Blech! There's pee in my coffee.

Well, cue the right wing glee machine, because I have lost most of my collective bargaining rights.

Today, the Indiana Senate concurred with the House version of Senate Bill 575.

It now goes to Governor Mitch "Big Jerk" Daniels for his swift signature, and rests as law of the land.

This is a huge loss for teachers here in Indiana. As I've been saying for some time the victory parties regarding union labor and public education in the Hoosier state were quite premature. In concurring with the House Version of this bill, the Indiana Senate approved measures that would:

* allow annual evaluations to be conducted by other teachers or contracted outside agencies

* eliminate the ability of a local associations to bargain or discuss the evaluation tool

* restrict collective bargaining agreements to wages and wage related benefits

* ban the bargaining of contractual hours or number of days worked.

* eliminate current contractual reduction-in-force processes

* eliminate contractual grievance procedures except in cases related to wages and wage related benefits.

I added the bold for the two worst elements of this bill. Do the parts in bold sound familiar?

They should, if you've been following the labor struggles in Wisconsin and Ohio.

I'm lucky in that my own local union was able to negotiate a two-year extension on my contract, and in that our union has a pretty good working relationship with the administration and the school board. Other locals were not so lucky, and will now see huge chunks of their contract left entirely to the mercy of the local administration and school boards.

But, after our contract expires in two years, if our school board decided to extend my work day for forty-five minutes with no extra pay, guess what they can do?

Why, extend my work day for forty-five minutes with no extra pay, of course!!

And if the locals don't like that? They can get bent, as far as the state GOP is concerned.

This is a sad day for teachers in Indiana.