I was present at the Board of Regents meeting when they discussed "bumping" and the case of this Clasical AP teacher was brought up.

A few facts, He had previously left the Providence school system for a private school, after 1 year there he returned to Providence, He had only been teaching in Prov. for a few years and had not reached tenure.

He lost his position at Clasical when he was part of the annual lay-off list.

Rather than blame union "bumping" and seniority the real blame was that this teacher was laid off. And previously had shown his dedication to the Prov. system by leaving for another position at a private school.

Only when he lost his prize AP Calculus class did he cry FOUL; heaven forbid he teach average or less than average students.

Little by little, bit by bit, we'll oust the union bums.

The author or ghost writer of this article states that EP is aheadnofvthe curve because of a merit based system that he has come up with. I hope that in his next self congratulatory back slapping article he will provide us with the details of the system that he gas created. I am sure he will be able to provide his voters with the answers to all the important questions, such as who will be doing the evaluating, what is good teaching,how will fairness be assured, how will special Ed teachers be evaluated and so on. I know it may be alot to ask but since he is putting so much energy into this effort I am sure all the details are already worked out . Clearly no one would ever ask the voters to support a program that has no details and may in the long run cost the town money.

Is it possible that this calculus teacher was on the layoff list only because of a lack of seniority despite his being a superior math teacher than those with seniority? If so, some more experienced, but lower-quality, teacher should have been on the list.

In business people are ranked by performance, typically in 10-20-60-10 (best first) bands. The bottom 10% are the first to go regardless of title or years in grade.

response to Constitutionalist

One ponders the question of performance as a toll to enhance the education system and open it to the ones who perform the best. Hmm would this mean that more people would take up the teaching profession if it had more equality rather than favortisism for just longtevity.

Could it be that salaries would increase for these hard working top performing teachers. Can we hope there to be in the future that a vast number of children might like school when all the teachers perform well.

Oh well one can dream but I guess it's still to much to ask for special interest groups and unions and management to all be fair. So I guess it's back to the nightmares of reality.

Jack

Oh oh Disclaimer disclaimer The above post was a tongue in cheek dream sequence not to be taken as common sense it's only a dream it's only a dream it's only a dream it's only a dream it's only a dream it's only a dream it's only a dream.

Jack

Jackb what you define as good teaching, what will be the tool for evaluating teachers. I often deal with students who due to disability or other issues may perform horribly on the necap test or may have a very rough year. I have also dealt with admin that can be very petty and spiteful. I have also had students come back and say that they hated my class while in it but realized the importance of the life lessons they learned a few years later. This guy is asking people to support a program without providing any details. Last point is what will happen if this should end up costing thevtown more money.

Well, a start at defining good teaching would be to get kids to pass what used to be considered a typical math, English, or civics test from 1900.

Thanks in no small part to the Leftist indoctrination and wacky academic theories of the modern education-training establishment (pointing to Bill Ayers and the nabobs at RIC as sterling examples) our standards of what kids should be able to do at every level of K-12 education have been lowered to the point that we are producing generations of functionally illiterate people who are unable to achieve what their ancestors would have considered "average". And then we wonder why they are so eager to depend on government.

Okay con what will be the standard for the teacher who works with the severely disabled student, one who is in public school but may never function at anything above a second grade level. How will you evaluate the PE teacher or the technology teacher or the teacher who consistently is given the lower performing classes because he or she has great classroom control. I am not saying that performance based pay is impossible but good teaching is much more than getting kids to pass a test.

There would have to be a review board made up with volunteers from different groups.Parents ,retired teachers school com. members all could serve in the review.It would not be based just on test scores but the whole environment

response to Rastabri

Ahh I think I said that was done tongue in cheek. I guess it did stimulate a few. As for what I would do I would remind everyone that there is no way to definitivly evaluate a teachers performance because all students are human and therefore individuals do not have the same thought patterns. Some have the will to learn all they can some don't, some will never like school no matter who the teacher is. If you could do as so many people say to do in this particular area we would have solved parental problems by now also.

This job by its very nature is subject to so many varibles and is totally dependent of teaching enviroment, Availability of up to date materials, Management backing the teaching profession, Unions working with management fairly and vice versa, Proper disapline by teachers and students, special needs teachers that are well trained due to an entirely different needs, All teachers trained uniformly in each subject ( impossible to do by the way since humans excel at some subjects and not others just like students).

There is no way to evalute individual teacher you would have to create such a large new beauracracy the taxpayer would scream bloody muder. So that will never happen. The bottom line is it is all subjective and like beauty in the eye of the beholder so is the evaluation of teachine.

