Actions Have Consequences

I have an acquaintance who I just had an email conversation with. This person works with some of the doctors who were handing out those fake sick excuses to teachers on the square yesterday. My friend considers it a violation of the hippocratic oath. This person is in a position of power and the doctors who are involved will find that their business will be declining in the near future. Bye bye patient referrals. Madison is a small town.

In addition, my friend has some important business meetings on Tuesday. This person is furious that the meetings may have to be skipped. Single parent. No school. This is my friend’s week with the kid. My friend thinks all the teachers should be fired now.

Anecdotal, but I am thinking stories like this are repeated thousands of times over.

The unions, and teachers in particular, are not making any friends.

UPDATE – 2-21-11 – Madison schools are closed again today, and it is NOT due to the weather. Rumor has it there may be school tomorrow.

17 thoughts on “Actions Have Consequences”

  1. I think that the Wisconsin teachers union president agrees with you on consequences and is telling the teachers to go back to work. Disrupting everyone in the state by staging a sick out from school is “bad business” even though it won’t make the newspapers which will just interview the same tired dead-enders, as you put it.

  2. Dan – the sick-out tactic was an utter PR disaster for the teachers union. What is ironical is that the budget fix economic concessions apply to state workers only. The teachers and the local school districts will make their deals on benefit contribution rates when their contracts expire. For the teachers to go to the streets with the way they did was ill advised, and with the exception of the most radical or ignorant in their ranks they will and are seeing this. The unions should fear the annual re-certification provision in the bill. My two daughters and son-in-law are public teachers. As I posted before, when this started, I warned them that their union leaders were going to send them to the streets and they should not listen and instead do to school and do their job. They did.

  3. Many medical schools have stopped using the Hippocratic Oath, or modified it. Some of the reason was abortion but there has been more and more opposition to “outmoded” principles. That battle was lost long ago.

  4. Who pays for the make up days at the end of the academic calendar? They have two or three days which will have to be made up at the end of the year. Who pays for those make up days?

  5. The union’s problem here is that in the past, actions didn’t have consequences. In the past, Leftists controlled the sources of public information so they controlled the narrative of labor actions. In the past, the unions could take all kinds of unscrupulous actions and feel confident that the story of actions would only benefit them.

    They got used to congratulating themselves for playing “hardball” when their opponents couldn’t fight back. Now

    Whoops.

    Their political battlespace change while they weren’t looking.

  6. I grew up in Madison and we had teacher strikes…kids managed just fine.
    We had a bus driver strike and I rode my bike to school 6 miles a day. No biggie.
    We had a newspaper strike and learned about that. This is no big deal folks.

    All this angst about some missed school days and sick days is silly.

    Let’s face it. Private sector workers call in sick for dumb reasons. Like hangovers, ball games and family drama. Teachers rarely call in sick. So chill out. Everyone will be fine.

  7. and there in a nutshell, is the full blown delusion and denial of the left. i am suprised you can read this blog, as your eye sight seems to be impaired in the extreme. you might consider changing your “nick” to “madam defarge”.

  8. Let’s face it. Private sector workers call in sick for dumb reasons. Like hangovers, ball games and family drama. Teachers rarely call in sick.

    When 40% of the guys at the plant call in sick, it’s called a strike.

    Replacements are hired, non-union guys are drafted to do work on the line, or management negotiates, or something.

    But we don’t try to call it what it isn’t, or pretend there isn’t a problem.

  9. Yes, CS Matron; nothing to see here folks, everything’s fine; your ire is misplaced; nobody’s really inconvenienced, are you?
    Wrong.
    This was, and remains a concerted violation of the teachers’ responsibilities, and an egregious violation of representative government rule.
    The Fleebaggers run out of town, and then from elsewhere insist that Walker needs to compromise—really? Who RUNS AWAY, and then insists that their opponent compromise? What are they—twelve years old?

    The union leadership when and sawed off the branch, not realizing they were standing upon it. Think this won’t be repeated elsewhere? Think the electorate—you remember them, the people who PAY and EMPLOY you—will forget this episode? Doubtful at best.

    I could not be happier, as a former Illini that this happened in Wisconsin. Harder to reproduce in Illinois: but not forever. There’s a legislative meteor out there, with “Public Sector Union” written on it. Looking forward to seeing the smoking crater when it hits.

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