You sound like my wife! 
I was about to post a long response to man of these latest posts but unfortunately hit the wrong key and it all disappeared so sorry this is going to be brief.
We donât have all the answers to your questions. We are building the foundations of a democratic organisations and as such many of the answers will come about as a result of policy development involving the membership. At this stage the TLTA can be anything you want it to be. If you want it to be something then get on board and make it so. We have purposely set very broad parameters and avoided boxing this into something, to allow teachers to come and develop something they want, rather than us imposing something on them that they might not want. Our only stipulation is that it is to be a workers organisation so we will exclude bosses and managers from membership. But hey, if you want to round up enough ordinary teachers who want to join and vote to turn this into some sort of industry association for both teacher and bosses then be our guest. We are democratic souls. There is no manifesto we are working to. The members themselves will determine direction. Do you have a problem with that? We are dictating nothing except that it is a workers only organisation and we make no apologies.
Scott Sommers, you have refused to respond to any of the PMâs I have sent you asking you what your position on this organisation is, and I am very confused by your comments youâve posted. I really dont know where you are coming from because on the one hand you say you are in favor of a teachers union but then you do nothing but criticise us for trying to do it. Hey brother, what about some solidarity, come along and get on board and help us. Hell you might even get elected as President! You are welcome to come along once you have clarified your position to us and you have confirmed that you are a worker not involved in management or ownership of a school. Can you make that clear for us right now? Are you involved in ownership or management of a school? If you are then sorry, you canât join us, but if you want to go start your own organisation then be our guest, we wont stop you, in fact weâd encourage you to do so. or is that what ETA-ROC does? I am sorry I dont know because their English website has nothing in it and I dont read Chinese so I have no idea what they do. All I know is Im definitely not going to join an organisation I know nothing about and whose website I cant read! So come clean to us all Scott and tell us why you wonât join our association and help us to establish an organisation that you yourself say Taiwan badly needs.
I am not even going to start answering many of the questions that have been posted about how the association would deal with this or that situation. The answers to those questions are some way down the track and are up to the membership to set policy on. of course we have our own ideas about how we would handle these situations, but we are not going to dictate or predetermine what the organisation will choose to do. But you should all remember that we are not establishing a Union at this point. It is an association. And our primary concern is establishing our legal footing at the moment so that we and others can build on it as time goes on. All we wish to do right now is to organise a group of teachers into a collective body that will be able to make democratic decisions to determine the future direction of the organisation.
Many of your questions are good, and should be asked a bit further down the track, but we wont be answering them right now because we do not have a mandate to answer them. We are founders, we are not elected and we do not represent anyone but ourselves at the moment. So we are not qualified to say what the organisation will do in future. Do I make myself clear? I dont know how many times I have to say it. After there are enough members and there has been an election to office bearing positions then these people will have a mandate to answer these questions. But we are listening and we are storing them up for that occassion. It would be foolhardy for us to presume to speak on behalf of anybody right now, so we wonât. We do not pretend to be any more than a small group of teachers setting up an organisation because we perceive there to be a need for it. Okay so I know what you are going to say next Sandman and co. No doubt you will try to turn what I have just said around to trumpet that I have just confirmed your long time suspicion that we dont know what we are doing. But I think most people will understand that we are just not putting the cart before the horse. We have to walk before we can run and we are just crawling at present. We make no apologies for it either. Its just the way things have to happen if you want to establish something with democratic foundations. Many of you are clearly not familiar with democratic organisations and therefore dont understand this process. We are so used to being dictated to and having everything delivered on a platter for us in this consumer world that we forget that building something democratic and grassroots takes time and patience - which seem to be in very short supply around here.
So finally, please, if you are a teacher-worker not involved in management or ownership of a school and have anything to offer to this new organisation, all things are possible at this stage and we urge you to get involved and make this organisation happen. If you are a teacher involved in management or ownership then please, go and join ETA-ROC or go and start your own organisation if one doesnât exist. Itâs a kind-of free country, we all have rights, so go and make the most of them.
