Does that logic still apply to teachers? How about public defenders? Food bank staff?
Yes.
Personally, I think they're all underpaid. But I don't set their wages. Society does that by agreeing a level of tax people are happy with, and then spending that money on public employee's wages. Collectively society has agreed to pay those people as little as possible. That's the important thing in any wage negotiation - you have to understand where the money is coming from, because ultimately that's who gets to decide the maximum limit of one side of the bargaining process.
So in the case of teachers you have an individual teacher's pay being an agreement between that person and how much Joe Random wants to pay in tax. Teachers are always going to lose out on that one.
The answer is either to educate the public about the value of public wealth (eg why higher taxes are actually better for society in many ways), or to privatise the education system. Neither works well on a national level.
Yes.
Personally, I think they're all underpaid. But I don't set their wages. Society does that by agreeing a level of tax people are happy with, and then spending that money on public employee's wages. Collectively society has agreed to pay those people as little as possible. That's the important thing in any wage negotiation - you have to understand where the money is coming from, because ultimately that's who gets to decide the maximum limit of one side of the bargaining process.
So in the case of teachers you have an individual teacher's pay being an agreement between that person and how much Joe Random wants to pay in tax. Teachers are always going to lose out on that one.
The answer is either to educate the public about the value of public wealth (eg why higher taxes are actually better for society in many ways), or to privatise the education system. Neither works well on a national level.