Showing posts with label Unions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unions. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Why Raising the Minimum Wage Benefits Unions but not the Poor
From: Against Crony Capitalism
In this country we want everyone to prosper This is the land of opportunity and seeing people succeed, especially people who may have come from modest means, is deeply gratifying to Americans. We like success. We like hard work. We like overcoming adversity. In contrast to many societies which do everything they can to restrict class mobility, we celebrate it.
It is because of this spirit that many people support raising the minimum wage. It stinks that in a land of plenty some should have little. Our natural instinct is to “do something about it.” To help make at least some modest success more possible. Unfortunately this instinct often gets us into trouble, especially when translated into public policy. We have already mentioned (in prior posts) why raising the minimum wage is a good example of a policy which actually hurts those it is intended to help.
In this country we want everyone to prosper This is the land of opportunity and seeing people succeed, especially people who may have come from modest means, is deeply gratifying to Americans. We like success. We like hard work. We like overcoming adversity. In contrast to many societies which do everything they can to restrict class mobility, we celebrate it.
It is because of this spirit that many people support raising the minimum wage. It stinks that in a land of plenty some should have little. Our natural instinct is to “do something about it.” To help make at least some modest success more possible. Unfortunately this instinct often gets us into trouble, especially when translated into public policy. We have already mentioned (in prior posts) why raising the minimum wage is a good example of a policy which actually hurts those it is intended to help.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Police Unions Cross Line While Bullying Public Officials
From: Reason.com
California city officials typically spare police officers even modest reductions in the pay and pension packages that are a main source of local budget problems, even when the other alternatives are cuts in public services or even municipal bankruptcy.
The common explanation is politicians are afraid of the cop unions’ political muscle come election time. That is true, but disturbing behavior by operatives associated with the Costa Mesa police union paints a much darker picture of the fear such unions instill in local officials. The incident has statewide and even national implications.
Costa Mesa Councilman Jim Righeimer had finished speaking at a community meeting last Wednesday, and then headed to a pub owned by fellow councilman Gary Monahan. Righeimer drank two sodas and drove home. After arriving home, a Costa Mesa cop showed up at his door and asked him to step outside and take a sobriety test, which he passed.
That a police officer can ask for a sobriety test after you have returned home is troubling enough, but the details of the case are even more astonishing.
A private eye with connections to the law firm Lackie, Dammeier & McGill of Upland, Calif., which represents the Costa Mesa Police Officers Association and many others across the state, called 911 and reported Righeimer as a possible DUI, representing himself as a concerned citizen. The caller said Righeimer stumbled out of the bar even though surveillance cameras show no such thing. “He’s just swerving all over the road,” the caller stated.
The private eye, Chris Lanzillo, a fired Riverside police officer who showed up at Righeimer’s house in a car without license plates, claims he was not on orders to follow Righeimer. The law firm also denied this but promptly removed Lanzillo's name from its Web site.
The Costa Mesa union fired the firm, moments before a city press conference. But this backpedaling is not credible. The law firm brags publicly about its brass-knucked tactics, and its Web site features testimonials from unions thrilled by how its legal work brings city managers to their knees. There's no sense believing anything said by a man whose claims in the police report are not even close to reality. The whole situation screams set up.
“What you have here is police associations and their law firms hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on elected officials that they can then use to extort them, embarrass them or worse in order to get the elected official to vote against the best interests of the city to protect themselves,” Righeimer told me. “That’s the definition of extortion.”
The Costa Mesa City Council is gaining national attention for its willingness to challenge unions. The council has passed pension reform and embraced outsourcing. It recently approved the Civic Openness In Negotiations (COIN) ordinance, which subjects contract negotiations to a level of outside auditing and public disclosure that has infuriated unions.
It would have been an embarrassment had the union ensnared the ring-leader of this reform movement in a DUI. But this is the kind of behavior one finds in police states, or perhaps Mafia organizations. It is not an isolated incident.
