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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
Kyle Maichle points out today that Wisconsin’s new law kicks in starting today.
“After nearly five months of protests and everything in between, Wisconsin’s new collective bargaining reforms for government employees went into effect today at 12:01 AM CDT. As of today, all government employees must contribute 12% of their salary to their health insurance and 5.6% to their retirement. Also, the only thing that government employees can bargain on is their salaries.
During the nearly five months when SB 11 was stuck in the courts, a good chunk of local government unions including school districts got contract extensions under the old law for up to two years. Yesterday, the unions representing Milwaukee County failed to get a two year extension under the old collective bargaining law. The Chairman of the Milwaukee County Board said that he would not schedule a special session over the union contracts. This was a big defeat for the government employee unions representing Wisconsin’s largest metro area.”
And the gnashing of union teeth has only just begun!
My Friend Maggie Thurber has a great piece chronicling the hate that unions in Ohio display for those voters that stand against the absurd riches that government employees have wrung out of the taxpayers in the Buckeye State.
Pointing out that union supporters are “dripping with ‘hate’ and derision toward people who see a problem and are trying to fix it,” Thurber does a great job of identifying the flawed logic in this union member’s argument on why the focus on the “opulent” benefits and pay scales of government workers is wrong on their opinion.
One point that Thurber makes is spot on. While it is true that many people are sick and tire of these union thugs ripping off the taxpayers, the unions are not the only entities at fault here.
“I don’t blame unions solely for this,” Thurber writes. “I also blame elected officials who, with their symbiotic relationship to the public sector unions, fail to properly represent the taxpayer when it comes to negotiations and voting on contracts.”
Thurber goes on to layout clearly the mess that both pliant politicians and greedy union spendthrifts have created for the state of Ohio’s budget. But, we must understand that this rancid situation isn’t isolated to Ohio. The fact is every single state in the union has this problem.
Government unions across the country have caused state budget to be sunk in a mire of red ink, over spending, unearned promises, and overly generous pay scales, benefits, and pension obligations. Politicians have acted the union’s agents in the halls of our legislature, too. To top it off, the activist courts have continually sided with the unions against the public weal.
This is precisely why government unions are detrimental to our nation. Government unions are antithetical to good government. The voters are entirely cut out from affecting the constant undeserved increases in union benefits as the unions ply politicians with campaign cash while those pols bend to the union’s will in order to get that cash. It is a never ending cycle that goes strictly against fiscal responsibility and the will of the people.
Government unions should be made illegal like they were only 50 years ago. It’s just that simple.
-By Larry Sand
The folks who have resisted real education reform will attempt to sell their broken ideas, tax-the-rich schemes and radical socialism in D.C. next month.
Sorry to be the bearer of unpleasant news, but the SOS (Save Our Schools) March on Washington — an attempt to con the public by diverting the debate away from real education reform issues like failing schools, irresponsible spending, retaining bad teachers, etc. – will be setting up their Big Top in Washington D.C. from July 28th to July 31st.
The annoying whiny voice in the SOS promotional video is probably an indication as to what the tone of the event will be. Its endorsers are the usual motley collection of progressive educators, socialist organizations and teachers unions that one would expect – Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, Students for a Democratic Society, the Freedom Socialist Party and the National Educational Association are just a few of the individuals and organizations lending their name to this circus. I will be reporting more on the event in the weeks to come.
Going through the event’s website, one sees the typical “progressive” reform ideas including pleas for “more money for education” and “smaller class sizes,” but one thing did jump out at me – the obsessive hatred of standardized testing. Many education reformers think that standardized testing is one way to tell if a child is learning his/her subject matter. However, the SOS crowd sees any use of standardized tests as evil. The progressive educators don’t like them because they think that teachers will only “teach to the test” and that children will be robbed of a “real education.” The teachers unions don’t like the tests because they know that teachers could be held accountable if children do poorly on them and teacher accountability is the last thing a teachers union will tolerate.
Unfortunately for the naysayers, standardized tests are now being used as part of a teacher’s evaluation in various school districts around the country. Even in Los Angeles, never in the vanguard of reform, an evaluation system including standardized test scores will be beta tested over the next couple of years.
