Judge refuses to send Madison teachers back to work

[kpete]

Source: Journal Sentinal

Judge refuses to send Madison teachers back to work
By Associated Press

Updated: Feb. 18, 2011 7:34 p.m. |

Madison - The Madison School District has gone to court to get teachers back to work, but a judge refused to immediately order teachers back to class.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports the district late Friday filed for an injunction that would bar teachers from taking part in any more work stoppages such as teacher demonstrations that have closed schools three days this week.

Schools have been closed in Madison, Milwaukee and other districts around Wisconsin as teachers call in sick to attend protests at the state Capitol over Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill. Teachers and other state union workers are upset that Walker wants to curtail their collective bargaining rights.

In its filing, the Madison School District characterizes the work stoppage as an illegal strike. Strikes by teachers are prohibited by state law.


Read more: http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/116505078.html

[Starry Messenger]

1. k&r

[Iliyah]

2. Yes

a JUDGE not paid off by the Billionaire's club!!!!

[wilt the stilt]

3. his parents

were probably teachers.

[harun]

4. I am from WI, live in PA now. Many friends of mine on Facebook have been complaining

about the "overpaid" teachers causing them all this trouble. I have unfriended every one of the bastards that talks like that. Idiots. They elect a bunch of Corpo-fascist union busting RW assholes and this is what they get.

[JDPriestly]

5. It takes a couple of years of a beginning teacher's salary

just to pay back student loans. And that is before taxes. Teachers in most places are not overpaid. Administrators are way overpaid in many places.

[harun]

14. Exactly. It is a skilled profession. If you want people to go to school for all those years

and be able to pay back those loans you have to pay them. It is also the pay range that is good for the economy. They pay lots of taxes and buy things. It has been really disheartening to see how much the Corporate Media has got to these people. None of them thinking critically about exactly what these things are doing. Instead they are just expressing outrage at greedy teachers. Disgusting.

[roody]

7. Do they work for cities or counties?

[Tansy_Gold]

32. Teachers generally work for school districts

which are neither county nor municipal.



TG, TT

[AnnieBW]

9. Overpaid my ass!

My Dad taught in Pittsburgh Public Schools for many years. He was definitely NOT overpaid. If those bastards want to take away the Pennsylvania teachers' pensions, I'm driving up to Harrisburg to protest on behalf of my now-retired (and not in good health) father!

[S_B_Jackson]

6. In private sector employment....

it is becoming more common for employers to follow-up on illness claims. If a Wisconsin teacher calls in sick, and is documentably proven to be attending the Madison rallies, does the school district have the authority to discipline up to and possibly including termination of their employment? I know that in a right to work state they do, and I'm uncertain how much protection these teachers have.

Does anyone know?

[plumbob]

10. Seems that this would be a violation of HIPPA, wouldn't it?

Of course, chickenshit management types who don't want to face the consequences of their stupid actions could not care less.

We need to be taking names, for later.

[S_B_Jackson]

12. How exactly is that?

HIPPA protects the information which is in ou medical records as well as any Dr's notes in your files, and your billing and insurance information. It doesn't limit an employer's ability to determine "if" you're sick at all and if it can be determined that one has lied when calling in sick - like, for instance, being seen in the crowd at one of these rallies, or in the crowd at a sporting event, etc - in most private sector employment that can be used against a person. And thus my question.

I'm not by any means encouraging school districts to do this, I was merely wondering - given their collective bargaining agreement - how MUCH latitude do school administrations have in this regard?

[plumbob]

26. I don't know about Wisconsin. In Texas, teachers have two kinds of leave -

state and local. The state leave is five days per year and accumulates if not used.

Texas teachers are entitled to five days of paid leave each year, usable for any reason the teacher chooses - personal illness, family illness, travel, family business, mental health day, or any other reason the teacher wants, no questions asked.

These are colloquially called "none of your business" days, because no reason need be given, no documentation required. After many years of teaching, I have accumulated 93 of these days, so I could actually take off a paid semester and 3 days with pay and no questions.

