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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
-By Daniel Henninger
The Keystone decision is a signal to blue-collar workers that this is no longer their fathers’ Democratic Party.
The decision by the Obama administration to “delay” building the Keystone XL pipeline is a watershed moment in American politics. The implication of a policy choice rarely gets more stark than this. Put simply: Why should any blue-collar worker who isn’t hooked for life to a public budget vote for Barack Obama next year?
The Keystone XL pipeline would have created at least 20,000 direct and indirect jobs. Much of this would have been well-paid work for craftsmen, not jobs as hod carriers to repave the Interstate.
On a recent trip to Omaha, Neb., Mr. Obama signaled where his head was on the pipeline during a TV interview: “Folks in Nebraska, like folks all across the country, aren’t going to say to themselves, ‘We’re going to take a few thousand jobs if it means our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health.” Imagine if he’d been leading a wagon train of workers and farmers across the Western frontier in 1850.
Within days of the Keystone decision, Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, said his country would divert sales of the Keystone-intended oil to Asia. Translation: Those lost American blue-collar pipeline jobs are disappearing into the Asian sun. Incidentally, Mr. Harper has said he wants to turn Canada into an energy “superpower,” exploiting its oil, gas and hydroelectric resources. Meanwhile, the American president shores up his environmental base in Hollywood and on campus. Perhaps our blue-collar work force should consider emigrating to Canada…
Read the rest at the Wall Street Journal.
-By Larry Sand
A new study claims that public school teachers are overpaid. Are they? Depends.
An ongoing whine from teachers unions and their fellow travelers is that public school teachers don’t earn enough money. But according to Andrew Biggs, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute scholar and Jason Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, it is just not true. In fact, in a recently released study, they find that teachers are overpaid. Typically teachers have many perks like excellent healthcare and pension packages which aren’t counted as “income.†Armed with facts, charts and a bevy of footnotes, the authors make a very good case for their thesis. For example, they claim,
“Workers who switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs receive a wage increase of roughly 9 percent, while teachers who change to non-teaching jobs see their wages decrease by approximately 3 percent.
“When retiree health coverage for teachers is included, it is worth roughly an additional 10 percent of wages, whereas private sector employees often do not receive this benefit at all.
“Teachers benefit strongly from job security benefits, which are worth about an extra 1 percent of wages, rising to 8.6 percent when considering that extra job security protects a premium paid in terms of salaries and benefits.
“Taking all of this into account, teachers actually receive salary and benefits that are 52 percent greater than fair market levels.â€
Needless to say, the usual suspects are none too pleased with the report. A teacher-blogger going by New York City Educator calls his piece, “‘That’s Just Mean’: Bullies at the Heritage Foundation.†Okay, whatever. Continue reading »
Once again the New York Times proves to an asylum run by its inmates. This time they are proposing that these Occupy dregs are somehow “teaching” unions “how to embrace bold tactics.”
How is it that unions need to be taught how to be “bold”? Unions have a long, long history of theft, violence, even murders. How can you be “bolder” than committing felonies for your cause?
It is simply idiotic that the New York Times wants people to imagine that Unions are too timid!
Priceless.
-By Warner Todd Huston
Matt Mayer of the Buckeye Institute has done the math on what a defeat of Issue 2 will cost Ohio’s taxpayers. Turns out it will cost taxpayers $1,468 more a year by 2015.
Mayer made a simple calculation by taking the $8 billion tax hike that a defeat of Issue 2 will usher in by 2015 and dividing that by the 5,448, 500 state tax returns filed in Ohio. He also took the initial $1.4 billion tax hike that will result if the unions win on Tuesday and found that each taxpayer will be stuck with an immediate $257 more in taxes next year.
The annual savings we calculated from SB5 once all contracts are negotiated would be nearly $1.4 billion per year (for details, see www.buckeyeinstitute.org/getthefacts).
In 2007, Ohio had 5,448,500 [tax] returns filed, so that would equate to a “tax” of $257 per return… That is [merely] the savings from SB5 enactment.
An additional wrinkle is that Big Labor/Democrats have essentially gone all in on higher taxes; meaning, if SB5 is repealed, that removes one option to reducing local government costs, which leaves two options–program/staff cuts and/or raising taxes… For example, Ohio’s 613 school districts currently project a collective deficit by 2015 of [approximately $8 billion]…
[Thus, without] SB5, taxes will have to go up … [at least] $8 billion just for [Ohio's] 613 school districts by 2015, which is $1,468 per return.
So, Ohio, you have a choice. Vote Issue 2 down and stick yourself with needlessly higher taxes and give unions the ability to stick it to you further, or give your legislature — not union bosses — the power to control your state’s budget like they should.
-By Larry Sand
Parents sue the LA school board and teachers union, forcing them to obey a law that they have ignored for 40 years.
There is nothing new about unions bullying weak-kneed school districts, but this may be the mother of all abuses– for forty years, school districts and unions have collaborated to break the law in California. According to the Stull Act (Section 44660 of the state’s education code), part of a teacher’s evaluation is required to include a student achievement component, but this has not happened anywhere in the state. Last week, after consulting with EdVoice, a reform advocacy group in Sacramento, parents of some students in Los Angeles Unified School District sued the school district and teachers union for what amounts to a dereliction of duty. While the lawsuit is aimed at LA, it will have state-wide ramifications.
Originally enacted in 1971, the Stull Act, named after State Senator John Stull, was amended in 1999 to include,
“The governing board of each school district shall evaluate and assess certificated employee performance as it reasonably relates to:
The progress of pupils toward the standards established pursuant to subdivision (a) and, if applicable, the state adopted academic content standards as measured by state adopted criterion referenced assessments….â€
Continue reading »
