a different tune??

so you will see this explained... Winsconsin is just the first step