The fiscal burden of public-employee unions - a class of citizens who set themselves up as "Lords of the Manor"

We learn our mistakes and how the mistakes happened when we study history. Only in hindsight can we see that decisions that seemed to be in our best interest at the time, can have disastrous consequences late on.

We now have a class of citizens who by virtue of working for your local, state or Federal Government, have set themselves up as the "Lords of the Manor", granting themselves entitlements that last a lifetime that few if any other citizens could possibly hope to achieve. And at the same time, they will expect all others to pay for their entitlement, even to the detriment of all others needs.

Siegel writes " Instead, the decision to grant this privilege was a political decision designed to enhance the power of a pressure group whose interests, even many liberals assumed, would be at odds with those of the general public. Political decisions can be reversed."

Agreed sir. We NEED to reverse the decision to give them this ability to hold all us collectively hostage, the sooner the better. To not do so, would to put the success of our nation and it's communities at grave danger. These greedy Unions don't care about you & me,or how their demands effect the rest of the population, only their own selfish needs.



How Public Unions Took Taxpayers Hostage -
The first to seize on the political potential of government workers was New York's Mayor Robert F. Wagner.
The Kennedy White House took notice of his success
Text By FRED SIEGEL - Wall Street Journal Opinion


The turbulent years of the 1960s and '70s are best known by the headline-grabbing civil rights and women's rights movements. But there was another "rights" movement, largely overlooked, that has also had a profound effect on American life. The looming public-pension crisis that threatens to bankrupt city, county and state governments had its origins in those same years when public employees, already protected by civil-service rules, gained the right to bargain collectively.

Liberals were once skeptical of public-sector unionism. In the 1930s, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia warned against it as an infringement on democratic freedoms that threatened the ability of government to represent the broad needs of the citizenry. And in a 1937 letter to the head of an organization of federal workers, FDR noted that "a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable."

Private-sector union leaders were also divided. George Meany, the president of the AFL-CIO from 1955-1979 who came out of the building trades, argued that it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government." Private unionists more generally worried that rather than winning a greater share of profits, public-sector labor would be extracting taxes from a public that included their own workers. But in the late 1950s, with the failure of the labor movement's organizing campaign in the South, Meany's own executive council insisted on the necessity of winning the right to organize public employees.

The first to seize on the political potential of government workers was New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner. The mayor's father, a prominent New Deal senator, had authored the landmark 1935 Wagner Act, which imposed on private employers the legal duty to bargain collectively with the properly elected union representatives of their employees. Mayor Wagner, prodded by Jerry Wurf of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Afscme), gave city workers the right to bargain collectively in 1958.

Running for re-election in 1961, Mayor Wagner was opposed by the old-line party bosses of all five boroughs. He turned to a new force, the public-sector unions, as his political machine. His re-election resonated at the Kennedy White House, which had won office by only the narrowest of margins in 1960.

Ten weeks after Wagner's victory, Kennedy looked to mobilize public-sector workers as a new source of Democratic Party political support. In mid-January 1962, he issued Executive Order 10988, which gave federal workers the right to organize in unions.

Two young and militant public-sector unionists, Al Shanker of the American Federation of Teachers and Wurf of Afscme, both strong supporters of the still nascent civil rights movement, seized the opportunity. Shanker saw both teachers and African-Americans as second-class citizens fighting the old-line political bosses. He'd also called a brief teachers strike in 1960. Shanker called another strike in 1962 that shifted the balance of power from principals to teachers, where it has remained down to the present.

In 1958, there had been but 15 public-employee strikes nationwide, involving a handful of workers. By 1968, after the old guard in Afscme had been deposed by the so-called young Turks led by Wurf, more than 200,000 union members, mostly in local and state government, were involved in 254 strikes.

In 1968, amid rioting, civil rights and antiwar protests, Martin Luther King Jr. backed an Afscme strike by poorly paid, mostly African-American sanitation men in Memphis, Tenn. After King's tragic assassination, the city quickly settled with the union.

In the 1970s, government-worker unions became a political venue for New Leftist, feminist and black activists hoping to carry on in the militant spirit of the 1960s. The divisions within organized labor over the Vietnam War allowed Wurf and his allies to take on the declining private unions of the AFL-CIO, whose leader Meany backed the war. Wurf made himself a key player in George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, and public employees have had a lead role in Democratic Party politics ever since.

Public-employee unionism seemed to be moving from success to success—Afscme was gaining a thousand (mostly female) workers a week—until the summer of 1975. At that point there was a surge in strikes, and the government unions began to threaten Democratic officeholders.

On July 1, 1975, New York sanitation workers walked off the job, allowing garbage to pile up in the streets of a Gotham already in the throes of fiscal crisis. In short order, cops objecting to furloughs imposed by the city's liberal Democratic Mayor Abe Beame shut down the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, with marchers carrying signs that read "Cops Out, Crime In" and "Burn City Burn."