Recently, the Orange County Register’s Tony Saavedra reported on the “playbook” used by that Upland firm in its negotiations, and until recently published on the firm’s Web site. These lawyers represent 120 police associations across California, so these are typical tactics.
The fake-DUI call took place soon after Righeimer publicly criticized the firm.
“Its primer for police negotiations is part swagger, part braggadocio and all insult in its portrayal of the public and the budget-conscious officials elected to represent them,” Saavedra reported. He gave this example from the playbook text: “The association should be like a quiet giant in the position of ‘do as I ask and don’t (expletive) me off.’”
The playback calls for work slowdowns, for mobbing council meetings with calls for higher police funding, for scaring neighborhoods about crime problems by going to as many houses as possible looking for suspects for minor crimes. It calls for putting the pressure on officials, gaining their loyalty and then moving on to the “next victim.” This treatment of Righeimer takes a page out of the book.
At a press conference held by Righeimer to spotlight the behavior of unions associated with Lackie, Dammeier & McGill, Councilman Fred Smith of Buena Park, who has also taken a tough stance on unions, said a uniformed officer approached waitresses and demanded to know why their restaurant had a Smith for Council sign in the window, as their squad cars blocked the restaurant parking lot entrance. Elected officials shared examples of threatening statements and text messages by police union operatives. Councilman Monahan has in the past said police have staked out his bar and pulled over patrons as they leave to harm his business.
“It’s a pretty dark side of American policing and I have personally been a victim of this twisted cop behavior when I was police chief,” Joseph McNamara told me, after I mentioned Costa Mesa. He is a Hoover Institution research fellow and former police chief for Kansas City and San Jose. This “gangster cop” mentality, he said, becomes more prevalent during salary negotiations.
The solution? “Strong leadership where the chief, the district attorney and even the feds if necessary treat this as a very serious crime against democracy itself,” he said.
In addition to the gangsters, their consiglieres such as Lackie, Dammeier & McGill, should be investigated as well.
It’s one thing for elected officials to be “taken out” at the ballot box. But quite another thing for them to be harassed, intimidated, and set up on false charges as union operatives, operating under the color of authority, try to silence them.
California city officials typically spare police officers even modest reductions in the pay and pension packages that are a main source of local budget problems, even when the other alternatives are cuts in public services or even municipal bankruptcy.
The common explanation is politicians are afraid of the cop unions’ political muscle come election time. That is true, but disturbing behavior by operatives associated with the Costa Mesa police union paints a much darker picture of the fear such unions instill in local officials. The incident has statewide and even national implications.
Costa Mesa Councilman Jim Righeimer had finished speaking at a community meeting last Wednesday, and then headed to a pub owned by fellow councilman Gary Monahan. Righeimer drank two sodas and drove home. After arriving home, a Costa Mesa cop showed up at his door and asked him to step outside and take a sobriety test, which he passed.
That a police officer can ask for a sobriety test after you have returned home is troubling enough, but the details of the case are even more astonishing.
A private eye with connections to the law firm Lackie, Dammeier & McGill of Upland, Calif., which represents the Costa Mesa Police Officers Association and many others across the state, called 911 and reported Righeimer as a possible DUI, representing himself as a concerned citizen. The caller said Righeimer stumbled out of the bar even though surveillance cameras show no such thing. “He’s just swerving all over the road,” the caller stated.
The private eye, Chris Lanzillo, a fired Riverside police officer who showed up at Righeimer’s house in a car without license plates, claims he was not on orders to follow Righeimer. The law firm also denied this but promptly removed Lanzillo's name from its Web site.
The Costa Mesa union fired the firm, moments before a city press conference. But this backpedaling is not credible. The law firm brags publicly about its brass-knucked tactics, and its Web site features testimonials from unions thrilled by how its legal work brings city managers to their knees. There's no sense believing anything said by a man whose claims in the police report are not even close to reality. The whole situation screams set up.
“What you have here is police associations and their law firms hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on elected officials that they can then use to extort them, embarrass them or worse in order to get the elected official to vote against the best interests of the city to protect themselves,” Righeimer told me. “That’s the definition of extortion.”
