February 19th, 2011
Radio hate talker mocks respect and dignity for workers
Limbaugh, of talk radio riches, tells Wisconsin workers to “earn” dignity and respect. Watch this TV clip from the Ed (Schultz) Show in which contemptuous Limbaugh mocks the workers.
He has also said that the workers fighting to preserve bargaining rights to balance power with their government employers are not part of this country (America) — only his listeners are. Are you insulted by the corporate and employer apologists yet? This is the reward we get for years of tolerance for the “ditto-heads,” as we refused to “lower ourselves” to scorn them. But the hateful assault by millionaires and billionaires on people who earn an hourly wage has to stop. They have ALL the power, and still are not content. They won’t be happy until they obliterate/eliminate the common woman or man.
Dignity at work is something that we should take for granted. Of course, employers, like Limbaugh, believe that is it their possession and can dole it out to favorite employees and withhold it from others targeted for abuse and bullying. That is how they act. If Dignity were the starting point and employers had to justify ever depriving anyone of it, it would be a different world for American workers. Glad to see Thomas Harrington of Trinity College in Hartford, CT agrees.
To many Europeans, the rights to psychological integrity, personal self-esteem and dignity at work are fundamental and unquestioned. In Germany, in the Constitution, people enjoy protection from bullying based on the Fundamental Right of Persons. Gee, wonder who drafted that document? (Hint: the Americans for their post-WWII vanquished foe!)
Tags: Dignity, Ed Schultz, Limbaugh, Respect, Thomas Harrington
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 19th, 2011 at 11:35 am and is filed under Social Justice, Unions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Loading ...
The first time I saw Rush Limbaugh I howled with laughter. I honestly thought he was a comedian. How can any intelligent human being believe that he actually believes the vile invective he spews?
Denigrating protesters by intentionally misstating the issues. I suspect whatever education he can claim didn’t take. Another smug, self-satisfied millionaire who believes his worth is measured by his bank account. Sad really.Really sad. What a miserable human being.
Have you heard the bs about corporation is a person? This is corporations saying that a corporation is the same a single person when it comes to making campaign corporations. Apparently it is to their benefit if they can get their corporation designated as a citizen. Unbelievable!
Well in one way they are people… they are bullies.
All prejudice comes from a persons ego. Some people fall prey to their own distorted way of thinking. Other people realize that they have natural biases and hold those biases in check with fair minded principles.
Rush speaks to the unchecked egoes in many of his supporters.
Teachers DESERVE excellent pay. They are heroes. Unfortunately, unions protect really bad teachers as well. At the college level, academics often rely entirely on their egos, their name dropping, and their unions, to keep them overpaid and bullying the really great professors who deserve their tenure, their crazy forward thinking ideas, and their rock star status. They simultaneously waste students’ tuition by promising them things they can’t follow through on. Excellent teachers know how to relate to lost students, they know which books to empower them with, and how to inspire young minds. The unions do need to be inspected, they’re keeping great faculty down.
Amanda, Your comment is close to my heart. There’s nothing that sets other faculty off as much as being revered by students. Page Smith (founder of the Univ Calif, Santa Cruz campus and teacher to the end) wrote a marvelous book — Killing the Spirit. With luck, it’s still in print. Grab a copy and feel validated.
I have never worked in a state where collective bargaining was available for university faculty. From my position, having a union sounds good. However, I have never had the impression that unions raise academic salaries. Where there are no unions some disciplines are very low paying and some are higher paying, but the disparity between faculty and administrators is huge and growing.
I have heard horror stories about unions in education, but working without one can be a miserable nightmare. I firmly believe university faculty in my state need a union desperately. At this point, I think anything that could help would be better than what we have – no protection despite our contracts. Breach of contract lawsuits are essentially all we have available to us. Despite large and frequent losses in lawsuits, the university system in my state allows abuses continue because the tax payers pick up the tab.
Student evaluations of faculty have become a real problem in academia and a form of bullying in their own right. Many universities use student evaluations of instructors as the only means to evaluate faculty teaching effectiveness (for tenure, promotion, raises, and retention of the non-tenured). This is done despite a large body of research that shows sex, age, race, and other forms of discrimination in student evaluations. The group receiving the highest evaluations overall are young, white and male. Young women who appear to fit traditional sex stereotypes are evaluated higher than those who do not fit stereotypes and minority groups are rated lower than non-minorities. Students discuss how they will evaluate faculty members, as a group – creating a problem if someone is angry or does not like the professor. The practice is also grossly unethical.
Some research shows that students make up their minds about the instructor within the first minute (I believe this was a Harvard study). Also, not surprisingly, research strongly and consistently indicates that student evaluations relate directly to grades – a student who expects a good grade will usually give the instructor a higher evaluation. This often amounts to a quid pro quo, even though faculty and administrators are reluctant to admit it. Facing pressure from administrators who will do anything to keep enrollment up, many instructors will lower the quality of instruction or inflate grades, or both, to keep their jobs (tenured or not). A very well published and recognized scholar recently condemned the current method of using student evaluations to bully faculty and lower academic standards as “criminal.”
There are other abuses that go on everyday and I think I have experienced most of them over the past three years. I would have liked the opportunity to give union membership a try. Before I entered academia, I had two other careers. I have never seen anything in my past that prepared me for the lack of professionalism and real abuse that goes on in the university where I currently work. I do not believe a union could make it any worse and it might help. We will never have one, however – not in this state.
The concept of working your way up the ladder doesn’t exist anymore. There are jobs a person is qualified for, and there are jobs, she isn’t qualified for. If she fits the criteria, she gets the respect that goes along with it. She won’t wait for her turn to speak, she won’t fix her hair, she won’t bend to your contract changes and disregard for life-work balance, and she won’t stop reminding you that you’re in bed with vendors who are over charging and under producing. She won’t be a victim to her past, simply because you heard through the “grape vine”, and condemned her to her history. If it’s not illegal, and it’s not on the clock, it’s none of your business.
A person in power might want to increase his power by disempowering other people. He could reduce the power of unions, companies and taxpayers. He could disallow everyone’s right to say “No” to him. Then he could do what he wants.
He should think about the unbending road he is traveling on and the implication that has on the people and the democracy.