On that same July 1, 76,000 Pennsylvania state workers went on strike against liberal Democratic Gov. Milton Shapp's austerity measures. Afscme's leader in Pennsylvania, Gerald MacIntee, told his members "Let's go out and close down this God-damned state." And in Seattle, the fireman's union initiated a recall ballot on July 1 directed against the one-time union favorite, Mayor Wes Uhlman, who held back pay hikes in the midst of rising deficits.

Mr. Uhlman narrowly survived and he, like Beame and Shapp, calmed the situation by largely caving in to the striker's demands. But a line had been crossed: With New York's near-bankruptcy a visible marker, the peril posed by public-sector unionism became a problem for Democrats as well as Republicans.

The fiscal burden of public-employee unions briefly became visible again in the early '80s, when many warned of a looming public-pension crisis. That crisis was averted by the stock market boom that began in 1982-83 and lasted until 2007-08. It is now back with a vengeance.

Restraining the immense clout that government-employee unions have accumulated over the past half-century will be difficult, but not impossible. Civil rights for African-Americans and women was a fulfillment of the universalist American promise as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Collective bargaining by public employees was not rooted in deep-seated American tradition.

Instead, the decision to grant this privilege was a political decision designed to enhance the power of a pressure group whose interests, even many liberals assumed, would be at odds with those of the general public. Political decisions can be reversed.

Mr. Siegel is a scholar in residence at St. Francis College and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute

Public Employee Unions need to get a clue - "This is the new norm. It's a different day for public sector employees."

When you look at how things are rigged in favor of Public Employee Unions, you realize that if anyone in private business operated this way, you'd be able to support an indictment for Racketeering.

Of course, the Union Bosses and members don't see it that way but in the new economy, they are trying to hold on to promises that were made by people who had no idea how bad our economy would be at this time.

Public Sector employees need to adjust to the new reality as the taxpayers have had to do so for some time now....and I am getting a little tired of listening to their gripes when the rest of us, (The Majority of Workers), have little sympathy for Unionized Government Workers when all other workers have suffered severe pay cuts, loss of benefits and job cuts.

The tax dollars we pay must benefit all citizens, not just those lucky enough to be inside the system....The Hacks need to get over themselves....really.



Unions Mobilize Against Curbs
By KRIS MAHER And JEANNETTE NEUMANN - Wall Street Journal

Several big public- and private-sector unions are launching a campaign aimed at stopping a growing push by states to curb union bargaining rights and benefits.

Union members, clergy and community leaders were using a pre-Martin Luther King Day candlelight vigil in Cincinnati on Friday to protest proposals by Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich to eliminate collective-bargaining rights for thousands of home health-care workers.

Mr. Kasich is considering changes to union rights and benefits in light of a pending big budget gap, said Rob Nichols, a spokesman for the governor. Mr. Kasich also supports banning strikes by public school teachers.

"There are going to be concessions in many facets of government," Mr. Nichols said. "Everyone needs to be contributing."

The Cincinnati event is one of several planned over the next few months, coordinated by both private and public unions. Those representing government workers face a tough battle this year to convince lawmakers and the public that precious tax dollars should be spent on their pensions and health-care benefits amid widespread government budget woes.

Unions are also filing lawsuits challenging cutbacks and offering lawmakers other suggestions on how to cut costs and raise revenue.

"Every segment of the labor movement is under attack right now," said Naomi Walker, director of state-government relations for the AFL-CIO, which is working with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the U.S.'s biggest public-sector union; the Service Employees International Union; the American Federation of Teachers; and others.

The pay and benefits of the highly unionized public-sector work force have become prime targets for cuts as many states face budget shortfalls. Some politicians argue that union workers, who typically enjoy stronger job and benefit protections than those in the private sector, will have to make sacrifices.

The union campaigns—targeted now on Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida and New Jersey—will include phone calls and visits to union members, as well as demonstrations and meetings with elected officials. The goal is to get union members to convince state officials to oppose these measures and turn public opinion in their favor.

Labor expects the fights to be most intense in typically union-heavy states, such as Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Changes are being considered in those states that include right-to-work proposals that would eliminate mandatory union membership and dues in organized workplaces.

Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said eliminating bargaining rights for public-sector workers is one option to help rein in costs and help control the state's budget gap, which is $158 million now and set to grow to $3 billion in the next fiscal cycle.

Some unions are trying to prevent cuts affecting their members by proposing ways for states to address shortfalls.

"They are seeking to put out their ideas and to engage the budgets in some new and innovative ways," said Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in labor issues.

Other unions are turning to the courts. In Miami, the firefighters' union last fall filed a lawsuit in state circuit court saying the city circumvented full collective bargaining and then cut wages, health insurance and pension benefits for current workers because of what the city called financial urgency.

