Detroit News targets Michigan teachers for new round of pay cuts

[Hannah Bell]

In a front page article last Thursday the Detroit News reported on and encouraged a renewed assault by state and local authorites on pay and benefits for teachers throughout Michigan. The article, “High Teacher Pay Under Scrutiny,” by Mike Wilkinson, was an provocative piece designed to outrage and galvanize right-wing opponents of public education and the right of school employees to a decent living standard and economic security.

Neatly juxtaposed next to a report on growing hunger in the metro-Detroit area, and the inability of local food pantries to keep up with increased demand, the article is a heavy-handed attempt to portray teachers as greedy, unreasonable and insensitive to the plight of other workers who have suffered the loss of jobs, pay cuts and foreclosures.

The November 18 article represents a clear signal to the newly elected Republican governor, Rick Snyder, that he will have the full support of the corporate media in imposing draconian pay cuts on teachers, and that resistance to these attacks will not be tolerated. Citing the continuing fiscal crisis in Michigan, a crisis that has filtered down to affect once more affluent school districts, the article uses the word “mandatory” to describe the kind of cuts that are impending, and deemed perfectly reasonable by the political establishment.

According to the article, Michigan currently ranks 11th in teacher salary—with the average teacher making $56,000. At the same time the state ranks 36th in income, a product of the devastating decades-long de-industrialization of the state, centered on the collapse of the auto industry. There is no mention that the devastating attack on Michigan workers has resulted in an return to profitability for the auto companies and a windfall for Wall Street as seen in last week’s GM stock sale. It goes without saying that the Detroit News did not call for a pay cut for GM CEO Dan Akerson who was given $9 million to run the company.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/teac-n23.shtml

[phasma ex machina]

1. $56,000 is a lot of money to poor people. Most people in the private sector are working poor.

I really don't give a tinker's dam about CEOs and such. Upper Class America lives in a different universe from me. They own the politicians, which rules out economic equality for the time being.

The hell of it is that my extended family includes government workers and school teachers. You can find just about every social group under the sun, working and unemployed, represented in my extended family.

:(

[MadHound]

2. So we should reduce everybody's level of pay to that of the poorest in the community?

First of all, for a family of four, even a family of two, $56,000 dollars isn't rich by any means. Lots of pay check to pay check.

Second of all, instead of dragging everybody's pay down to the lowest common denominator, why not raise people to a higher pay scale?

[phasma ex machina]

3. My extended family includes teachers. I don't advocate reducing anyone's pay.

Unfortunately, I don't have any answers either.

:(

[Hannah Bell]

5. Cut teachers & some other group of workers will be "higher" & then you'll make the argument *they*

make too much compared to the rest of the "poor working class".

That attitude is part of the problem, as is the attitude that "doesn't care about" CEO's. The working class doesn't advance by cutting each other's wages.

[phasma ex machina]

6. I don't advocate cutting any worker's pay. Best of luck on taking it to the Upper Class. nt

[Starry Messenger]

4. All this austerity stuff is making me loco.

WHO do they think is going to BUY THINGS with no money?? *More* people should have more money in order to put money back into the economy. (This includes non-teachers and private sector people)