In addition, districts grant various amounts of "local leave." Commonly five more days, these days may not accumulate and may be limited to family illness, personal illness, funeral leave for up to second degree family members, and so on. Only if these days are taken all five at once may any documentation be required, which would be in the form of a standard note from a doctor stating that a family member had been treated, without naming the person, illness, or duration; a clipping from the paper for the funeral would be sufficient. In reality, in three decades of teaching, under numerous superintendents and principals, I have never been asked to document any local leave.

That's all I know, really, because all my teaching has been in Texas. But it seems that if a staunch right to work state like this has this much protection, that surely a state like Wisconsin, where collective bargaining for public employees began, would have at least that much.

[S_B_Jackson]

29. Thanks for the info!

And very good to hear that this approach couldn't be used to punish teachers for speaking up for their collective bargaining rights.

[Carolina]

18. don't know the answer to your

question but those calling in sick can genuinely claim sick because as Fannie Lou Hamer said: they are "sick and tired of being sick and tired!"

Their decision to strike may be a dangerous one but as Hamer also said: "The only thing they could do to me was to kill me, and it seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember." Touche! Isn't that what Walker and his kindred repukes have been trying to do: kill the unions, kill the jobs, kill the middle class?

Hamer was an inspirational figure in the struggle for civil rights who died in March 1977 at the young age of 59... sick and tired... of the crap. May these bold workers continue on in the struggle for workers' rights because they too are REALLY SICK AND TIRED of the crap!

[Tansy_Gold]

35. Thank you for remembering Fannie Lou Hamer n/t

[Lifelong Protester]

22. In most districts, no. your contract spells out if you need to have a

doctor's note. Most, not. Usually teachers have 6-10 days a year of sick leave, and maybe can accumulate up to 30-50.

If you are mentally unfit (emotional health is in jeopardy) you should call in sick. Like you're worried sick...

I would.

[24601]

31. Falsifying time & attendance records with bogus sick notes is not

trivial as it may seem on the surface. I've been a state & federal service for over 38 years and have seen people getting fired & sometimes can get a criminal record. Forget about just administrative actions like firing an AWOL teacher & medical license revocation, since the sick notes establish the basis for being paid while absent from work, this can lead to fraud & conspiracy charges.

[frazzled]

8. That is great news

I know we've had a lot of fights on this board on various positions the unions have taken, including the teachers' unions ... but when push comes to shove and you try to bust them up, we are right there at their backs. Don't mess with the rights of these critical workers. It's never been about the idea of value of unions, which we all support unequivocally. I hope the teachers stand strong. We all stand for the right to collectively bargain, and to achieve a fair wage.

[chill_wind]

11. Good news. K & R n/t

[Occulus]

13. Strikes are always legal.

:evilgrin:

[FBaggins]

15. No. They aren't. But this is NOT a strike.

It's a political action in defense of rights, not a job action against their employer.

They look the same but there's a big difference.

[coalition_unwilling]

16. Strikes aren't always legal, provided there is someone willing to

enforce the law. But when the social contract is rent asunder, the forces willing to enforce "the law" become a contested item, as does "the law" itself. "Law" and "legal" only have meaning when there is a valid social contract. When that contract itself has been abrogated, all bets are off.

[FBaggins]

17. The "social contract is rent asunder"? Hyperbole much?

Nobody is failing to enforce the law in any significant way. (Maybe a few cops don't want to chase down people who are protecting the unions - big deal)... and there are plenty of places where workers don't have collective bargaining rights.

The moral high ground is certainly on our side, and this IS worth fighting for even if we think we'll lose... but the social contract isn't exactly rent asunder.

This is the kind of thing that happens when you lose elections. You don't always get what you want. Then you get to point at the opposition and tell the electorate "See? This is just what I warned you about!" and convince them to make a change at the next opportunity. None of these laws are permanent if the people are on our side... and that is the real social contract.

[coalition_unwilling]

19. Nobody is failing to enforce the law in any significant way? Not yet.

But assume the AFL-CIO, SEIU and AFSCME call a general strike of Wisconsin public sector employees and Walker calls out the National Guard to scab and union bust. Would you still say there is a valid social contract in Wisconsin at that point?