"The bottom line was that wages and pensions are the biggest chunk of our budgets," said Julie Bru, Miami city attorney. "This is the new norm. It's a different day for public sector employees."

Write to Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com

"We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and the taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots.’’

We are seeing the start of the WAVE that will swell and crest over the rigged systems that have allowed the Public Employees to stick it to the taxpayers. Gov. Chris Christie in NJ was the first sign of this and now two newly elected governor from Indiana and Missouri are following suit.

A " Tipping Point" is now clearly in sight....None too soon. The days of the Public Employee Unions using the taxpayers as a cash-cow are drawing to a close....About flippin' time !!

Jeff Jacoby

Fighting public-sector unions
By Jeff Jacoby
Boston Globe Columnist / January 9, 2011

As Resistance to public-sector unionism has intensified, many of the noisiest confrontations have been on the coasts.

In New Jersey, freshman Governor Chris Christie has been locked in a battle royale with his state’s powerful teachers unions. In California, Oakland’s new mayor began her first full day in office by demanding that unionized police officers, who pay nothing toward their pensions, be required to contribute 9 percent of their salaries. In New York, federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into whether Sanitation Department workers purposely paralyzed the city with a work slowdown during last month’s blizzard. In Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick infuriated public-safety unions by replacing costly police details with civilian flaggers at many construction and repair sites.

Now the Midwest is poised to become a major theater in the war against insatiable government unions.

Within days of taking office in 2005, two Republican governors — Mitch Daniels in Indiana and Matt Blunt in Missouri — issued executive orders rolling back collective-bargaining rights for state workers. Because public-sector unions in those states had been granted the right to bargain collectively through executive orders in the first place, Daniels and Blunt had only to rescind their predecessors’ actions.

In most states, however, public-employee unions are authorized by statute to negotiate wages, pensions, and health care. Any effort to weaken or repeal those laws is guaranteed to face bitter resistance from the unions and their legislative allies.

Two newly elected Republican governors say they’re ready for that fight.

Even before he was sworn in last week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker had fired a shot across the bow of his state’s public-sector unions. Speaking to the Milwaukee Press Club, he said he would consider using “every legal means’’ to weaken those unions — from decertifying their exclusive right to bargain on behalf of state employees to modifying state law.

“You are not going to hear me degrade state and local employees in the public sector,’’ Walker said. “But we can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and the taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots.’’ More than 50 years ago, Wisconsin was the first state to enact a public-sector collective-bargaining law, and killing it outright might be too tall an order even for a governor whose party controls both houses of the legislature. But Walker and like-minded lawmakers may well succeed in excluding from collective bargaining the most highly-abused benefit categories, such as pensions and health insurance.

In Ohio, meanwhile, incoming Governor John Kasich has long made ending public-sector collective bargaining a priority. In 2009 he said he wanted to “break the back of organized labor in the schools,’’ and last month he underscored his conviction that government workers who go on strike should be fired.

“I really don’t favor the right to strike by any public employee,’’ Kasich said. “They’ve got good jobs, they’ve got high pay, they get good benefits, a great retirement. What are they striking for?’’ He is just as hostile to binding arbitration, which many states require when strikes are illegal, and government managers and public-sector unions are at an impasse. “Binding arbitration,’’ Kasich says bluntly, “is not acceptable.’’ (What’s wrong with binding arbitration is the subject of Wednesday’s column.)

It was Calvin Coolidge who, as governor of Massachusetts during a police strike in 1919, famously declared: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, any time.’’ Coolidge’s assertion made him a rising star in national Republican circles, but opposition to public-sector unionism has an honorable Democratic pedigree as well. “The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service,’’ President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote in 1937. He recognized that government can never be just another employer, and that empowering labor unions to negotiate wages and benefits with public officials would inevitably result in abuse.

Today, evidence of that abuse is everywhere. Private employees find themselves working longer and being taxed more heavily so that government employees can enjoy outlandish pay and perks. “Public-sector unions have become the exploiters,’’ Minnesota’s outgoing Governor Tim Pawlenty argued last month, “and working families once again need someone to stand up for them.’’ In the heartland as on the coasts, that challenge is being taken up

The “New Tammany Hall,” - Jury Rigged Public Pensions and the incestuous alliance between public officials and labor...

New Jersey has become famous for more than a bunch of 20-something MTV idiots in a beach house and the home of Bruce Springsteen. New Jersey has become the "battleground" for the fight regarding public employee pension costs and how much they are crippling the budgets of our states & towns. Governor Chris Christie is a central figure in this fight....I wrote a bit about this subject earlier -- see enclosed link

http://usnavyjeep.blogspot.com/2010/11/our-man-in-nj-keeps-up-efforts-to-bring.html

New Jersey may be the frontlines of this fight presently but my home state of Massachusetts is not far behind.