One Can not come up with a way to score a students learning ability due to genetic make up of the human brain. If human could be forced to to learn the same way for all of them like the animal world which is instinct. It is the fact that humans have free will and do not allways make the right choices whether a student or a teacher that my friends is called human nature and will not allow anyone to determine who is quified and who is not. This is not a factory putting out a specific product that is the same thing all day long. Thats my theory and im sticking to it.

There are no perfect teachers and if you could teach all humans to be smart there would be a ll enstiens they are not. sorry but it can't be done period. Hope that explains my view Rastabri .

Jack

This so called "merit system" is nothing more than a fancy term for patronage system. And with the patronage jobs "Fat Tony" Carcieri has given out during his tenure, it's no surprise he's all for this blatantly unfair system. You can fool the voters for just so long Fat Tony-just remember, if you put lipstick on a pig, it's still just a pig.

1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)

2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?

3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS

4) IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.

5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !

Thank you Jack for the well thought out response. i missed the tongue and cheek from your first response. It drives me crazy that this person and his supporters would ask pump up a program with no details at all. His real goal is not to improve teaching and learning but to break the unions.

No Rastabri, it's to get rid of the bad apples and help the kids,something the unions should have been doing all along.

Since he took office, "Fat Tony" has filled the ranks of the East Providence School Department administration with overpaid, underworked political hacks such as Cirillo, Barnham, etc., and he has the audacity to give them raises-some as much as 30%! It's time for a new broom to come into East Providence and sweep out the garbage. And instead of incurring the expense of trucking it to the state landfill, just dump it in Larisa Park-how appropriate.

What is JETHRO?,You are talking about your idea which sounds more fully formed than the one that the powers in EP are talking about.

constitutionalist

If the calculus teacher was that good, shouldn't he be assigned the most challenging students and demonstrate his brilliance?

Therein lies one problem with pay for performance with teachers, Different students create different outcomes! A teacher that communicates well with an AP Calculus class may not be able to reach a class of ordinary or math challenged students. And a teacher who can relate to a math challenged class may not work well with those AP kids.

The Classical parents were upset because they wanted this teacher for their priviledged kids!

TaxpayerEP, your comment is off the point - it's like saying that the brilliant investment banking merger adviser should be transferred to the check processing department so he can demonstrate his brilliance.

Specialized knowledge is usually not fungible. And in the story we're discussing, the teacher more qualified to teach that particular subject was "bumped" by one less qualified for that position. This would not happen in a merit-based system.

Under the new rules Students come first

PROVIDENCE — Dropping a bombshell on the teachers’ unions, state Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist ordered school superintendents to abolish the practice of assigning teachers based on how many years they have in the school system.

Gist, who sent a letter to superintendents on Tuesday, is upending tradition and taking on two powerful unions, the National Education Association Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals (RIFT), who together represent 12,000 public school teachers.

Some one who will stand up for the Kids praise the Lord

This moron Gist stands about as much chance of implementing this nonsense as we do of having a blizzard in Rhode Island in the middle of July. I guess someone forgot to tell this nitwit that in Rhode Island we have labor laws and union contracts that protect teachers from having garbage like this forced down their throats. She might be able to get away with this in the redneck hillbilly school districts she used to deal with down south, but she's not going to get away with this nonsense in Rhode Island. See you in court Gist-this one will be a no brainer for the union attorneys.

Gist says she has the authority to do away with seniority under the new Basic Education Plan, which the Rhode Island Board of Regents approved in June and which takes effect July 1.

Regents Chairman Robert G. Flanders Jr. “Our response is that we have authority to set educational policy and to establish rules and regulations that are in the best interest of students.To the extent that there are contract provisions that are at odds with the Basic Education Plan, it’s our view that those provisions would be unlawful. If a challenge were to be brought, we would expect to prevail.”

you are quite welcome rastibri we all tend to read to fast at times lOl

Looks like Gist is going to be needing the services of an attorney or two-the NEA and AFT are going to eat her up and spit her out. I don't think even Paul Doughty, the best attorney money can buy would be able to get a win for Gist on this one.

1) WHY ARE ALL THE DIFFERENT UNIONS ALWAYS FIGHTING AND SQUEEZING CITIES AND TOWNS FOR MORE MONEY?

BECAUSE THAT IS HOW UNIONS MAKE THEIR MONEY.

THE UNIONS RECEIVE DUES FROM ALL OF THEIR UNION MEMBERS.

THE DUES ARE DEDUCTED DIRECTLY FROM THE MEMBERS PAYCHECK.

