It’s a national story now – Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times covers the Milwaukee Teachers’ Union’s demands and dubious legal basis for those demands —
The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Assn. has gone to court asking a judge to order the financially strapped school board to reinstate coverage for Viagra, Levitra, Cialis and other erectile dysfunction drugs in union members’ healthcare plans. The union claims that excluding such coverage discriminates against the male gender.
In clearly less important news, facing growing benefit costs and shrinking revenues, the board in June had to lay off about 400 classroom teachers, the first such cuts there in decades.
At this time of stubborn national unemployment for millions, some silly people might question the wisdom of a labor union representing people with actual jobs launching legal action over a $20 pill to improve the functioning of a member of a member….
The school board claims the famous little starter pills are recreational, not medically necessary, and would cost the city $787,000 a year. Offhand, that seems like a lot of educators’ erections, but it’s also enough money to employ 12 full-time teachers of either gender.
I’ve posted about this before. See, “Barrett calls on union to drop Viagra lawsuit” — GazetteXtra.