The anger is due to the fact that private sector employees saw pensions evaporate more than a decade ago, but public employees have an incestuous relationship with politicians which has insulated them from the same experience of seeing pensions disappear or be capped.

I agree that we have an obligation to those, public & private employees who paid into a pension. They took money from their checks and that should be theirs. I highly disagree with those who act like a promise of "money & benefits for life" with no investment of their own are owed what someone promised them 20-30 years ago as that promise was made on "projections" and like a New England weather forecast, those projections have proven to be wrong. Even more unacceptable are those who double dipped and jury rigged the system because of loopholes...These criminals should be held accountable as they are "stealing" by any reasonable person's definition of the word ":theft" and have no remorse about doing so or who it hurts.

" In California, pension costs now crowd out spending for parks, public schools and state universities; in Illinois, spiraling pension costs threaten the state with insolvency. " - When the needs of a minority of connected insiders is placed ahead of the needs of ALL OTHER CITIZENS, you can expect some serious anger.

Reform of a jury-rigged system that rewards insiders and greedy union officials is as much of a threat to the security of our state and local governments as any made by the bastards on Wall Street.....The only difference is that one set of greedy bastards works in Finance and the other group were supposed to be working for the citizens....both groups are greedy and don't care who else must be neglected as long as they get what they want.

Well I feel hopeful because both sides are facing the reality that the majority (the rest of us) will make sure that the best interest of the citizens is the focus of changes that will be made in these jury rigged systems in the very near future. Here's hoping that I am right as if I am, things can only get better. If I am wrong, then things will only get worse. And that is not something we can tolerate.


Public Workers Face Outrage as Budget Crises Grow
By MICHAEL POWELL
Published: January 1, 2011

FLEMINGTON, N.J. — Ever since Marie Corfield’s confrontation with Gov. Chris Christie this fall over the state’s education cuts became a YouTube classic, she has received a stream of vituperative e-mails and Facebook postings.

Marie Corfield, a teacher in Flemington, N.J., challenged Gov. Chris Christie over state education cuts at a town hall meeting in September. Their tense exchange was posted on YouTube.

“People I don’t even know are calling me horrible names,” said Ms. Corfield, an art teacher who had pleaded the case of struggling teachers. “The mantra is that the problem is the unions, the unions, the unions.”

Across the nation, a rising irritation with public employee unions is palpable, as a wounded economy has blown gaping holes in state, city and town budgets, and revealed that some public pension funds dangle perilously close to bankruptcy. In California, New York, Michigan and New Jersey, states where public unions wield much power and the culture historically tends to be pro-labor, even longtime liberal political leaders have demanded concessions — wage freezes, benefit cuts and tougher work rules.

It is an angry conversation. Union chiefs, who sometimes persuaded members to take pension sweeteners in lieu of raises, are loath to surrender ground. Taxpayers are split between those who want cuts and those who hope that rising tax receipts might bring easier choices.

And a growing cadre of political leaders and municipal finance experts argue that much of the edifice of municipal and state finance is jury-rigged and, without new revenue, perhaps unsustainable. Too many political leaders, they argue, acted too irresponsibly, failing to either raise taxes or cut spending.

A brutal reckoning awaits, they say.

These battles play out in many corners, but few are more passionate than in New Jersey, where politics tend toward the moderately liberal and nearly 20 percent of the work force is unionized (compared with less than 14 percent nationally). From tony horse-country towns to middle-class suburbs to hard-edged cities, property tax and unemployment rates are high, and budgets are pools of red ink.

A new regime in state politics is venting frustration less at Goldman Sachs executives (Governor Christie vetoed a proposed “millionaire’s tax” this year) than at unions. Newark recently laid off police officers after they refused to accept cuts, and Camden has threatened to lay off half of its officers in January.

Fred Siegel, a historian at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, has written of the “New Tammany Hall,” which he describes as the incestuous alliance between public officials and labor.

“Public unions have had no natural adversary; they give politicians political support and get good contracts back,” Mr. Siegel said. “It’s uniquely dysfunctional.”

Even if that is so, this battle comes woven with complications. Across the nation in the last two years, public workers have experienced furloughs and pay cuts. Local governments shed 212,000 jobs last year.

A raft of recent studies found that public salaries, even with benefits included, are equivalent to or lag slightly behind those of private sector workers. The Manhattan Institute, which is not terribly sympathetic to unions, studied New Jersey and concluded that teachers earned wages roughly comparable to people in the private sector with a similar education.

Benefits tend to be the sorest point. From Illinois to New Jersey, politicians have refused to pay into pension funds, creating deeper and deeper shortfalls.

In California, pension costs now crowd out spending for parks, public schools and state universities; in Illinois, spiraling pension costs threaten the state with insolvency.

And taxpayer resentment simmers.