2) WHO ARE THE UNION MEMBERS?

PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS

POLICEMEN

FIREMEN

3) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?

IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS IN THE CITY OR TOWN IN WHICH THEY LIVE.

4)I'M A TAXPAYER, AND I"M FED UP WITH HIGHER TAXES, IT'S GETTING SO I CAN"T AFFORD TO LIVE IN MY OWN HOUSE ANYMORE. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

IF YOU DON'T WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN VOTE THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES THEY SUPPORT OUT OF OFFICE.

5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !

I'm wondering if "Slow Joe" Larisa is going to keep improveEP on the payroll when he moves to Barrington and runs for attorney general. At $2.00 per hour for the same moronic post being cut and pasted a thousand times over I think Slow Joe is getting shortchanged.

Perhaps union teacher should spend some time living in the South before he continues to bash the education systems down here. There aren't any run down schools like I've read about in RI and any teacher caught drunk on the job would be immediately terminated without having to deal with miles of union paperwork. Not to mention single digit unemployment versus.........what is it in RI now? Something like 13%? Second only to Michigan? Gee Michigan is a big union state too isn't it? Seems like an interesting trend to me.

I'll stick with living in Rhode Island, thank you. At least in RHode Island, our public employees are paid a decent wage with decent benefits, and a decent retirement plan. In the slave labor states down south, public employees must take a second job to make ends meet, due to the pay scale and benefits being similar to those of a burger flipper at McDonalds or a greeter at Wal-Mart. But I know a few union bashers in Rhode Island who would do the state a favor if they packed up their double wide and moved down south-the sooner the better.

I'd like to move back to RI someday if I could find a job. Where I work, we pay our employees quite well and we also cover 95% of their benefit premiums plus a small life insurance policy. Your slave labor comment truly shows your ignorance. Things have come a long way down here since the 1950's.

I used to be in the steelworker's union while I was in college. One of my co-workers got threatened by our so called "brothers" because he supposedly was doing too good of a job and it was making them look bad. He lodged his complaint with our steward and he was rewarded by getting his windshield smashed and his tires slashed. It took three years for those clowns to get fired.

Now I don't know which public employees you know down south or if you're just reading the propaganda that the union gives you, but they all make a decent wage and can afford to own a decent house without getting gouged with union dues, initiation fees, and, ridiculous property taxes.

response to mal450

Good comments and right on the head with the problems faced up here. Ignore the bigoted comments of others from here they are few and represent a minicule minority. That comes from supporting corruption up here for decades which put us in this spot we are in.

Jack

>>>Now I don't know which public employees you know down south

Does my sister who works as a teacher in Florida count? They make nothing....not even a living wage or close to it. The kids are taught, if you can even use that word, in TRAILERS...double wides, maybe, left over from the housing stock.....I'm not joking.

I think the going rate for teachers there is about 32K per year....with benefits and everything else being cut back.

Statistics tell the story well.

Alabama, Iowa, Maine, Hawaii, Missouri, West Virginia, Mississippi, Kentucky and Georgia are listed as the worst states in math among primary school students.

NO southern state makes the top 20.

The better southern states, NC and MO, make the middle of the pack at best, and further down on other issues.

Mr. South, things are getting better in many places in the south, but they still have a long way to go.

Sorry craig, I've been told that most southerners don't consider Florida to be part of the south because there are too many northerners living there. As I recall the last time I was up in RI.......I noticed a few trailer classrooms myself. At least the ones down south have a/c. And even though $32,000 isn't exactly a ton of money for a position requiring a degree, you can still buy a nice 3 br house with a pool in back for around $130,000. Your sister must enjoy living down there since she hasn't moved back north. What got me started was union teacher badmouthing southern states. There are just as many rednecks, hillbillies and narrow-minded folks up north as there are down here. The only difference is the snow.

Every state has problems with the education system the fact that R.I. ranks 41st in National Assessment and is the only New England state so low is a real problem. Massachusetts #2 Vermont #3 New Hampshire #4 Connecticut #18 Maine #21 tells me there is a serious problem here considering the money that is payed per student and to the education system here is enormous.

Well you are correct on the states you sight craig the whole majority of the country has a problem here. I dont know the answer and suspect it has more to do with the people running the system and corruption run rampent with the politics of it to include unions also and no real oversight of any kind.

I look at these stats and shake my head as I'm sure you do and most people would. It is extremely upsetting to not have an answer from those who are suppose to be the problem solvers we elect to fix the public school systems whether locally or U.S. wide.

