DADvocate

Thousand of teachers and public employees protested at the statehouse in Columbus, OH against a proposed bill that would "eliminate collective bargaining for public employees in Ohio." I support this bill as cost of government has gone plain ole hog wild with public employee salaries and benefits being a significant part of the problem.

A teacher in Columbus had this to say:

"This Senate bill is going to target the middle class workers, teachers, firefighters, all educators and all union employees," said Melanie Shaffer, a Columbus teacher. "It's a targeted attack."

Actually, the bill should help more middle class workers than it will hurt as it will give tax relief to taxpayers.

According to TeacherPortal.com, Ohio teacher salaries average $50,314. You won't get rich, but you're one person making more the median household income for Ohio of $47,144.

What really got me about Ms. Shaffer was one of her comments not printed in the article but reported on the radio: "We sacrifice our lives for kids in the classroom everyday." This woman is more than just a little bit prone to hyperbole.

Ms. Shaffer isn't sacrificing her life. She's getting paid to do a job. A relatively comfortable job with great benefits including lots of time off. Coal miners, ranchers, farmers, fishermen risk their lives. People in education and health services run an extremely low risk of job related death, 0.7 per 100,000 full-time employees as opposed to agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting workers at 26.0 per 100,000 or mining at 12.7 per and transportation and warehousing workers at 12.1 per. Aircraft pilots and flight engineers run a fatality rate of 57.1 per 100,000.

Sorry, Melanie, you're just a spoiled public employee wanting to be able to strong arm the rest of us into giving you more money whenever you can. Very few of us in the private realm enjoy the benefits you take for granted. Welcome to the real world.

Oh, and save the hysterics. You're not close to risking your life.