For more on standardized tests – why we need them, why the teachers should be evaluated in part by them and why the results should be made public – please read my latest post in City Journal. Continue reading »
-By Warner Todd Huston
Cities, counties and states (not to mention the federal gov’t) all across the country are overspent, out of cash, and deeply in the red. One reality that has been hitting all these government entities has been a series of tough negotiations with government employee unions. Unions are loathe to take cuts, certainly, but the reality is that in many cases it’s either cuts or layoffs. More and more unions are realizing this and taking the cuts to avoid losing jobs. The foolish government employees in Connecticut seem to be insensible to reality, though.
Strangely enough, even the government union bosses in Connecticut understood the pickle they were in. Union bigwigs negotiated cuts with the Democrat controlled state legislature and Democrat Governor Daniel Malloy. They did this with the understanding that none of their rank and file would lose their job.
Unfortunately for the unions, many of the members seem too foolish to “get” it. They voted the concessions down. Now Governor Malloy is saying he has little choice but to get rid of thousands of workers.
Nice move, fellows.
Granted not all the government union employees are that stupid. Sixty percent of them understood full well that many of them would lose their jobs if they didn’t vote to accept the cuts. Sadly for them, the rules worked against them.
Despite over 60 percent of state workers approving the deal, Connecticut’s collective bargaining rules require 14 of 15 of the public sector unions. Two state unions, including its largest, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, opposed the deal, believing the Governor would offer them a better package if they rejected it.
Morons. Even a Democrat Governor knows that he is between a rock and a hard place with budgets these days. Gov. Malloy has said he will not renegotiate and the layoffs will begin.
Face, meet that cut off nose!
Unions just don’t get it, do they? Their day of organized theft of the taxpayer’s money is over. It must be over if our governments are to stay solvent.
After this initial era of major cuts and layoffs is over, the next important step will be to eliminate the government employee unions entirely. They should never have been allowed to exist in the first place. And remember, they’ve only been around for about 50 years, so they are NOT some ages old American institution.
Heck, even Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman were against government employee unions. And for good reason, too. They are antithetical to good government.
Hey, Teamsters members… how pleased are you that your union bosses are spending thousands of you dues money for a Las Vegas vacation?
Courtesy of LaborUnionReport.com…
I wonder, brothers, are your union bigwigs sending YOU to beautiful, exciting Las Vegas for fun in the sun?
… or are you working your fingers to the bone while they cavort in Sin City on your dime?
-By Warner Todd Huston
Green Bay TV reported on June 21 that the teachers union in Green Bay, Wisconsin is incensed that the school district is demanding that teachers work an extra half hour a day, making their hours a set 8-hour day, or a 40-hour work week. In turn, this absurd ire displayed by teachers is incensing local Green Bay residents.
“They need to be the professionals that they are supposed to be. They sound like a bunch of idiots and they look like a bunch of idiots, they make the rest of us look bad,” said a listener to the Vicki McKenna Show.
Naturally the teachers union president assumes all you Green Bayers are stupid, that you don’t understand the issues, and says that she won’t listen to her critics, anyway.
In the report, Toni Lardinois, president of Green Bay Teachers Union, threw up the straw man factoid that some teachers voluntarily give 10 and 11 hour days to their job. The proper reply to this factoid is a hearty “so what”?
Yes, it is good that some dedicated teachers, all of whom are on salary, spend more time at work than they are obligated by their contracts. But the fact is they are not obligated to spend more than 7-1/2 hours a day at work. And the target are the many more teachers that give only the bare minimum required. That is what the school board is trying to rectify.
Even so, what is the whining going on here? These taxpayer paid for, government employee teachers are upset that they have to work an 8-hour day like everyone else does? How does that win them any sympathizers in the general public?
Hopefully it won’t. Hopefully, these pampered, highly paid public employees will at least find they have to work the same number of hours that the people paying their salaries have to work!
With some Wisconsin teachers making over $100,000 a year in average annual compensation, one would think they’d be smart enough to keep quite and suffer the small indignities, eh?
Eric Odom (Media Director)
Warner Todd Huston