Chicago Teachers Hit The Streets

[makattak]

As a fed.gov I'm on board with this.

But just to play devil's advocate for a sec.

An employee of a private sector buisness that feels they are doing awesome work and deserve a raise often can go to their manager, or one manager farther up the chain.  My wife's manager at the hospital has the athority to decide her peoples raises with a cap given as max amount for the best person.  A good friend is a project lead at Jabil Circut and tells me that he has athority over his peoples pay within his project's budget.

If a .gov employee wants a raise*, they need to go to congress.  that's much harder to do as an individual.

*DOD actually has a cash bonus for awesome work program, but even it takes a two-star signature.  Not very approachable.

Only FEDERAL public sector employees have to go to Congress for a raise.

Also having unions negotiate with individuals for whom they are a major contributor (or employed by same) is simply insane. How does it look when a legislator gives a massive new contract to a private sector business that also gives him significant contributions?

[dogmush]

Well, yes, it's corrupt as hell. I didn't say I had a good answer for it.

Honestly, I like my gig as a fed.gov employee. I make a bit less cash then I would doing the same thing in the local private sector, but I gain an employer that doesn't give me a hassle about Army Reserve missions and deployments. But there are places in the fed.gov where good employees get shafted vs. Private sector and as a result we get substandard workers. Not saying unions are the answer. In fact they are almost certainly not.

More just musing out loud.