Trouble in New Jersey

To venture into Washington Township in southern New Jersey is to walk the frayed line between taxpayer and public employees, and to hear anger and ambivalence. So many Philadelphians have flocked here over the years that locals call it “South Philly with grass.”

These expatriates tend to be Democrats and union members, or sons and daughters of the same. But property taxes are rising fast, and voters favored Governor Christie, a Republican. Bill Rahl, a graying plug of a retiree, squints and holds his hand against his throat. “I’m up to here with taxes, I can’t breathe, O.K.?” he says. “I don’t know about asking anyone to give up a pension. Just don’t ask for no more.”

Governor Christie faced a vast deficit when he took office last January, and much of the federal stimulus aid for schools was exhausted by June. So he cut deeply into state aid for education; Washington Township lost $900,000. That forced the town to rely principally on property taxes. (Few states lean as heavily on property taxes to finance education; New Jersey ranks 45th in state aid to education.) The town turned its construction office over to a private contractor and shed a few employees.

Assemblyman Paul D. Moriarty, a liberal Democrat, served four years as mayor of Washington Township. As the bill for pension and health benefits for town employees soared, he struggled to explain this to constituents.

“We really should not receive benefits any better than the people we serve,” he says. “It leads to a lot of resentment against public employees.”

All of which sounds logical, except that, as Mr. Moriarty also acknowledges, such thinking also “leads to a race to the bottom.” That is, as businesses cut private sector benefits, pressure grows on government to cut pay and benefits for its employees.

Robert Master, political director for the Communication Workers of America District 1, which represents 40,000 state workers, speaks to that difficulty.

“The subtext of Christie’s message to a lot of people is that ‘you’re paying for benefits you’ll never have,’ ” he says. “Our challenge is how to defend middle-class health and retirement security, not just for our members but for all working families, when over the past 30 years retirement and health care in the private sector have been essentially demolished.”

This said, some union officials privately say that the teachers’ union, in its battle against cuts to salaries and benefits, misread Mr. Christie and the public temperament. Better to endorse a wage freeze, they say, than to argue that teachers should be held harmless against the economic storm.

In the past, union leaders, too, have proven adept at winning gains not just at the bargaining table. In 2000, union lobbyists persuaded legislators to cut five years off the retirement age for police and firefighters — a move criticized as a budget-buster by a state pension commission. The next year, the budget still was flush and union leaders persuaded the Republican dominated legislature to approve a 9 percent increase in pension benefits. (The legislators added a sweetener for their own pensions.)

Those labor leaders, however, proved less successful in persuading their legislative allies to pay for such benefits. For much of the last two decades, New Jersey has shortchanged its pension contribution.

Governor Christie talked about tough choices this past year — then skipped the state’s required $3.1 billion payment. Now New Jersey has a $53.9 billion unfunded pension liability.

A recent Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll found a narrow plurality of respondents in the state in favor of ditching the pensions for a 401(k)-type program. Public pensions, however, run the gamut, from modest (the average local government pensioner makes less than $20,000 a year while teachers draw about $46,000) to the gilded variety for police and firefighters, some of whom collect six figures. And then there’s the political class, which has made an art form of pension collection.

Some politicians draw multiple pensions as county legislators, called freeholders, and as prosecutors or union leaders. Back in Washington Township, people tend to talk of state government as a casino with fixed craps tables.

A white-haired retired undercover police officer, whose wrap-around shades match his black Harley-Davidson jacket, pauses outside the Washington Township municipal building to consider the many targets. He did not want to give his name.

“Christie has all the good intentions in the world but has he hit the right people?” he says. “I understand pulling in belts, but you talking about janitors and cops, or the free-loading freeholder?”

Good Jobs, at What Cost?

So how much is too much? On their face, New Jersey’s public salaries are not exorbitant. The state has one of the highest per-capita incomes in the country, and the average teacher makes $66,597, which even with benefits is on par with or slightly behind similarly educated private sector workers, according to Jeffrey H. Keefe, a Rutgers professor who studied the issue for the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

Mr. Keefe, however, uncovered some intriguing class splits. Blue-collar public workers make more money than their private sector counterparts. For such jobs, public unions have established a higher wage floor.

The sense that public workers enjoy certain advantages is not a mirage. Public employees pay into their pension funds, but health benefits often come at a fraction of the cost of most private sector packages.

Government employment also tends to be more secure. When the economy crashed, federal stimulus dollars safeguarded many public jobs. The alternative, many economists point out, was to force towns and cities into extensive layoffs, even as unemployment hovered around 10 percent and millions of Americans sought help from public agencies.

But it accentuated the perception that public workers, however tenuously, inhabited a protected class. That’s a tough sell in Washington Township.

Ask Michael Tini, 54, who works as a card dealer in Atlantic City, about teacher salaries and benefits and he taps his head, not unsympathetically.