Worker-teachers of Taiwan - Unite!
No it isnât. No you donât. And this kind of yap spoils things for others, which seems to be incomprehensible to you.
Outstanding qualifications for urging someone to join the labor union youâre organizing in Taiwan. Perhaps you should think about the last sentence quoted above in more detail, though. The new unionâs web site may be in English, but thatâs about it as far as knowing something about the organization, since âwe arenât going to give any specificsâ and so on.
Do you even speak Chinese?
This is a joke. Right?
Itâs as Iâve suspected for some time now. I donât believe these guys are serious. Theyâre just a bunch of kids in Wisconsin pretending they live in Taiwan and thatâs thereâs a âunionâ meeting of concerned âworkersâ.
Hay guys, I have an idea. Iâm going to start a group to promote universal harmony and love between all sentient beings. Whatâs the difference between my group and the Tzu Chi? I donât know. They have an English website, but Iâm not going to read it. Nor will I answer any questions about my group because we set up a Yahoo club that explains we love everything. But I do know that my group is unique and valuable and anyone who wonât join is a bad personâŚbad, bad, bad!!
NoâŚI refuse to get deeply involved in this thread. This is someone or a small group stringing us along. In all sincerity, I donât believe anyone really organizing a labour rights group could have written the last post.
â Sentients of the world unite! You have everything to gain, and nothng to loose but bad hair!
Hey all on this site.
You are encouraged to join our yahoo site to conduct a short email survey about what you would like from a teachers association. Feel free to say anything you like on the responses as they will all be read and considered.
Group home page: groups.yahoo.com/group/tlta
Group email address: taiwanteachersassociation@yahoo.com
Please donât start with the joke threads as was done with the Christopher Veal thread. We have asked no one for money and without every teachers input and involvemnet this group will have no ability to determine what all fellow teachers needs and wants really are.
Also, please stop calling this group a union.
pretty muchâŚ^^^
Not to mention that you consider management and owners as people that donât âwork.â
Pretty damn stupid of you.
If the owner is also teaching they donât count as a teacher/worker?
If management teaches as well as manages they are not a teacher/worker?
You have A GREAT DEAL to learnâŚ
10 simple questions and you donât even DARE to answer ONE???
You expect to be taken âseriously?â
âŚ
:loco:
Well, Iâve joined their association. Under an assumed name, of course. Several assumed names, as a matter of fact. Plus I have several friends who have also either joined or are preparing to, âfor the purposes of my researchâ â just in case they suss out my false memberships and have me killed or whatever. Iâll keep yâall informed of what they come up with.
I suppose people are worried that this group will present itself as speaking for all language teachers in Taiwan. But at the moment theyâre only claiming to speak for themselves and anyone else who cares to join. The name is quite grand, but what else are they supposed to call it? âAssociation of some (but by no means all) language teachers in Taiwanâ?
At the moment I just see this as a harmless endeavor that probably wonât come to much. Am I missing something?
Just paving the way for the fullest possible enjoyment of the imminent schadenfreude.
[quote=âfreegaynhappyâ] We donât have all the answers to your questions.
We are building the foundations of a democratic organisations and as such many of the answers will come about as a result of policy development involving the membership. At this stage the TLTA can be anything you want it to be.
Worker-teachers of Taiwan - Unite![/quote]
We understand you donât have all the answers. But let me ask you this? Where is the Association registered? Please advise this as you are claiming to be a legal association that people can register with. You are a legally registered association yes. Surely you are not asking people to associate themselves with a non legal entity with no legal office? You do have an office thats isnât on the internet in never never land yes?
I mean you are not all just a bunch of yahooâs are you? So which is it⌠you are in the early stages or you are as quoted below?
[quote]This is a completely legal and formal organization, and teachers are fully within their rights to join it without breaching their visa conditions[/quote] Really??? a legal formal organization⌠if so then post your registered association documents.
How can your group be considered democratic when it has closed secret meeting?
