Takes shot at union

Dear Editor,

How can the Hudson School District teachers’ union, the West Central Education Association, ask for a 3 percent raise in each of the two contract years they are now negotiating when state aid to the Hudson School District will be $2,697,000 less than last year?

How is it possible the union does not care unemployment in St. Croix County is at 8.4 percent and rising? How dare they press for higher taxes to support their nine-month per year vocation when the rest of us who actually work year-round are being laid off, losing benefits, pulled into bankruptcy, or forced into home foreclosure?

The stated primary mission of all unions is to advance the interests of the union’s members. While they pretend to be student advocates, the teacher union’s unreasonable stubbornness forces school district decisions, like lay-offs, that leave kids worse off. Their demands are clearly greedy and self-indulgent. They do not appreciate the overly generous pay and benefits they already have and only demand more blood from this mangled turnip.

Is it not ironic the fastest growing hiring industry in the nation is government? Not private industry. Not infrastructure. For 40 years public education has continued to put teachers ahead of students. We cannot reverse this trend until school choice, like tax credits for parents of kids in private schools, returns money and power back to the parents.

Tags: teachers union, opinion, letters