“Look, I understand that teachers are the brains of the operation, O.K.? But my hours are cut, and my taxes are killing me.”

He taps his head again. “They have got to take it in the ear, too.”

"Public-sector unions have a guaranteed source of revenue—you and me as taxpayers,"

I wrote before how POTUS & PELOSI hurried the Congress back in session to give out $26 BILLION dollars of your money as a "bail-out" for Public Sector Unions. They also allocated $10 Billion of that to rehire teachers, which was promptly taken by School Administrators -

http://usnavyjeep.blogspot.com/2010/08/lesson-today-at-school-we-canned.html

The idea that voters can be persuaded to allow this type of wholesale corruption of the system to continue is delusional in this day & age. Our economic situation makes the idea that the Unions will do what is best for anyone other than themselves is not only moronic, it is sad.

VOTERS need to wake up, pull the eject handle on all those that enable & support the corrupt unions and then get on with the business of devoting the taxes taken for the betterment of our country, not solely those who are on the public dole, via a position working for the local towns, counties or State governments.

Enough is enough - These arrogant " I-got-mine-screw-everyone-else" idjits have taken too much already. Send them packing.

Campaign's Big Spender
Public-Employees Union Now Leads All Groups in Independent Election Outlays.Article
By BRODY MULLINS And JOHN D. MCKINNON - WSJ

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending.

The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending.

"We're the big dog," said Larry Scanlon, the head of AFSCME's political operations. "But we don't like to brag."

The 2010 election could be pivotal for public-sector unions, whose clout helped shield members from the worst of the economic downturn. In the 2009 stimulus and other legislation, Democratic lawmakers sent more than $160 billion in federal cash to states, aimed in large part at preventing public-sector layoffs. If Republicans running under the banner of limited government win in November, they aren't likely to support extending such aid to states.

Newly elected conservatives will also likely push to clip the political power of public-sector unions. For years, conservatives have argued such unions have an outsize influence in picking the elected officials who are, in effect, their bosses, putting them in a strong position to push for more jobs, and thus more political clout.

"Public-sector unions have a guaranteed source of revenue—you and me as taxpayers," said Glenn Spencer, executive director of the Workforce Freedom Initiative at the Chamber of Commerce.

Gregory King, a spokesman for AFSCME, said conservatives make too much of the issue, especially the link to taxpayers. Based on their logic, "the government is funding the movie industry every time AFSCME members go out to the movies," he said.

The union is spending heavily this year because "a lot of people are attacking public-sector workers as the problem," said AFSCME President Gerald McEntee. "We're spending big. And we're damn happy it's big. And our members are damn happy it's big—it's their money," he said.

Spending totals are still in flux, and another group could overtake AFSCME in the race's remaining days.

Campaign spending by outside groups is increasing rapidly but is still smaller than spending by the Democratic and Republican parties, which combined have already doled out nearly $1 billion in this election cycle, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

AFSCME's campaign push accounts for an estimated 30% of what pro-Democratic groups, including unions, plan to spend on independent campaigns to elect Democrats. It was made possible in part by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that permitted companies and unions to use their own funds to pay for certain political ads. That unleashed a flood of contributions and spawned an array of new outside political organizations, most of which were set up to help elect Republicans.

The political debate over spending by outside groups has focused largely on advertising buys by those Republican-oriented groups. Unions have mostly escaped attention in that debate, in part because they traditionally have spent much of their cash on other kinds of political activities, including get-out-the-vote efforts.

Previously, most labor-sponsored campaign ads had to be funded by volunteer donations. Now, however, AFSCME can pay for ads using annual dues from members, which amount to about $390 per person. AFSCME said it will tap membership dues to pay for $17 million of ads backing Democrats this election.

President Barack Obama has criticized the Supreme Court decision that opened the door to more spending by corporations and unions. When asked about AFSCME's ramped up campaign efforts following the court's decision, the White House focused on largely anonymous campaign spending by what it termed "special interests."

"The president has been crystal clear that third-party groups which spend tens of millions of dollars from anonymous sources are a threat to our democracy—regardless of which candidates they support," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. He said these groups are disproportionately backing Republican candidates.


Public-sector employees are bracing for the most severe budget crunch yet in fiscal 2012, which for many states starts in mid-2011. Federal stimulus aid will run out in a few months and Republicans oppose providing more. Tax revenues remain well below pre-recession levels and state lawmakers who raised taxes at record rates in 2010 are reluctant to go further.

Republican takeovers in Congress and statehouses could breathe life into efforts to restrict how public-sector unions collect and spend members' dues. Republican Gov. Chris Christie has proposed including public-employee unions under New Jersey's pay-to-play rules, which generally limit political contributions by affected groups and individuals. Other Republican governors are likely to pursue similar measures.

