Hey, is anyone surprised Sen. Michael Baumgartner (or an intern in his office) is writing press releases in support a bill to dock teacher’s pay during strikes? No, nobody? I’m going to make fun of it anyway.
OLYMPIA… On the same day that teachers in the Seattle School District are planning to walk off the job, the state Senate Commerce and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on a bill that would dock their pay.
On the same day that Michael Baumgartner is violating his oath by not supporting the paramount duty of the state — AKA, any day — he still managed to find time to complain about the people who actually educate children. Yes, he has helped make sure that teacher pay has been frozen for years. Not for nothing, but he’s literally using a special session where he’s supposed to find ways to fund education to try his hand at cutting teacher pay.
The work session and public hearing on Senate Bill 6116 is set for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in Senate Hearing Room 4. Officials of the Washington Education Association and other education groups have been invited.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch, would for the first time impose a financial penalty on teachers who choose to break the law by going on strike. The proposal is especially timely this year, said committee chair Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane. Teachers affiliated with the WEA have voted to stage one-day walkouts in 55 school districts.
It’s like he isn’t aware that it’s the middle of a special session to fund education, and failing super hard. The most timely thing about this bill is a strike? Is he even trying? He’s aware that we can read, right?
“Let’s leave aside the political arguments for a moment,” Baumgartner said.
Seems unlikely, but let’s see what “leave aside the political arguments” looks like:
“The fact is that these strikes use our children as a political football. The teachers walk out and the parents have to stay home. The union is hoping parents will take out their anger on the Legislature. It’s a nasty game they play.”
So leaving aside the political argument is blaming someone else for your own shortcomings. Great. Again, if the legislature did their job, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Teachers are protesting a Senate budget proposal that gives them their first cost-of-living increase since the Great Recession. The problem is the Democrats in the state House are offering them more. At the same time, both parties balk at paying for Initiative 1351, a class-size reduction measure backed by the teacher’s union that narrowly passed last year. The measure would require that 25,000 additional teachers and school employees be hired, costing $3.8 billion every two years when fully implemented.
Oh right. You’ve not passed teacher raises despite inflation still being a thing for the better part of a decade. Now you’ve decided that instead of fully making up that gap and paying for the other things you haven’t funded for a long time, not to mention what people just voted for, just dock teacher pay for a one day strike that will be made up at the end of the year anyway.
Sheldon noted that state law has always prohibited teacher strikes. In addition, most local schoolteachers’ unions have agreed to no-strike clauses in their contracts. Those rules are rarely enforced. When teachers walk off the job, strike days are generally made up at the end of the school year in the same manner as snow days, with full pay and benefits. Sheldon’s bill stipulates that no state money shall be used to compensate teachers when they go on strike. The intention is that teachers shall not be compensated when they make up strike days, he said.
In the previous paragraph he said he wouldn’t fund I-1351, despite it being state law. Throughout the entire press release, there’s no way to meet the Constitutional requirements spelled out in McCleary. Yet somehow, he’s super concerned with obeying the law? Also, is he saying strike days shouldn’t be made up, or just that the state shouldn’t pay for it? Either way, the bill is seeking to harm school districts to prove some sort of nebulous point. And have I mentioned how they’re failing their paramount duty?
“This is really a bipartisan concern,” Sheldon said. “I know of no other profession in which you get paid to go on strike. I’m glad we’re holding this hearing the same day the Seattle teachers are protesting the Legislature. Some of them may actually come down here and do it. That will give me a chance to ask why they think taxpayers should pay them to play hooky.”
Can whoever wrote this press release ask Tim Sheldon if he still gets paid by Mason County while he’s playing hooky in the legislature?
If Baumgartner and Sheldon weren’t world-class hypocrites, they’d include a rider that says legislators don’t get paid for special sessions. They still have to show up and work, but if they can’t get their work done in the regular session, they don’t get paid for overtime.
“Throughout the entire press release, there’s no way to meet the Constitutional requirements spelled out in McCleary.”
Sure there is. Raise taxes on the rich, like Inslee proposed.
@2,
Did you see that in his press release?
@3 In all honesty, I don’t recall seeing anything in Baumgartner’s press release that proposed taxing the rich. All I’m saying is there’s a way to meet the Constitutional requirements spelled out in McCleary, and I said what it is.
Looks like a whole bunch of people have had enough of Republican bullshit.
“Thousands of public-school teachers filled Seattle streets on Tuesday in a one-day walkout that caused tempers to flare in Olympia, where Democratic senators walked out of a hearing over a Republican-favored bill that would punish teachers for such strikes.
“… Before leaving, state Sen. Bob Hasegawa, D-Seattle, made a short statement condemning the bill — which would dock teachers’ pay for the days while they are on strike — as having ‘countless legal, moral and logistical flaws. This bill offers no solutions to our historic funding challenges and it is clearly only useful as a messaging tool,’ said Hasegawa, ranking Democrat on the committee. ‘The message is that there is more will to attack teachers and their families than come up with real solutions to our funding challenges.’ …
“Meanwhile, teachers in about 20 more districts plan to strike later this month and in early June, joining 40 school districts where teachers already have held walkouts of some kind … [a]nd no school district appears to be putting up much of a fight.”
http://www.seattletimes.com/se.....y-walkout/
So what will the legislators do as the school year closes and they are still in another emergency session and the teachers show up at Olympia to demonstrate their support for their districts and kids and all that. Will they get some extra pay? Will that get the legislature to make some sausage? Will teachers exercising their right to assemble upset the legislators?
@6 “Will teachers exercising their right to assemble upset the legislators?”
Only the Bullshit Caucus. The rational ones will cheer them on.
On a positive note, while the political power of idiots like Baumgartner to damage to our state is formidable and not going to disappear over night, it is rapidly waning.
Baumgartner’s arguments go nowhere with voters, let alone parents of children in under funded schools.
As Roger noted, the solution to the funding problem is well known.
Today over at the Great Orange blog David Jarman shows us what readers here already know; the WA GOP bench is empty.
Washington Republicans can’t field a competitive candidate to face Inslee or Murray in 2016 because the WA GOP is mentally bankrupt.
Not only that, but all of the political energy in this state is with progressive causes.
Baumgartner’s time is running out. Thank goodness
@8 You have a lot more faith in the Spokane voters than I do. That is where his district is right?