The Costa Mesa City Council is gaining national attention for its willingness to challenge unions. The council has passed pension reform and embraced outsourcing. It recently approved the Civic Openness In Negotiations (COIN) ordinance, which subjects contract negotiations to a level of outside auditing and public disclosure that has infuriated unions.
It would have been an embarrassment had the union ensnared the ring-leader of this reform movement in a DUI. But this is the kind of behavior one finds in police states, or perhaps Mafia organizations. It is not an isolated incident.
Recently, the Orange County Register’s Tony Saavedra reported on the “playbook” used by that Upland firm in its negotiations, and until recently published on the firm’s Web site. These lawyers represent 120 police associations across California, so these are typical tactics.
The fake-DUI call took place soon after Righeimer publicly criticized the firm.
“Its primer for police negotiations is part swagger, part braggadocio and all insult in its portrayal of the public and the budget-conscious officials elected to represent them,” Saavedra reported. He gave this example from the playbook text: “The association should be like a quiet giant in the position of ‘do as I ask and don’t (expletive) me off.’”
The playback calls for work slowdowns, for mobbing council meetings with calls for higher police funding, for scaring neighborhoods about crime problems by going to as many houses as possible looking for suspects for minor crimes. It calls for putting the pressure on officials, gaining their loyalty and then moving on to the “next victim.” This treatment of Righeimer takes a page out of the book.
At a press conference held by Righeimer to spotlight the behavior of unions associated with Lackie, Dammeier & McGill, Councilman Fred Smith of Buena Park, who has also taken a tough stance on unions, said a uniformed officer approached waitresses and demanded to know why their restaurant had a Smith for Council sign in the window, as their squad cars blocked the restaurant parking lot entrance. Elected officials shared examples of threatening statements and text messages by police union operatives. Councilman Monahan has in the past said police have staked out his bar and pulled over patrons as they leave to harm his business.
“It’s a pretty dark side of American policing and I have personally been a victim of this twisted cop behavior when I was police chief,” Joseph McNamara told me, after I mentioned Costa Mesa. He is a Hoover Institution research fellow and former police chief for Kansas City and San Jose. This “gangster cop” mentality, he said, becomes more prevalent during salary negotiations.
The solution? “Strong leadership where the chief, the district attorney and even the feds if necessary treat this as a very serious crime against democracy itself,” he said.
In addition to the gangsters, their consiglieres such as Lackie, Dammeier & McGill, should be investigated as well.
It’s one thing for elected officials to be “taken out” at the ballot box. But quite another thing for them to be harassed, intimidated, and set up on false charges as union operatives, operating under the color of authority, try to silence them.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Delhi Employee Speaks Out
The Right Scoop links to an interview conducted on FOX NEWS, an employee of Delphi whose pension was lost in its entirety because it was non union. This of course happened while the unions were unlawfully bailed out in violation of bankruptcy law, their unsecured loans getting precedence over secured lenders. A growing story, but as usual the mainstream media ignores.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Chris Christie’s teacher-tenure coup
From: NYPOST.com
Here’s a sign that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is fundamentally reshaping the Garden State: He’s got teacher-union leaders sounding like, well . . . Chris Christie.
The gov is just days away from enacting a sweeping reform of teacher-tenure laws, which currently guarantee lifelong jobs to even the worst educators.
And Christie has managed to twist the union into quite a pretzel: Its leaders now say they support making it easier to lay off the lemons among them.
“This legislation moves us in the right direction by making it harder to earn tenure, and less expensive and time-consuming to remove teachers who are not performing well,” said union boss Barbara Keshishian.
Yes, that’s the sound of Hell freezing over.
More precisely, it’s a labor leader explaining why she’s backing a bill that zaps the system that grants 98 percent of Newark’s new teachers near-automatic tenure — and jobs for life — every year without fail.
It’s a real testament to Christie’s skill. He called out the unions last year for running a system “where you have no rewards for excellence and no consequences for failure.”