Why we are so far from the rest of New England states is what we should all look at, I dont care about the States down south or the states out west except on a national level. But I do care about this R.I. problem and it is obvious we need a lot of help. I also agree craig that salary for your sister is in a state with the money florida has is way out of line as i'm sure her school is over crowded multilingual, cost of living etc and has much more things to handle then just education of children down there bless her for staying.

Jack

These are the stats I am going by as they are most recent I know of 2007.

National Assessment Governing Board,

September 25, 2007

The 2007 Report Card once again illustrates that simply

increasing spending on education is not enough to improve

student performance. The information, analysis, and

measurements in this report confi rm there is no evident

correlation between pupil-to-teacher ratios, spending per

pupil, and teacher salaries on the one hand, and educational

achievement as measured by various standardized test scores,

on the other. In other words, lawmakers need to consider the

fact that they cannot spend their way to improved student

achievement and must look beyond these conventional

measures of educational investment to find the keys to

educational excellence.The tremendous growth and popularity

of charter schools, educational tax credit programs, private

scholarship funds, and vouchers indicate that improving

student achievement is not based on dollars spent.

TABLE ES.1

2007 Ranking

of States by

Academic

Achievement

STATE RANK

Minnesota 1

Massachusetts 2

Vermont 3

New Hampshire 4

South Dakota 5

Montana 6

Kansas 7

North Dakota 8

New Jersey 9

Iowa 10

Virginia 11

Washington 12

Wisconsin 13

Nebraska 14

Oregon 15

Ohio 16

Wyoming 17

Connecticut 18

Pennsylvania 19

Maryland 20

Maine 21

Indiana 22

Idaho 23

Alaska 24

Colorado 25

Texas 26

Utah 27

Missouri 28

North Carolina 29

Delaware 30

Arizona 31

New York 32

Michigan 33

Kentucky 34

Illinois 35

Oklahoma 36

Florida 37

Tennessee 38

Nevada 39

California 40

Rhode Island 41

South Carolina 42

Georgia 43

Arkansas 44

West Virginia 45

Louisiana 46

Hawaii 47

Alabama 48

New Mexico 49

Mississippi 50

District of Columbia 51

response to mal450

Like I said before ignore the UT person he is just a bigot with no compassion for anyone. And just says the same things over an over never being constructive on any subject. Only seems to know hate for its fellow humans period.

Jack

"mal450" Welcome to the roundtable. I see you have experienced first hand "union-teacher"s ignorance. Don't worry, he has much more! We have been listening to his incorrect claims regarding things down South for a while. I guess he does not get around much.

"craigimass" is a union hack who is continually talking about his sister down in Florida who makes no money ............. kinda feel bad for her!

"Jackkb" is a union fellow who is reasonable and intelligent. He spends much of his time doing damage control for the imbecile "union-teacher" who could make a union advocate hate unions. LOL

Keep posting your good messages ..................... they are more than welcome.

DID YOU EVER NOTICE "union-teacher" NEVER POSTS AFTER 4:00 TO 4:30 PM. HE DOES ALL HIS POSTING WHILE HE "WORKS" HIS UNION JOB DURING THE DAY.

Ahh retired union fellow to you improve LOL

and thanks for the compliment I only try to use common sense and be reasonable as I was when I was involved in Union activities. As I have said before that is lacking in so many Union any more and is the reason they have become the bad guys of all taxpayers.

But to me that is a shame wish it would change but like politicians I fear it will not. Until then the taxpayer must try to make things right by speaking out. I dont believe craigmass to be a union hack he debates quite well I think and usually backs his debate with information that is timely and relevant as I also try to do. Dont think he sides with the UT at all but thatrs for him to say.

Jack

Oh I also am thinking of buying all the scotch tape in east providence to stop you from taping the caps lock down LOL

Jack

Ever since the 1972 Democratic convention nominated George McGovern over the objections of the AFL-CIO, the standard wisdom has been that organized labor's power in American politics has declined dramatically. The failure of the current Democrat-dominated Congress to pass labor's highest legislative priority, the Employee Free Choice Act ("card check"), is taken as indicative of unions' political incapacity. But the picture looks very different on the state and local level where public sector employee unions have gone from one victory to another. Indeed, they are the one group, besides Goldman Sachs executives, that's done well during the current Great Recession. Public sector unions have become political powerhouses in New York, New Jersey, Washington, California, and a host of other states. They have become so powerful as to threaten the Madisonian system set up to constrain any one faction from overwhelming the public interest.

