Indiana Senator Ed Charbonneau is Bad for Indiana

Whether to allow teachers in Indiana to continue to be able to bargain for working conditions seems to me to be a no brainer. Indiana Republicans seem to have a very poor understanding of what a union even is.

Items that appear in local union contracts which on the surface might seem strange or unusual to most people, have no doubt been placed there for a very good reason at some time in the history of that community of workers.

Anyone who has ever done any work for any entity knows full well that in every group of management there usually can be found at least one wild eyed, crazy acting, member that has no regard for the safety or an understanding of the human behavior of workers causing workers to be harassed, threatened or miserable. School administrators are no different. Some of them are really good and some are simple minded, hard headed egotistical nincompoops.

I can imagine some crazed administrator insisting that the temperature in classrooms be set higher or lower than that which is most conducive to learning. I can imagine how disruptive and miserable a work day could be for a teacher if an administer had a Captain Queeg complex.

Without agreed upon rules between teachers and administration officials, only bad things can be the result and the children who are trying to learn would be the most affected.

Why Republicans in Indiana are so afraid of allowing teachers this basic right to negotiate working conditions cannot be understood by me.

My own Indiana State Senator, Ed Charbonneau, in Indiana’s District 5, not only voted for this lousy assault on teachers but has the distinction of being one that authored or sponsored the darned thing.

Mr. Charbonneau knows better. He knows what a union is.