And the Senate answered, passing a bill this week that requires four years of high ratings to win tenure, and lets schools revoke tenure and possibly fire teachers who get back-to-back negative reviews.
A watered-down version awaits passage in the Assembly, and a compromise bill should reach Christie’s desk soon.
This legislation is far from perfect: It fails to fix the “last in, first out” seniority rules that require the state to fire the newest teachers first whenever there are layoffs.
And, truth is, we’d rather see tenure abolished wholesale in Jersey and New York.
But the reform is a major achievement that should help dig public-school kids out of a failing school system.
Again, kudos to Christie.
Andrew Cuomo, please take note.
Here’s a sign that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is fundamentally reshaping the Garden State: He’s got teacher-union leaders sounding like, well . . . Chris Christie.
The gov is just days away from enacting a sweeping reform of teacher-tenure laws, which currently guarantee lifelong jobs to even the worst educators.
And Christie has managed to twist the union into quite a pretzel: Its leaders now say they support making it easier to lay off the lemons among them.
“This legislation moves us in the right direction by making it harder to earn tenure, and less expensive and time-consuming to remove teachers who are not performing well,” said union boss Barbara Keshishian.
More precisely, it’s a labor leader explaining why she’s backing a bill that zaps the system that grants 98 percent of Newark’s new teachers near-automatic tenure — and jobs for life — every year without fail.
It’s a real testament to Christie’s skill. He called out the unions last year for running a system “where you have no rewards for excellence and no consequences for failure.”
And the Senate answered, passing a bill this week that requires four years of high ratings to win tenure, and lets schools revoke tenure and possibly fire teachers who get back-to-back negative reviews.
A watered-down version awaits passage in the Assembly, and a compromise bill should reach Christie’s desk soon.
This legislation is far from perfect: It fails to fix the “last in, first out” seniority rules that require the state to fire the newest teachers first whenever there are layoffs.
And, truth is, we’d rather see tenure abolished wholesale in Jersey and New York.
But the reform is a major achievement that should help dig public-school kids out of a failing school system.
Again, kudos to Christie.
Andrew Cuomo, please take note.
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Saturday, June 02, 2012
Althouse: "We're sending this mailing to you and your neighbors
From: Ann Althouse: Incredibly creepy mail today from the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund : I obscured names and addresses, but be assured, this was a list...
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Wisconsin Votes For Limited Government
From: Investors.com
Unions' failure to recall four Republican state senators shows that their days of power through intimidation are over. If this was a rehearsal for 2012, the White House should start making other plans.
The natives are still restless, the pitchforks sharp and the Walker revolution safe. Portrayed by union leaders as an aberration fueled by a generic voter wrath against incumbents, the GOP grab of both houses of Wisconsin's legislature and the governor's office in 2010 was predicted to fade once voters realized "workers' rights" were at risk.
Then a funny thing happened on the way to the polling booth, that shrine to the secret ballot so anathema to union leaders. Voters decided they liked a limited government that said there are things we just can't afford. They also liked the idea that taxpayers had rights and could and should control how their money is spent.
It didn't help the union cause when the city of Milwaukee announced it will save at least $25 million a year — and potentially as much as $36 million in 2012 — from health care benefit changes it didn't have to negotiate with unions, as a result of provisions in a 2009-11 budget-repair measure that ended most collective bargaining for public-sector unions.
Nor did it help the unions that Wisconsin, under the business-friendly leadership of Gov. Scott Walker and a Republican legislature, accounted for more than half the jobs created in the U.S. during June. Walker's office reported that 9,500 jobs were added that month and 39,300 since he took office in January. So far this year, the state's unemployment rate has remained at least 1.5 points below the national average.
The ability to continue feeding at the public trough while holding elected leaders hostage is a top union priority. Government is the only area of union growth and constitutes the largest source of union dues that flow to the campaigns of liberal and progressive Democrats.
Unions' failure to recall four Republican state senators shows that their days of power through intimidation are over. If this was a rehearsal for 2012, the White House should start making other plans.