Once upon a time public sector workers received less pay than their private sector counterparts in return for better benefits and greater job security. But that bargain has been breached. Public sector wages have more than caught up, while the differential between public and private sector benefits has increased so much that public sector work, particularly for the unskilled, is greatly coveted. To protect such benefits, the unions have tenaciously opposed Senator Max Baucus's plan to tax expensive health insurance plans to finance an extension of coverage. Supporters of public sector union power have developed a rationale for the government employees' gold-plated perks. The argument is that public employees

are the vanguard of the working class. As such, the benefits they achieve will eventually have to be matched by private sector employers. As Carla Katz, the leader of New Jersey's Communications Workers of America, explained to Paul Mulshine of the Newark Star-Ledger, reformers embrace "the progressive theory that unless you create a substantial wage and benefits package that reflects good jobs and the ability to have a middle-class life style, there will be a perpetual race to the bottom."

Katz not only represents thousands of state employees, she is also the richly rewarded former girlfriend of New Jersey governor Jon Corzine. Katz's influence on Corzine became clear in 2006 when the impassioned governor spoke to a Trenton rally of roughly 10,000 public workers and shouted out: "We will fight for a fair contract." Corzine was of course management in that situation, not labor. But with the power of the public sector unions to drive election outcomes, they now sit on both sides of the bargaining table. Unlike private sector unions, the sheer number of workers represented is not the linchpin of their influence. Private sector unions have a natural adversary in the owners of the companies with whom they negotiate. But public sector unions have no such natural counterweight. They are a classic case of "client politics," where an interest group's concentrated efforts to secure rewards impose diffused costs on the mass of unorganized taxpayers. Also unlike private sector unions, those in the public sector can achieve influence on both sides of the bargaining table by making campaign contributions and organizing get-out-the-vote drives to elect politicians who then control the negotiations over their pay, benefits, and work rules. The result is a nefarious cycle: Politicians agree to generous government worker contracts; those workers then pay higher union dues a portion of which are funneled back into those same politicians' campaign war chests. It is a cycle that has driven California and New York to the edge of bankruptcy.

10/30/09, 09:57 PM

Report inappropriate content improveEP says:

Consider what happened in Washington State. After helping Democrats win full control of the legislature in 2002, the state affiliate of the Association of Federal, State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and other unions persuaded lawmakers to lift the collective bargaining restrictions. Within three years the number of union members had doubled. With more state employees paying dues, the amount of union dollars flowing into the coffers of Democrats running in state elections also doubled. A prime beneficiary of such union generosity was Christine Gregoire, who became governor in 2004 after one of the closest elections in the state's history. (AFSCME gave $250,000 to the state Democratic party to help pay for the recount that handed her the election by 129 votes). Once in office, Gregoire negotiated contracts with the unions that resulted in double-digit salary increases, some exceeding 25 percent, for thousands of state employees. In 2007, J. Vander Stoep, an adviser to Republican Dino Rossi, Gregoire's 2004 opponent, prophetically remarked that the unions' arrangement with the Democrats was "a perfect machine to generate millions of dollars for her reelection. .??.??. They are building something that conceivably can never be undone--at taxpayer expense." In their 2008 rematch, Rossi lost again to Gregoire, this time by 194,614 votes.

Public sector unions with political influence can negotiate detailed work rules in which they largely exempt themselves from accountability in return for providing political support for their nominal managers. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) have

created a cartel to advance their own interests at the expense of the citizens and students. The teacher's contract is over 200 pages of small print. Reminiscent of the 12,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) who were paid not to work in the heyday of the UAW, nearly 800 Gotham "rubber room" teachers who have problems on the job are being paid not to work. The UFT has also negotiated with Bloomberg, mistakenly called an education reformer, a reduction in the number of days they must work to prepare for classes before school begins in September at the same time as their salary increases have been running at better than twice the rate of inflation.

But the teachers are not the only politically powerful labor force in New York, the nation's most-unionized state where 69 percent of public sector workers belong to collective bargaining units. In the nominally private health care sector, employees depend heavily on government programs, principally Medicare and Medicaid, for their livelihood. In the 1970s and 1980s, the local 1199 Drug, Hospital and Health Care Employees Union fought a running battle with New York's largely state and federally funded voluntary hospitals. Under the brilliant leadership of Dennis Rivera, 1199 built a top-notch political operation, and with the hospitals, which were barred from political activity, formed a partnership to maximize the flow of government revenue. The union-hospital alliance has been so successful in aligning itself with politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, that not only has 1199 been largely untouched by the downturn, but New York spends as much on Medicaid as California and Texas combined. And come boom or bust, hospital and health care employment in the state keeps growing. Rivera, who merged his local with the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), has now brought his political acumen to Washington as the SEIU's point-man on health care reform.

