We know everyone of you is devoted to fairness. And we think most of you are up for a ‘fight.’
Wouldn’t you just know it? Inspiration to be “fair” and “fight for equal pay for equal work” is literally gushing from the PR machinery in the seat of our nation’s government. It is election year, after all.
Take a look here as an example: http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/08/politics/white-house-fair-pay-disparity/
Who are we to question their fine example? Even though every office checked so far is rife with unfairness and unequal pay for equal work. At least if you define it as female v. male workers.
Knowing that all fairness is local, we’ve decided to start ‘a fight for fairness’ right here in our perfect little richest town in America. So, Agnes, take a memo to the Brunswick School Board, please. Mark it to the attention of ‘Numbers’ Ellis, who we’re confident is a fairness zealot of the highest order. How could he not be?
As Ellis knows, the Teacher’s Contract now in effect pays teachers anywhere from about $34,000 to roughly $70,000 this year in salary alone, depending on the level of advanced education, and the number of years on the job. Stipends, differences in retirement benefits, etc, are separate.
Now, if ‘fairness’ calls for equal pay for equal work, shouldn’t anyone who teaches first grade, for example make the same salary? Especially since, by central direction, they are to teach to the same curriculum and test to the same tests, etc, etc, et cetera.
Shirley the board and Rich both think all the Brunswick teachers are equally special and equally competent and equally wonderful.
Even if it the facts say that some are more equal than others.
Because some make half what others make for the same work, while others make twice what some make for ‘equal work!!’ What kind of example is this for the rest of us? And Oh, the horror, what kind of example does it set for impressionable young children, who are primed for imprinting with the holy writ of fairness?
We’re hoping for an answer soon; we can only hold our breath for so long.
When you stop to think about it, it’s that person in your mirror who is forcing unequal pay for equal work upon these oppressed educators; we elect the School Board members who hire the School Administrators, and together they set the budgets and negotiate the contracts. We vote on the budget, and then we pay the taxes to fund the department. Including those grossly unfair and uneven salaries for THE VERY SAME WORK!
Economic injustice, thy name is public (government) schools.
Said injustice is just one example of not paying equally for ‘equal work.’ Far as we can tell, the trash collection trucks come by our place once a week, the same as they do for just about everyone else in town. We’re similarly pretty sure that our street doesn’t get plowed any more or less in a snow storm than any other street, though we don’t have sidewalks that need separate clearing, or snow accumulation that needs to be loaded and hauled away separately.
We don’t place any more demands on the Town Clerk’s Office or the Finance Department than anyone else; in fact probably less. And so far, we have a pretty clean record with the Public Safety side of town government. And don’t forget…..no kids in the local school system….never.
So we’d like to know, in this age of social and economic justice, and in the midst of a national campaign of fairness, why we pay more to have our trash removed than others, and others pay more than us? And the same for all the other services we ‘pay the town’ for. After all, we don’t pay the same in property taxes, do we?
How can this possibly be fair? When will this travesty end? When will we get to pay the same for the same work??
Will YOU join the fight for fairness?
If YOU won’t, who will?
No comments:
Post a Comment