From time to time on these pages we take credit for an idea or prediction that comes true. I am not one to toot my own horn…oh hell, who am I kidding. Commence the toot parade.
Back on February 18, I posted here about the “sickout” that the Madison teachers had. If memory serves, the students that the teachers care so much about missed four days of school that week. That is four days that they will have to make up somewhere else, and four days of child care and other costs that the parents had to incur to go to their jobs. I said we should really call the “sickout” what it is – a wildcat strike, plain and simple.
Now the evidence has come out. Seems that a Madison teacher who was operating a phone tree dialed the wrong number by one, and someone saved the message and has made it public. You can hear the message at the link.
So now that the issue of whether this was a wildcat strike or not is cleared up, what to do? I know what I would do, I would fire everybody and blow the whole union up (figuratively, of course). But that isn’t going to happen. What will happen?
I will tell you what will happen. Basically nothing. Most of the people inside Madison are on the teachers/unions side and any sort of aggressive prosecution will be picketed, protested and rallied against. I think that the Madison schools are so deep in the teachers union pockets that there may be nothing done.
I would at least like to see some sort of symbolic fine or maybe one teacher made an example of for this clearly unlawful behavior, but I am not holding my breath. I am happy to be proven correct though. Then again, this wasn’t the toughest prediction I have made.