One group, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, one of the main conservative union critics, advocates turning public-sector unions into voluntary organizations. That would deprive unions of the ability to use the government payroll system to collect dues and contributions. It would also allow state and local employees to organize and bargain in other ways.

Mr. Scanlon, who has run elections for AFSCME for nearly 15 years, acknowledged the connection between the number of government jobs and the union's political clout. "The more members coming in, the more dues coming in, the more money we have for politics," Mr. Scanlon said. AFSCME's membership has grown 25% in the past decade.

AFSCME began the year with a $70 million budget to campaign for Democrats who supported its priorities in Washington. It wasn't planning to help those who opposed issues including health-care legislation and extending unemployment benefits.

But with a Republican takeover of the House in the offing, AFSCME reversed itself and began supporting Democrats it once opposed, following what it calls the "218 Strategy," after the number of seats needed for a House majority.

In eastern Ohio, AFSCME is campaigning hard for Rep. Zack Space, even though the second-term Democrat has been abandoned by other unions and Democratic interest groups after he voted against health-care legislation. "We know he has been bad on the issues, but the point is, if you don't elect the Zack Spaces of the world then you end up with Speaker Boehner," said Mr. Scanlon, referring to Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, who is a leading candidate to become Speaker of the House if the Republicans take the majority.

"We may not be happy with him, but let's get people re-elected and work to change their votes. It's not a perfect world."

Because the union no longer needs to use volunteer donations to pay for attack ads, it has more money left in its political action committee to donate directly to candidates. AFSCME has donated a total $2.2 million directly to Democratic candidates in this election cycle, including nearly $100,000 this week to the re-election campaigns of 57 House and Senate candidates.

The union has also donated a total of $5 million to the Democratic Governors Association and Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, making it the top donor to the Democrats' efforts to win gubernatorial and state-legislative races. It's also the top donor to Patriot Majority, a leading Democratic outside group that is running ads to help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other congressional Democrats.

News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, is one of the larger corporate donors on the other side of the ledger, and has donated $1.25 million to the Republican Governors Association and $1 million to the Chamber of Commerce.

Write to Brody Mullins at brody.mullins@wsj.com and John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Lesson Today at School -- We canned teachers, got Federal Stimulus $$$ and now won't rehire anyone....Talk about a high crimes & treason

Lesson #1 - Public Employees are not going to share anything they are given.

The " I got mine" mentality is a CANCER that has ineffected all Municipalities and State governments....

Lesson # 2 - When DEMS in Congress & POTUS rush back to Washington DC to do anything, it can't be good. HASTE MAKES WASTE x 10

Lesson # 3 - We were just robbed. The Fat-Arse School Administrators got $10 BILLION of your tax-dollars to re-hire teachers. GUESS WHAT??? They aren't going to do it.....they want to KEEP the money in case they run into issues next year.....“We’re also looking at a pretty bad budget, so we may decide to hold all or some of the money for the next year,” said Steve Horowitz, assistant superintendent of personnel services at the Pomona Unified School District.

This is a CRIME - They took the money and now are basically telling you & me, SCREW YOU.....We'll spend this on my pet projects and still keep the Teacher/Student ratio as high as hell. "And what are you gonna do about it??" is likely the next thing they'll say to you.....

We never learn these lessons - We keep handing our money to people who only care about one thing - THEMSELVES.....Not education, not students, not Teachers.....They rewarded themselves.

And they got the Doofus-in-Charge in WASH DC to help them with the crime.

Color me " Not surpised in the least." Just Angry as hell.

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Given Money, Schools Wait on Rehiring Teachers

Virginia Lee Hunter for The New York Times
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: August 17, 2010

The money for schools to rehire teachers, counselors and support workers is instead being set aside by school districts worried about cuts to come in the current school year
As schools handed out pink slips to teachers this spring, states made a beeline to Washington to plead for money for their ravaged education budgets. But now that the federal government has come through with $10 billion, some of the nation’s biggest school districts are balking at using their share of the money to hire teachers right away.

With the economic outlook weakening, they argue that big deficits are looming for the next academic year and that they need to preserve the funds to prevent future layoffs. Los Angeles, for example, is projecting a $280 million budget shortfall next year that could threaten more jobs.

“You’ve got this herculean task to deal with next year’s deficit,” said Lydia L. Ramos, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest after New York City.

“So if there’s a way that you can lessen the blow for next year,” she said, “we feel like it would be responsible to try to do that.”

The district laid off 682 teachers and counselors and about 2,000 support workers this spring and was not sure it would be able to hire any of them back with the stimulus money. The district says it could be forced to cut 4,500 more people next year.

In New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg committed to no teacher layoffs this year in exchange for not offering raises. A spokeswoman said the city’s budget had already taken the federal aid into account.