The combined power of the teachers and health care workers has made the New York state legislature a wholly owned subsidiary of the public sector unions. The law mandates that all new legislation be evaluated for its fiscal impact. In recent years those calculations were performed by an actuary named Jonathan Schwartz. In 2008, when Schwartz found that a piece of bipartisan legislation allowing city workers to retire early with full pension benefits would impose no new costs, the New York Times blew the whistle. Schwartz, who had been fired from a city job, worked not only for the state assembly but also, it turned out, for District Council 37 of the SEIU. When asked which other unions he had worked for, he replied, "How many unions are there?" His client list included the teachers, firefighters, detectives, correction officers, and bridge and tunnel officers. Not surprisingly New York State has the highest per-employee pension costs in the country.

Prior to World War II, a New York State Supreme Court justice neatly summarized the prevailing attitude toward public sector unions: "To tolerate or recognize any combination of Civil Service employees of the government as a labor organization or union is not only incompatible with the spirit of democracy but inconsistent with the spirit of democracy and inconsistent with every principle upon which our Government is founded." Laws permitting collective bargaining for public employees were virtually nonexistent. Even labor-friendly economists thought organizing most public sector employees was illegitimate. AFL-CIO president George Meany believed it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government."

What produced the enormous expansion of public sector unions? In a case of unintended consequences, government unionism ironically developed from actions taken by those hostile to it. Many of the icons of the labor-left like New York's great mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and President Franklin Roosevelt were adamantly opposed to public sector unions. LaGuardia, who pledged to make New York a "one hundred percent [private sector] union" town, had a civic vision of public employees as the people's workers, exemplars of the common good. Famed for dropping in unexpectedly on city offices and dressing down slackers, LaGuardia explained that he did "not want any of the pinochle club atmosphere to take hold" in his city government. "The right to strike against the government," he insisted, "is not and cannot be recognized."

In 1935, Roosevelt signed the Wagner Act, the first peacetime effort to support the growth of private sector unions. Its aim in the words of its sponsor, New York senator Robert Wagner, was "encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining." But like his close ally LaGuardia, Roosevelt drew a definite line when it came to government workers. "Meticulous attention," the president insisted, "should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government. .??.??. The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service." Both men feared that liberalism would be compromised by the unavoidably self-serving nature of public sector unionism.

But the mayor and the president opened the door to just what they opposed. In the bad old days of Tammany Hall, which had fought both LaGuardia and Roosevelt, the average tenure of a cop or teacher or garbage collector was five years. But with the rise of civil service reform backed by both men in the 1930s, public employees both in New York and the federal government began to gain lifetime security. Civil service reform, it turned out, was the precondition for unionization because it gave workers a long-term interest in their jobs and facilitated their capacity to express collective concerns. In 1958, New York mayor Robert Wagner, son of the senator behind the 1935 federal act, issued an executive order generally known as "the little Wagner Act." It gave city employees bargaining rights and provided their unions with exclusive representation. The city was soon turning over the dues from its workers to the union. Those dues soon provided political action funds to support union-backed candidates.

Running for reelection in 1961, Wagner faced a Democratic party revolt. The party's five borough chiefs were supporting his opponent, and Wagner made the unions the basis of his winning campaign. It was a turning point. Looking back in the wake of New York's mid-1970s fiscal crisis, Alex Rose, the head of the once powerful (and now defunct) New York Liberal party and a former labor leader, concluded that "the little Wagner Act" had proven a dreadful "mistake." Rose, who had also led the private sector clothing workers, explained that public sector "workers are not extracting a share of the profits but rather a share of taxes." Ultimately, he noted, his workers would be among those "footing the bill."

Ten weeks after Wagner's victory, President John F. Kennedy, who had been elected by the narrowest of margins in 1960, decided to mobilize public sector workers as a new source of political support. In mid-January 1962, he issued Executive Order 10988 giving federal workers the right to organize, though not to collectively bargain. Kennedy's action and Wagner's victory set off a wave of local union activity across the nation's major cities.

In states with laws favorable to unionism, public sector organizing has flourished; in states without such laws, it has not. If there is a specific point from which to mark the beginning of the current looming fiscal crisis in many blue states, it would be the wave of local strikes by public employees that were set in motion by Kennedy's executive order. His strategy succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. Like entitlement programs, the expansion of public sector unionism produced a self-generating dynamic for continual expansion. Public sector unions would occasionally experience temporary setbacks--as in the New York fiscal crisis of 1975--but they had the political clout to claw back any concessions made under duress.