The natives are still restless, the pitchforks sharp and the Walker revolution safe. Portrayed by union leaders as an aberration fueled by a generic voter wrath against incumbents, the GOP grab of both houses of Wisconsin's legislature and the governor's office in 2010 was predicted to fade once voters realized "workers' rights" were at risk.
Then a funny thing happened on the way to the polling booth, that shrine to the secret ballot so anathema to union leaders. Voters decided they liked a limited government that said there are things we just can't afford. They also liked the idea that taxpayers had rights and could and should control how their money is spent.
It didn't help the union cause when the city of Milwaukee announced it will save at least $25 million a year — and potentially as much as $36 million in 2012 — from health care benefit changes it didn't have to negotiate with unions, as a result of provisions in a 2009-11 budget-repair measure that ended most collective bargaining for public-sector unions.
Nor did it help the unions that Wisconsin, under the business-friendly leadership of Gov. Scott Walker and a Republican legislature, accounted for more than half the jobs created in the U.S. during June. Walker's office reported that 9,500 jobs were added that month and 39,300 since he took office in January. So far this year, the state's unemployment rate has remained at least 1.5 points below the national average.
The ability to continue feeding at the public trough while holding elected leaders hostage is a top union priority. Government is the only area of union growth and constitutes the largest source of union dues that flow to the campaigns of liberal and progressive Democrats.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Kloppenburg: We Won. Our Victory Will Hold
Eat your words, madame. Kloppenberg declares victory with a 200 vote margin. Classic jackassery
As it turns out Waukesha County's numbers were misreported to the AP and Prosser is now ahead by 7,500 votes. How sweet it is. Now all we need is Prosser's face photoshopped onto the classic "Dewey Defeats Truman" picture. Here is a classy statement by the judge.
As it turns out Waukesha County's numbers were misreported to the AP and Prosser is now ahead by 7,500 votes. How sweet it is. Now all we need is Prosser's face photoshopped onto the classic "Dewey Defeats Truman" picture. Here is a classy statement by the judge.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
On Wisconsin: Turnout Is the story
As I sit here typing away, Kloppenberg is now ahead by just under 500 votes in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Disappointing. Recount to follow and I can't be optimistic. Even if Kloppenberg wins, however the fact that this was close is telling. Conservatives throughout the blogosphere were downright fatalistic before the polls closed. Not that that's anything new. On election day, we conservatives are like Eagles and Jets fans on any given Sunday in January. We just know there's a shoe to drop somewhere.
The Democrats even if they eke this out cannot be too thrilled. The contentiousness has so brazenly worked to their advantage in the press that it was reasonable to believe that Prosser would be clobbered. The unions threw the kitchen sink,the dishwasher and they damn near stripped the copper wiring and flogged Prosser with it. They, at this time I suspect have a recount advantage, but they cannot be happy that at their political peak in this moment they are in a slight lead. There are no prizes for second place in elections, but this outcome may be a "pyrhhic" victory for Richard Trumka. So great an effort and a scant prospect of victory. If you can't crush a judicial candidate, how will anyone fear you if they are running for Governor or Senator?
While everyone is wringing their hands over the state of Wisconsin and this too close to call election it must be noted that the real story is the turnout. Events in Wisconsin did warrant a higher than normal turnout. That is expected. But one and a half million votes cast? In a State Supreme Court election? Are you kidding me? Events did not foresee such an ungodly turnout as high as those stakes were.
Wisconsin voters sent a message to both parties last night. Things are not the way they seem. For Democrats the message was don't let the press create a false wave and for Republicans and conservatives alike, things aren't as gloomy as you think.
Six months after historic mid term elections, the voters turned out on the first Tuesday in April in an off year judicial election to the tune of 1 1/2 million. Everyone across the political spectrum is on notice. The voters are still watching and waiting and voting. They don't like their vote being presumed and all bets are off. It's the turnout stupid.
