Strikes!

No, not the kind of strikes a pitcher throws.  Labor strikes are going on.

In Albany, its the teachers on strike against the Greater Albany School District.

For higher wages, yes, but they're also striking for safer classrooms and smaller class sizes.

Some of the stories of violence are really shocking.  Student outbursts, throwing desks and chairs, biting teachers....yikes.

Partly this is because there are so many students with behavioral issues mandated a public education.   I'm not sure why teachers are forced to put  up with violent students.   If a student is violent they should get a warning and then be ousted.   One teacher described having to wear protective gear to make it less likely she'd need stitches.  Classrooms are routinely cleared while teachers deal with a student having an outburst that may or may not include violence.   Students there to learn, well how can they.  

Sometimes, I swear, in our society, parenting is so bad the parents expect the teachers to reparent and make up for their negligance. 

So, in the face of so many students with issues, the teachers want smaller class size and more one to one aides for students with severe behavioral and physical/mental disability problems.  Yes, this is expensive.   

So far, the students have been out of school for a week now.   Parents are stressed because daycare, for younger kids, while they go to work, is expensive and often eats up their entire paycheck.

Benton County employees are on strike too, over in the neighboring district.  I think that one is over wages and also safety.  The deputies and jail folks have to work regardless of strike I think.

Oregon State University graduate students, also over in Corvallis, are on strike.  They work long hours, teaching and grading, and also in research that brings the university money, and don't make much.  I think that's the reason they're on strike after a very long time in negotiations.

All three of these strikes affect taxpayers because the teachers, the Benton County employees and the graduate students are all paid by the taxpayers.

Not so with the strikes going on down in Eugene at Bigfoot Beverages and at Franz Bakery.  Here is one sentence from an article about the Franz strike, where employees are barely trained, understaffed, and overworked, often working 12 hour shifts six days a week:  

"Gettman emphasized that Local 114 union members are asking management to “be treated like human beings in this company.”"

The Bigfoot Beverages strike is getting nasty, with union strikers harrassing passers by, female employees and others.  People lose sympathy fast for violent strikers.

So that is five nearby strikes going on that I know of.  There may be others as I'm badly uninformed these days.  I think people want to be safe at work, for one thing.  For another thing, like the Franz Bakery employees, they want a work/life balance.   You don't want to sacrifice your whole quality of life for some company that doesn't give a shit about you or your family.