During the Reagan years, the growth in local and state jobs was double the rate of population growth. In the downturn of the early 1990s, the New York Times warned that the states faced a "fiscal calamity." In 2002, during the next serious downturn, the National Governors Association insisted that the "states face the most dire fiscal situation since World War II." But in each case the growth of government and public sector pay packages merely stalled. It resumed as soon as the economy recovered.

There is broad agreement among economists that public sector unions' political power increases government spending. As reported in the New York Times, public-sector wages and benefits over the past decade have grown twice as fast as those in the average private-sector. An Empire Center for New York State Policy study found that in 2006 state and local government employees in New York were paid higher average salaries in eight out of ten regions of the state. If one excludes jobs in finance in New York City and the Southern Tier, private sector employees earned slightly less than government ones statewide.

The downturn has been very tough on private sector workers. But the public sector, particularly when it comes to pensions for uniformed workers, has been a different matter. In New York City, where public sector union benefits have grown twice as fast as those in the private sector since 2000, firefighters may retire after 20 years at half pay. Pension benefits for a new retiree averaged just under $73,000 (all exempt from state and local taxes). Many also collect an annual $12,000 "Christmas bonus." To top it off, they receive a health insurance policy that is worth about $10,000 annually. New York City is also paying benefits to 10,000 retired police officers under 50 years of age.

Such cases abound. According to the Boston Globe, 225 of the 2,338 Massachusetts state police officers made more than Governor Deval Patrick's $140,535 annual salary in 2006. Four state troopers received more than $200,000, and 123 others were paid more than $150,000. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that in suburban Chicago, there are school administrators--a unionized profession--who are making over $400,000. California teachers are represented by one of the country's most powerful teachers' unions and earn 25 percent more than the national average. Forbes has reported that there are California prison guards making $300,000 a year.

While the wage parity between public and private sector workers is largely unchanged since 2002, public sector benefits are a different matter. For every $1-an-hour pay increase, noted Dennis Cauchon in USA Today, public employees have gotten $1.17 in new benefits. Private workers have gotten just .58 cents in benefits for every $1 raise. This gap worries left-liberal labor economist Barry Bluestone. The price of state and local public services increased by 41 percent nationally between 2000 and 2008. Private services only increased by 27 percent. The benefit growth has continued unabated into the Great Recession, and Bluestone says the gap will inevitably produce a backlash.

Like banks, but with even less self-control, state governments make long-term promises in boom times while depending on the short-term flow of revenues. But when the boom ends, the benefits that have been ratcheted up have to be paid for out of a declining private sector economy. Barring a sharp recovery, state and local government tax-funded pension contributions in New York are likely to triple over the next five years in order to pay out the pension benefits guaranteed by the state constitution. (This is equally true in Illinois.) California's public pension fund liability has already topped $200 billion, and in cities such as Oakland, Vallejo, and Rio Vista bankruptcy looms.

In the states and cities where government workers' unions are strong, they have formed alliances with nonprofit advocacy groups such as ACORN and foundations committed to greater government involvement in the economy and society. The Manhattan Institute's Steven Malanga argues that this constellation of forces is in effect a new Tammany Hall. It is, says Seymour Lachman, a former New York state senator who now heads a center for government reform at Wagner College, "the ward heeler system of Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall wrapped in some kind of progressive disguise." The old Tammany, however, was subject to electoral defeats. The new Tammanies have proved self-perpetuating. In California, Governor Schwarzenegger's ill-organized effort to roll back public sector union power in 2005 led to the muscleman's first defeat, then his political evisceration, and now the Golden State's fiscal humiliation. New York City and State are on a similar course. Across the country the new political machine has mostly been aligned with the Democratic party. Some individual unions, however, such as California's prison guards and New York's hospital workers, have been protected and advanced by Republicans. Still others play a pragmatic balance-of-power game, forging short-lived marriages of convenience with either political party.

Public sector unions are beginning to strike out on their own, too. If the recent primary elections in New York are any indication, it is only a matter of time before, using the vehicle of the Working Families party (WFP), they take control of New York City government. New York allows third parties on the ballot, and the Working Families party--organized in 1998 as an alliance between labor unions and ACORN--cross-endorses allies in the Democratic party. Yet the WFP is thriving while New York's Democrats atrophy. In last week's New York City primaries, WFP candidates for city council won easily, as did the party's candidates for the city's second and third highest offices: comptroller and public advocate. Those are the best platforms from which to make a run for mayor of New York City when Bloomberg finally gives up his throne.

