Parents: Would you support a teacher strike if it means there is no DL?
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Anonymous
Right? It's the worst logic! "Teachers didn't strike!" "Actually they did in November!" "But they're not striking now!" "They're discussing striking!" "You can't talk about them striking!" "Why?" "Because they're not striking a this very moment!" "But teachers are talking about striking." "That doesn't mean YOU can talk about striking!" ...apparently only teachers can talk about striking, and parents are forced to only think about the present, and not potential futures. |
Anonymous
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If DCPS doesn’t get them the numbers (how many students are returning) they can strike! It was agreed upon as a terms of re-opening.
Prediction - many families will not like IPL and will decide to go virtual. DCPS doesn’t need half of its teachers in person. |
Anonymous
Do you know how a strike vote works, sweetie? Maybe try getting off the Internet and picking up a book. Just because the exec board discusses a strike vote doesn’t mean there will be a strike. It doesn’t even mean there will be a vote! Teachers are literally TEACHING IN PERSON CLASSES RIGHT NOW! Some of you will just never be happy. |
Anonymous
| Some of us don’t really give a shit about whether the union strikes or doesn’t, but are managing the expectations of our six year olds and needing to cover childcare in the event of a strike. If it’s all talk, so be it. But it’s a first step to a strike and provoking uncertainty during an already chaotic process. If you don’t want to view the discussion, or it annoys you, why must we stop? |
Anonymous
Actually yes, because I was a union leader for a much larger union. We would not engage in this sort of saber-rattling unless we thought an actual strike was possible; otherwise, we would be compromising our power and negotiating position. If you threaten an action that you are not capable of or willing to do, you demonstrate your weakness and lack of solidarity to management. Your argument seems to be that they are considering a strike but that we should not be concerned that one may be impending. This only makes sense if the WTU is only slightly better at negotiating than a ripe cantaloupe, although I admit that this is a distinct possibility. |
Anonymous
What? What's not to like about IPL? My kids have been back for weeks and we're not complaining. In-person is clearly going to be loads better than DL for the great majority of families who took spots. This is a no-brainer. |
Anonymous
lol. thank you, labor counsel extraordinaire. |
Anonymous
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The (unnecessarily) condescending union supporter (or maybe member) here who doesn't understand how language works is a great example of how badly the union has communicated.
Unless....maybe that person is a troll? If so, A+ trolling. Very inspirational. If the goal was to madden parents, you are a champion. |
Anonymous
No. They can actually ARBITRATE per their agreement. Not strike. The same sort of arbitration they just lost. |
Anonymous
With your experience, I'd be interested in your impression of the WTU leadership actions the past few months. I haven't watched closely the whole time, but much of what I've seen has been closer to your "ripe cantaloupe" end of the scale in terms of messaging and getting outmaneuvered. It's hard to imagine other unions blindly walking themslves into the same situations. |
Anonymous
LOL, this |
Anonymous
Do you know how a strike vote works, sweetie? Maybe try getting off the Internet and picking up a book. Just because the exec board discusses a strike vote doesn’t mean there will be a strike. It doesn’t even mean there will be a vote! Teachers are literally TEACHING IN PERSON CLASSES RIGHT NOW! Some of you will just never be happy. Hello. I would like to introduce you to the future conditional tense: https://www.englishpage.com/conditional/futureconditional.html You may also be interested in learning about the future subjunctive tense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood This was covered in middle school. |
Anonymous
I concur. Liz Davis is leading the union to its downfall. |
Anonymous
I'd also be interested in your opinion here. Sorry you wasted so much energy on a strange semantic back and forth instead. I think parents are justifiably nervous that this will still all fall apart later this week, or month! One day back while there are still teachers protesting with signs and caravans the prior weekend does not feel very stable. |
Anonymous
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PP, former union leader here:
So, this is obviously bad. First, there's a clear solidarity problem within the union, where you do have union members saying they don't support what their union is doing, posting internal emails here, etc. That doesn't bode well for collective action, especially a strike which will leave each member legally vulnerable. The WTU membership would have to be VERY serious and VERY committed in order to pull off a strike, but it seems like they're not. This suggests to me that if we're aware of it, management is aware of it. This is why management is pre-emptively invoking the courts--to remind members of their potential legal peril. Now, we have all seen clear communication from the WTU about a vague threat of a strike. This was a bad move for a couple of reasons. They've tipped their hand and allowed management to prepare ahead of time AND by saying they're calling for a vote, they're indicating that they don't know if the whole membership is on board. You do not ever want management to realize that you don't have enough people on board to strike meaningfully. This is basically your main union power, and once its gone, your union is toothless. They went into this completely frivolously. It's appalling strategy. There are basically two outcomes: they demonstrate that they can't/aren't willing to strike, reducing the power of the WTU immensely or they do strike and put themselves in extreme legal peril, which could cause enough damage to destroy the union. The best thing they could do right now is to stop talking about it and act like they never said anything. |