In New Jersey, where about 3,000 teachers were let go in May, Gov. Chris Christie’s administration worries that the federal aid will only forestall difficult decisions later, and it is unclear how much will be spent immediately.

“It’s a real double-edged sword,” said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the governor. “This money will not be there next year, and we’re not going to get back up to the funding that they had previously been used to.”

A $26 billion federal aid package, signed by President Obama on Aug. 10, allocates $10 billion for school districts to retain or rehire teachers, counselors, classroom aides, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and others — with the remainder of the money directed toward health care for the poor, emergency personnel and other state purposes.

The education measure requires states to distribute the money for the current school year, but allows school districts to spend it as late as September 2012. It also allows schools to roll back furlough days. The education department estimates it could salvage about 160,000 jobs.

“We can’t stand by and do nothing while pink slips are given to the men and women who educate our children or keep our communities safe,” President Obama said last week. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Though preserving jobs will be good for the economy, it will disappoint out-of-work teachers and parents who have been expecting a surge in rehiring. Many districts, like Kansas City, Kan., face the likelihood of midyear cuts, and administrators will count themselves lucky to save jobs. In the nation’s fifth-largest district in Clark County in Las Vegas, administrators are eager to hire some teachers, though they wonder what they will do when the federal money runs out.

“We’re a little wary about hiring people if we only have money for a year, but we know that’s the intent of this bill,” said Jeff Weiler, chief financial officer for Clark County schools.

In Texas, Republican Gov. Rick Perry so far has rejected the new federal education dollars. Should he relent, Houston’s superintendent, Terry B. Grier, proposes to use $40 million to $70 million of it to extend the school day and year, and to hire tutors. He does not plan to rehire 414 people — including quite a few certified teachers — laid off from the central office staff.

“We can’t treat this money as if it’s a supplement to a jobs bill,” Mr. Grier said. “I want to put people to work to help children.”

Still other obstacles loom for districts, not the least of which is timing. School has resumed in many districts in struggling states, including Arizona, California and Illinois. Assigning new teachers and juggling classrooms could disrupt students. In California, the budget picture is further clouded by the state’s failure to pass its own budget for the coming year.

Even administrators in districts that start school after Labor Day have only weeks to rearrange class rosters. And with classes largely set in many places, they might more quickly deploy the money by hiring support personnel, like those tutors in Houston.

In Arizona, where most schools opened this month, nonteaching employees are more likely to be recalled. “It would be hard to add teachers this year,” said Paul Senseman, a spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer. “But the funds could be used on any school-level position like counselors, after-school programs, aides, nurses or coaches.”

Teachers’ unions are strongly urging districts to use the money right away to keep class sizes manageable and to reduce the jobless rolls. “The intent is to help districts avert layoffs now,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Kids don’t have a pause button.”

Joelle Beck, a 25-year-old high school English teacher in O’Fallon, Ill., received notice in March that she would be laid off at the end of the school year. She recently was hired to oversee an in-school suspension program for just over half the pay she received as a classroom teacher.
“When the economy first started going downhill,” Ms. Beck said, “I naïvely told my husband, ‘Well, they’re always going to need teachers.’ ”

With the national unemployment rate stuck at 9.5 percent and private sector companies hiring cautiously, local governments are an important source of jobs and consumer spending power.
State and local governments have let go 102,000 more employees than they have added in the last three months, and economists are concerned that with revenue so depressed, school payrolls could shrink more in coming months.

Though grateful for the aid, districts like Los Angeles are worried about how to create some budget stability year to year. In Pomona, Calif., the district has yet to decide whether to hire back about 68 teachers laid off in the spring.

“We’re also looking at a pretty bad budget, so we may decide to hold all or some of the money for the next year,” said Steve Horowitz, assistant superintendent of personnel services at the Pomona Unified School District. He added that the money might be used for bus drivers or custodians, or to roll back five furlough days for teachers.

Administrators in South Florida hope that an economic upturn, particularly in travel and tourism, will help close their future budget gap and are planning to bring back teachers. At the Broward County Public Schools, an operating deficit of at least $145 million is expected next school year.

“Frankly, from my perspective, it’s better to hire them now,” said James F. Notter, superintendent for Broward. Of the 1,300 pink slips to school workers in the spring, about 555 went to teachers. The district has recalled nearly 400 of them and now hopes to use the federal aid to rehire the remaining 155.

Teachers who spent the summer in limbo are painfully aware that at best, the new federal aid may be a temporary lifeline. Latravis Bernard, who was laid off last spring as a physical education teacher at an elementary school in Miramar, Fla., for the second year in a row, is holding out hope he will be recalled.

In the meantime, Mr. Bernard, a 33-year-old father of four, has accepted a post as a special education intern, for half his previous pay, at a different school in the Broward district.

“Even if I get brought back this year,” he said, “what’s going to happen next year? It’s really discouraging.”