The Democrats even if they eke this out cannot be too thrilled. The contentiousness has so brazenly worked to their advantage in the press that it was reasonable to believe that Prosser would be clobbered. The unions threw the kitchen sink,the dishwasher and they damn near stripped the copper wiring and flogged Prosser with it. They, at this time I suspect have a recount advantage, but they cannot be happy that at their political peak in this moment they are in a slight lead. There are no prizes for second place in elections, but this outcome may be a "pyrhhic" victory for Richard Trumka. So great an effort and a scant prospect of victory. If you can't crush a judicial candidate, how will anyone fear you if they are running for Governor or Senator?
While everyone is wringing their hands over the state of Wisconsin and this too close to call election it must be noted that the real story is the turnout. Events in Wisconsin did warrant a higher than normal turnout. That is expected. But one and a half million votes cast? In a State Supreme Court election? Are you kidding me? Events did not foresee such an ungodly turnout as high as those stakes were.
Wisconsin voters sent a message to both parties last night. Things are not the way they seem. For Democrats the message was don't let the press create a false wave and for Republicans and conservatives alike, things aren't as gloomy as you think.
Six months after historic mid term elections, the voters turned out on the first Tuesday in April in an off year judicial election to the tune of 1 1/2 million. Everyone across the political spectrum is on notice. The voters are still watching and waiting and voting. They don't like their vote being presumed and all bets are off. It's the turnout stupid.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Bench Brawl in Wisconsin
From: National Review Online
Wisconsin supreme court justice David Prosser went to bed one night a respected former prosecutor, and woke up the next morning the target of a $3 million union-run smear campaign, falsely accused of being an enabler of pedophiles. That is what you get when you oppose the political machine that has been fleecing taxpayers in Wisconsin and elsewhere for a generation. Or, as in the case of Justice Prosser, when they suspect you might merely stand in their way and do your job.
The Left long ago stopped pretending that court proceedings were anything other than exercises in raw-power politics, and so they’ve taken their fight against Wisconsin governor Scott Walker to the state supreme court — not in the form of a lawsuit, but in the form of a multimillion-dollar intervention into an election to a ten-year term on the court.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
HuffPo: Collective Bargaining For Pay Is Awesome, Except At HuffPo!
From: Pirate's Cove
Obviously, the Huffington Post has always been pro-union, and ever since the showdown in Wisconsin started, the site has taken a consistent position that removing the ability to bargain is just plain wrong. In Wisconsin. At the HuffPo?
A strike called by unpaid Huffington Post contributors received a major boost Wednesday with a call to arms released by the national Newspaper Guild.
The industry association called on contributors not currently on strike to cease contributions and asked members to help by “shining a light on the unprofessional and unethical practices of this company.”
The Newspaper Guild boasts 26,000 members and is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The CWA is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
The strike was called earlier this year by the membership of Visual Art Source, whose 50 members had previously contributed content for free to the site.
“Just as we would ask writers to stand fast and not cross a physical picket line, we ask that they honor this electronic picket line,” wrote the Guild.
“This is about supporting the quality and integrity of a vehicle for progressive expression, to actually help Huffington Post succeed, but on the right terms,” wrote the Guild. “We call on Arianna Huffington to demonstrate her commitment to the working class she so ardently champions in her writing.”
What they want is to be paid for their work. Of course, big old liberal meanie/hypocrite Arianna won’t allow them to bargain.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Althouse: Union thuggery against Althouse and Meade: "We wil...
From: Althouse: Union thuggery against Althouse and Meade: "We wil...: "'We will picket on public property as close to your house as we can every day. We will harrass the ever loving shit out of you all the time...."
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Wisconsin Police and Fire Threaten Walker Supporters
The Wisconsin debacle is getting even worse. Police and Firefighter Unions are now strong arming financial supporters of Governor Walker to publicly oppose him or they will boycott their services and products. In my mind there is an implied unwillingness to provide crucial police and fire support as well should the recipients of the letter below not acede to their demands. This is a letter that is making the rounds of the blogosphere.
Letter From Police and Fire
Absolutely Amazing
Letter From Police and Fire
Absolutely Amazing
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