Iâd get more by joining up with the KGB. At least I know what they stand for.
[quote=âfreegaynhappyâ]. There is no manifesto we are working to. ![/quote]
Yep, your association has all the goals to lead itself nowhere.
I thought at least your manifesto was supposedly to help teachers with employment issues with employers. But by excluding employers and management you will go a long way.
What a sorry arsed assumption you have there. :raspberry: :raspberry:
Was in a union as an apprentice chef⌠did fucking nothing except sign me up then take union fees⌠never saw them again.
I have been part of unions as to be employed I had to be part of union. Of yeah also take part in voting on strike actions too.
I still have my explosive powered tools licence from being a builders labourer. Paid up and valid in QLD and the rest of Australia YEAH BLF⌠great union of thugs, till they got deregistered finally. Working on a coal mine where union disputes occurred just because one guy did not like another were common. Any excuse to call a strike. Didnât like the breaksfast menu. go on strike. Didnt like the cook, call a demarcation dispute cause you saw him hammer in a loose floor board which should have been done by a chippie. Oh yeah canât change a lightbulb without a sparky. Didnt like me driving a turbo 2 stroke diesel around⌠call a strike. Yeah yeah unions and associations gotta love them.
It was only when secret balloting came in that the unions found their power slipping as they could not use stand over tactics on their members to vote one way or the other. Yeah mate I have been registered in a few unions. All SHITE. ALL UNION DUES A FUCKING WASTE OF MONEY for what the union delegates wanted.
Maybe you should assume that the people on these forums have as much understanding as you do about unions and associations. Maybe if you stopped treating us like we were born yesterday you might get further.
SO before you go pulling a con job perhaps you might like to get yourself âlegalâ first then come back and approach teachers with a least some mediocre directions.
AS for now you are simply not an entity anybody will work with for long.
Iâve had unions cost me more time in lost pay than was ever worth it. None of the strikes voted for never got anything than a non paid days rest.
By the way this was when I was taking home AUD$520 a week after taxes with great food and good lodgings provided. Not bad for a 20 year old labourer in 1980. But our Union reps wanted us to strike⌠for what? More Money? Morons. We were making in the top 5% of salaried people in Australia at the time.
Our crew eventually told two union reps to fuck off. We made more $$$ working from 7:30am to 5:30pm six days a week and getting a nice bonus from the employer by bringing the job in a month early. In coal mining time is big money.
I donât blame those guys for not having many details at this point. Itâs like theyâre more in a brainstorming phase rather than a roll-out phase. Thatâs understandable.
My feelings about unions, however, are similar to those of Mr TV. They extort both members and employers. The work rules they negotiate into contracts make the companyâs operations less efficient and less competitive. They protect sub-par employees from being canned. There may have been a time when they actually served a useful purpose, to protect powerless employees from severe exploitation, but thatâs not happening here.
Now a professional association, devoted to the development of itâs membersâ teaching skills, providing networking opportunities, acting as a clearing house of information, giving referrals to those in the legal profession specializing in the unique needs of a foreigner living in Taiwan, would be of interest. But thatâs not what a union does. And although the founding fathers of this group have said itâs not a âunionâ but an âassociationâ, thatâs just semantics. So far, the stated intent is not professional development but collective bargaining.
No thank you.
Hey all on this site.
We have posted our first of 7 of your many frequently asked questions on our yahoo site.
So if you join the site you can read them. But we also hope you participate in our short email survey about what you would like from a teachers association. Feel free to say anything you like on the responses as they will all be read and considered.
Group home page: groups.yahoo.com/group/tlta
Group email address: taiwanteachersassociation@yahoo.com
To answer a couple of quick questions that perhaps will also be dealt with later on in the FAQ section of the yahoo site:
As stated earlier, we have found our information on becoming legally registered with the Taipei government, but yes we are not legally registered yet. We just started meeting as a group 3 weeks ago and found out about the legalities of organization registration in Taiwan/Taipei 2 weeks ago.
