Reply #66: Do I take your word, or the official AFT word?

[notesdev]

Since you know better than the people who run the union website what the union is actually doing, maybe you should be running the union.

But quite frankly, I don't believe a bit of it. This is exactly the kind of accountability-free mumbo-jumbo I used to see from useless bureaucrats when I worked with the government - it justifies a paycheck from the bureaucracy, but does no actual good for anyone. There is not one of these things that you have listed that can be independently evaluated and verified.

And I am absolutely positive that there has been no good faith examination of budgets by the AFT. If there were, they wouldn't be selling out their junior members to preserve the unfulfillable promises made to the senior ones. I have actually examined these budgets in some detail (since I am very interested in economics in general), and if you have as I have then you know that the #1 item blowing out budgets is pension and benefit costs of public employees such as teachers. Had the AFT really examined these topics with any honesty and good faith, they would not at this time be agitating for yet more pay and more benefits. They would concede that promises made in the past can't be met and try to find some middle ground, which they presently oppose with fervor.