[FBaggins]

20. So all I have to do to make your point...

...is change the scenario from what actually IS happening to something that ISN'T happening and which has almost no chance at all of EVER happening?

Doesn't that effectively make my point for me? :)

[coalition_unwilling]

23. Almost no chance at all of EVER happening? Um, Walker has

already threatened to call out the Wisconsin Guard to scab and union bust (if prison guards' collective bargaining unit were to go out on strike). In fact, Walker's threat is a major part of what galvanized the current protests going on.

[FBaggins]

24. No... almost no chance of ever happening.

Walker has already threatened to call out the Wisconsin Guard to scab and union bust (if prison guards' collective bargaining unit were to go out on strike).

Which is a dramatically different thing. You can't leave a prison unguarded.

In fact, Walker's threat is a major part of what galvanized the current protests going on.

More accurately put, we effectively spun that more reasonable statement (hardly a "threat") into the belief that the Guard was going to show up in riot gear at the protests. He isn't going to (indeed couldn't) use the Guard to replace all government workers. Particularly since many Guardsmen are government workers.

But it isn't that he would never use the guard in such a way against a general strike... it's that there isn't going to BE a general strike. Particularly in this economy, people aren't going to risk all of those jobs over this. That doesn't mean it isn't a BIG deal... but it's still an 8% paycut when other states are laying off thousands upon thousands of such workers (a 100% paycut) and many MANY millions of others (in and out of unions) are dealing with reduced hours and compensation.

The real fight is over the collective bargaining rights, but all we need to do if we lose them is win the next election and take them back. It isn't like those rights were going to win higher salaries or benefits over the next two years anyway.

Again... it isn't that they aren't worth fighting for, it's that the way to fight for them is just not going to take the form of a statewide walkout of all employees.

[coalition_unwilling]

25. Look, I'll be upfront with my agenda. I favor a state-wide general

strike of all public sector employees (assuming 90% participation) to shut the state-run functions down, so as to force the citizens of Wisconsin to choose whether they side with the working class or the pluto- and technocrats.

That said, I agree that the odds of a statewide general strike are slim. Still, the mass 'sick outs' of teachers in the Madison and Milwaukee school districts (forcing entire districts to cancel classes) pre-figure what such a general strike statewide (nationwide?) might look like.

[FBaggins]

28. I "got" that that was your agenda,

But wishing doesn't make something come true, and it certainly doesn't then become a reasonable topic for drawing future conclusions.

I can't say that Jason Garrett is the best head coach in the NFL and then respond to criticism by asking what people will think after they win the next three consecutive Super Bowls. Maybe it's the agenda I favor... but it's still pie in the sky.

And you're not just imagining the actions of our side. You then get to pick what the opposition will do. It's easy to claim a break in the fabric of our union if you get to first postulate the break. :)

I will say that you're not alone in wishing for a statewide (indeed nationwide) labor action to remind people how much union members matter to society.

Still, the mass 'sick outs' of teachers in the Madison and Milwaukee school districts (forcing entire districts to cancel classes) pre-figure what such a general strike statewide (nationwide?) might look like.

Right. But these guys are still teachers. If they think that they can't win, they aren't going to leave those kids in the lurch just to hurt the people who didn't support them. They care too much.

Let's face it. They wouldn't be teachers if compensation was their primary motivation. The right jokes about the use of the phrase, but it really IS "about the kids" most of the time.

[Kingofalldems]

21. Kick for Pro-Democratic Party news

[Dappleganger]

27. In FL it is against the law for public school teachers to strike...

so when (not IF, but WHEN) the protests move down here I wonder what they will do.

[DragonSlave]

30. Judges don't "refuse". they rule on the merits..

Just think the term "refuses" is a little weak sounding. You aren't the only one who does this. Dems have to show their strength. You shouldn't be timid if you know that you are right!

[DU GrovelBot]

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[undeterred]

34. I was on the square yesterday and talked to some Madison teachers

who said that their school administration was being really good about it, letting them use personal days until the whole thing was sorted out. Most parents are supportive. I saw parents with young children carrying signs that said "just say no to scott walker"