The fact that you can legally register with TLTA is that as not claiming union status, after legal recognition, we can as foreigners legally register with this organization without legal repercussions.
We are not conducting secret meetings. If you are a teacher and want to attend, just PM me or send taiwanteachersassociation an email and you will be informed about our meeting time and location.
TLTA will be here to help teachers. Us at TLTA are not trying to find some scam to get you to come and sacrifice babies or give all your lifetime savings to. We are looking to form an organization here in Taiwan for teachers nothing else.
Give us your input and be a part. We are not dictators just fellow teachers.
Hi kwaz666,
I have a few suggestions for you.
-
Change your forumosa username - âkwaz âsign of the beastâ 666â doesnât really sound professional.
-
Attend a forumosan happy hour. Press the flesh - let people see that you are not a knob.
-
Perhaps you should remove the link you have to the âTaiwan Baseball forumâ - Iâm assuming it is your forum. It screams FAILURE, absolutely FUCKING SCREAMS it!
The forum has been active for six months but âactiveâ is not really the word.
Mmmkay.
TVman, I am going to ask you to tone down your posts as I find them unnecessarily offensive, inflammatory and downright rude. This thread is really intended for teachers in Taiwan and you are not one so Iâm not sure why you even take such an interest in employment matters that donât concern you, but its a kind-of free country and you have your rights so its up to you how you spend your free time I suppose. I have to tolerate ignorant posts from people like you, even though you donât read our messages properly and are intent on hijacking this thread to entertain yourself but i think you should pay greater respect to the rules of the forum and the posters on it. To some of us, this is a very serious matter and we donât take kindly to your attempts to trivialise it, hijack it and wind people up.
Scott Sommers, you are a strange animal indeed. We have invited you to come clean on your involvement in management but you refuse. We have invited you to come to our meetings but you refuse. I have asked you to clarrify your position but you refuse. Now you want to pretend that we are a bunch of hoaxers in another country! No, Iâm afraid we are very real and if you want to come along to a meeting you will discover it for yourself. It is quite disingenius and misleading for you to try to tell people on this thread that this is a hoax and I think it says more about you than it does about us. Still, the offer is still there to come along to our meeting. And we are even prepared to make an exception in your case as you have a public persona: we will make a presumption that you are an ordinary teacher, not a manager/owner, seeing as you wonât tell us yourself, so you are welcome to come along to our next meeting just to satisfy yourself that this is for real. And then you can report back to everyone else on forumosa if you really feel like it. Just PM me for details. We look forward to meeting you. Iâve read some of your stuff on your blog and your heart seems to be in the right place so it would be good to get your ideas in person.
Oh, Sandman, sorry I forgot about you! Welcome aboard the Yahoo group! We hope you have nothing but honorable intentions in doing so. Hope to see you at Monday nightâs meeting.
Itâs a free country⌠well at least for me it is. Maybe if you donât like it you can try having me deported for working without a valid ARC 
Or maybe no ARC at all. 
I gotta leave Monday for a visa run back a couple of days later on we can met up in Taipei for a coffee or two. I got a secret location for that.
PS I also teach English. :bravo:
As for not being relevant I own a school. That means having teachers. Does that have any relevance then? Oh shit I guess not as school owners not welcome. Ah well too bad for the teachers then. In anycase they have something that is legally beneficial and that is the CLA.
So you can find my posts for how you see them. Apparently the blunt truth gets to you a bit eh? 
So drop your telling me to tone down my posts. Will not happen. They are quite valid under forum rules as I am not attacking any individual. I am responding to your posts about your yet to be registered legal association. :help: :help:
But of course you as the union delegate probably donât tolerate what you consider dissent amongst the ranks eh?
[quote=âkwaz666â]Hey all on this site.
Us at TLTA are not trying to find some scam .
Give us your input and be a part. We are not dictators just fellow teachers.[/quote]
I volunteer Sandman to be your Editor in Chief :beatnik: