That was the intent with this industry specific wage hike though, that it would drive wage hikes elsewhere. So it sounds like it is working as intended.
Raising the wages of one group of workers causes pressure on the employers of other groups of workers to increase their wages or lose their workers. The wealthy would have you believe that you should object to others getting ahead instead of demanding more yourself.
No, this is not uplifting. Having the education sector that low on the totem pole for pay and social respect in the first place is why America has been spiraling into idiocracy.
(Edited for clarity regarding people working in education that aren’t necessarily teachers.)
This should be an actual case of ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’.
“Why would I teach when I can make just as much money manning a grill?” Puts pressure on school boards, and empowers teachers unions to finally lift teacher salaries in order to not have a massive staff exodus.
This continually is the case in Australia, where our minimum wage is indexed every year; most employers tend to pass on the increase % as a minimum.
Read the article, it’s not educators, it’s other food service workers in CA school districts. Teachers in Cali are typically 80k starting now and by year 3-5 most are already at 100k.
Food service workers are difficult for schools because they’re typically non-full time jobs. They only work 3-4 hours a day. I’ve always been a big proponent of districts combining jobs like food service worker and campus monitor, or buss drivers and food services since they typically don’t overlap on time(s) worked. You often already see school food service workers acting as yard duties for the cafeteria anyway, may as well pay them for part of that and keep them around after for keeping an eye on campus.
I changed educator to education to better reflect what I meant. As far as I’m concerned, if you work in a school, you work in education.
And making that distinction doesn’t make the situation any better. Even if every elementary school teacher is pulling that kind of pay (they are not), defunding another aspect of the school’s ability to function is still an issue of a lack of respect for education in general - especially in America.
The very notion that a school system might lose employees to the local McDonald’s over salary is a living nightmare for future generations.
Also, while I agree with your ideas, it is currently a challenge to find a bus driver that won’t show up to work drunk or have some other issue. To say nothing of finding one that is also rated to work in a kitchen. I think a simpler solution is to properly fund the public school system and watch as most of the problems self-heal in response.
This is only an issue because of the obscene way that schools are funded in the US. If they were funded like the police are, then there’d be no trouble.
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