I didn't know Skid Row was an actual place either.

Grizy, you realize that if a union doesn't provide equal representation, it loses power

Not saying you're wrong about any of this, but can you provide citation for each point?

ya nobody takes them seriously, the AMA and ABA only do things like develop standards for professional ethics, develop training guidelines, fund and carry out research projects, vet judicial nominees, raise money for educational scholarships, provide support for doctors and lawyers who have substance abuse problems or legal troubles, litigating against unlicensed practitioners, etc

this post is so stupid i dont know how you're even pretending to speak like an authority on this topic

Basically they're advocacy groups that are supposed to represent or speak for their entire respective professions. Joining a professional association is voluntary and most people that join don't give them much thought or pay much attention to what they're doing (mostly, asking for money again). The association owes its members nothing.

Unions bargain with your employer on your behalf, determining your pay, work conditions, benefits, etc. They are obligated to represent you in grievances, provide you with a lawyer, etc. If I have some sort of problem or issue, i can call up my union rep. If I have a problem and call the APhA they'll just tell me "cool story bro".

Unions and professional organisations are very different. Unions have actual legal power; professional organizations only have political power.

It's much harder to become a teacher in most of Europe than it is in the US. In a country like France to teach math in high school you need a. to study math in the university and b. score well on an exam. The exam is at the level of a master's in math in the US.

However, it's not so obviously true that the US does poorly compared to Western Europe. If you go through the OECD and Pisa studies and control for immigration, the US, and other countries with high levels of immigration such as Spain and Sweden, look much better. This is not anti-immigration stuff (I'm an immigrant). It's rather that immigration tends to come from poor countries with crappy educational systems. The median educational level of immigrants is well below the median educational level of the people in the country to which they immigrate. If one supposes (as is quite reasonable) that the children of parents with little education have a harder time in school, one expects that high immigration levels depress the mean/median relative to countries like Japan and Germany with low levels of immigration.

What is different in the US is the shape of the distribution. The tails are both ends are bigger than in most countries. The US produced a large number of really talented scientists and engineers. It also produces a surprisingly large number of people who are functionally illiterate. A country like Germany has a tighter distribution.

The US prob has too many higher paying jobs that are easier for people with that level of training to make it a requirement to teach.....which isn't really a bad thing.

Apparently popular and effective teacher fired at my daughter's public school.

http://www.dailybreeze.com//social-a...french-teacher

huh? 20% of people in Germany are immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany
And while I don't understand what you mean by "tighter distribution" you can't seriously be arguing, that Germany has only few scientists and engineers.
"Germany has the second-highest number of engineering workers per capita of any country in Europe (behind Finland); engineering workers represented about 4.7 per cent of the German labour force in 2010",
http://www.albertacanada.com/germany...many__2012.pdf

I think he's saying more about America really than Germany. That despite a reputation for a lot of not very good schools there are many extremely good schools, especially Universities. More about scientists than engineers I think.

Both of my parents were public school teachers. My Dad spent the last few years of his career telling people they shouldn't get into teaching. The salary was good. In Ontario they have a great pension. Summer's off are obviously nice. But the biggest thing was that he was sick of being an object for politicians to kick around. When he started, teaching was a profession generally regarded with respect. By the end it was standard for one party and a chunk of the population to use teachers as a punching bag to win points.

In the US its even worse and gotten to a point where in many places big organizations are much more concerned with 'winning' then with actually improving things.

I agree completely with this assessment of how things are. I don't agree with the conclusion that it's not a bad thing.

In Europe a teacher's salary is quite high in relative terms (albeit much lower than in the US). For instance in Spain a high school teacher is paid as well or better than a university professor and both earn 70-80 percent more than the median salary, and 40-50 percent above the mean salary. Also both have complete and total job security of a sort unknown in the US. (Similar things are true all over Europe I just know Spain better). On the other hand, I'm talking about salaries of 35-40K euros, which from the US perspective don't sound so great.

The problem in the US is that the salaries are exaggerated at the high end, and the negative social consequences of overpaying doctors, engineers and scientists (as well as overpaying bankers, accountants, consultants and others sorts of frauds, charlatans and thieves) are not something those people like to admit. Your typical professor of math in the US gets apoplectic at the notion that he is overpaid. And he trots out even more overpaid lawyers and engineers as counterexamples.

Or he argues that it's a good thing that he gets paid so much more than a garbageman.

A large percentage of Germany's immigrants come from European countries where the educational systems are not bad. In educational terms it's nothing like the immigration coming to Spain or Italy, from South American and Africa. Sure there are a lot of Turks, but Turkey is not Morocco in terms of educational background.

Germany has a "tighter distribution" in the sense that its educational outcomes are less bimodal. They are also generally quite good. In many respects among large countries Germany has the best outcomes right now. A highly educated population and relatively little wealth inequality.

I suppose the negative consequence of the US paying the best University Professors so well is that the rest of the world is drained of their top talent.

Is Europe stealing our top garbage collectors?

If only there were some mechanism and/or organization that protected teachers from the caprice of potentially vindictive administrators (or parents, who regularly demand dismissal of teachers with whom they disagree on any number of subjects)...

gonna be pretty damn rustled when the feds bail them out

so glad i'm out of that stupid state

I guess the plan of promise pensions, divert money elsewhere, proclaim crisis, cut pensions doesn't work when you run into a state constitution that says you have to pay what you promised.

no worries, all you gotta do is go to bankruptcy. Just ask detroit. Then stupid state rules don't apply. Good luck.

States can't declare bankruptcy. They're going to have to default on their debt. Going to be a total **** show.

http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/...labor-rebound/

Dude you are a poster child for liberal idiocy. Illinois already has some of the highest taxes in the country, already ships roughly 1/3 of tax revenue to pay for current benefits, has a pension liability that is over $100,000,000,000 underfunded, and somehow you think that poll matters?

I personally think management has my best interests at heart.

I mean, as much as there is indeed an endless amount of complete bull**** in the american labor market, it is impossible to identify with union apologists, particularly public sector union apologists. The entire mentality is garbage. In the private sector, its "someone else should risk capital, and if it works I should share in the success and if it fails I should get money anyway." In the public sector its "yeah we finance the campaigns of the people who agree to our benefit packages but when those benefits bankrupt the relevant government entity we want our money, period." In both cases, people want to take no financial risk but have a guaranteed payout for life. No.

lol june 2013? Unions and not public unions? ok thanks for playing.