Louisiana Officials Possible Strike?

[Berkut]

Originally Posted by just another ref

I see one reason as damage control. Unless something changes, when the "tweaked" proposal comes to a vote again, it will not separate who honored the previous agreement and who didn't. The longer the delay, the more trouble it would have been for the other side, the more potential bad blood, the more chance they would vote against the raise next time.

I have a lot of sympathy for the idea that you should honor the contract.

But here is the thing - they've been doing that for 21 years, and what have they gotten out of it? The lowest pay in the country, right?

I cannot possibly agree with your conclusion that the work stoppage could result in "the more chance they would vote against it next year". Seems to me that the last 21 years made it pretty clear that if things just go on as normal, there is basically zero change of it being passed "next time". After all, the last 20 "next times" saw no votes every time - why would you assume that the next "next time" would be different from the previous ones, as long as everyone just did the exact same thing?

Doing the same thing while expecting different results is not generally consider the mark of rational thinking.

I don't like the idea of people not honoring their contracts - on the other hand, desperate times and all that. It seems to me that it was pretty clear that if the officials did nothing, then they would have another year being paid a pittance, and the principals would laugh while they voted down yet another raise.

If in fact you get a raise this year, you have to assume that it came about as a result of the work stoppage, or at least the media attention it caused. After all, there was no work stoppage for 20 years, and they never gave you a raise.