Public sector unions bring to the fore what James Madison called "the violence of faction" and its threat to the "permanent and aggregate interests of the community." This can't be blamed on the unions; they're advancing their members' interests. The fault lies with politicians, particularly those governors and mayors who have been willing to sabotage the public interest to smooth the path to their own reelections.

In the absence of tough-minded reform leaders who will take on the public sector unions, the fiscal future of states and localities is bleak.

Fred Siegel is a visiting professor at St. Francis College and a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute's City Journal. Dan DiSalvo is a professor at City College of New York.

10/30/09, 10:00 PM

ok ok enough enough I believe you no how to take caps lock off LOl

"There is broad agreement among economists that public sector unions' political power increases government spending. As reported in the New York Times, public-sector wages and benefits over the past decade have grown twice as fast as those in the average private-sector." Read post above in its entirety..informative.

1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)

2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?

3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS

4) IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.

5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !

union-teacher makes me laugh. Millie Morris hired her daughters, and son-in-law, plus countless other relatives and friends. The school committee members from the past made sure they had jobs made for their minions. This city has been turned into a pink-eyed village by the likes of them. Tony Carcieri, and the rest of the school committee, made a commitment to the taxpayers and students, and that's why they have the administrative team they have now.

UT and company with their see you in court attitude toward Gist shows they are not interested in the students or taxpayers. Maybe we should have the wonder lawyer, Dan Kinder give Ms. Gist some assistance with his great legal work. He should be able to at least slow up the unions bloodfest.

Millie Morris did not HIRE anyone!

1 of her daughters was hired as a supervisory aide, a whole 3 hours a day with NO benifits! That's right, NO BENIFITS!!!

In the past 2 years our TRANSPARENT school committee has hired (recomended) the following:

A school administrator's daughter to teacher

A school principals sister to teacher

A City Council persons son to an administrative job. (he has left)

A City Clerk's sister to principal

And why was Tony Carceiri's daughter allowed to remain in our tax supported special ed program after she turned 21???

Great research "taxpayerEP"

You flunked as far as investigative reporting.

I'm sure you are fully aware of Millie Morris's escapades both in her capacity as SC Chair and otherwise, the whole city does! So stop defending somebody who made a laughing stock out of the whole process.

Regarding Tony Carcieri's daughter, can you prove that? If so, do it, because if there was any wrongdoing, it should be brought out into the open. NO FAVORITISM HERE !

1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)

2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?

3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS

4) IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.

5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !

I did not say that Mrs. Morris did not influence hiring, or make recomendations.

I only pointed out that she did not "Hire" anyone.

And the fact that her daughter was hired as supervisory aide, (By the way, she abstained from that vote and discussion).

And what about those hirings and promotions by out WONDERFUL, TRANSPARENT School Committee?

Why not ask Tony Carceiri himself about his daughter? My information comes from VERY reliable sources!!

You have to remember "taxpayerEP" that improveEP is just a ghost writer and mouthpiece for Larisa, and will stop at nothing to promote that nitwit's agenda. As much as I'm dismayed that Larisa has singlehandedly ruined the city of East Providence, the good news is that he's put his house up for sale, and is moving to Barrington to begin his campaign for attorney general. I'm sure improveEP will be following "Slow Joe" over to Barrington and continue to be his #1 speechwriter/cheerleader/boot licker. With supporters such as improveEP, I'm not sure if Slow Joe will even manage 5 votes in the entire state for AG.

1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)

2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?

3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS

4) IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.

5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !

Slow Joe Larisa and Fat Tony Carcieri along with their few supporters have ruined the city of East Providence-throw the bums out in the next election-IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE!

ImproveEP

I bought a home in East Providence, in the following 17 years my home has tripled in value! WHY?

Quality of life, people desired EP because of our Police, Fire and school system.

You can buy property in Central Falls NOW for less than I paid for my home!! WHY? Quality of life!

Joe Larisa and friends want to turn EP into CF!!!

Cut fire and police, ruin school system, and keep taxes low for his millionaire friends in Rumford!

Are you taking any kind of strong medication that might be causing you to have these thoughts?

Why would somebody want to ruin a school system??

Bringing fiscal responsibility back to a school system is what you probably mean.

I wouldn't worry about his "millionaire" friends in Rumford, they can handle tax increases!

He is trying to keep taxes down for other people in other parts of East Providence where a $300 tax increase would cause them great harm!

PLEASE USE YOUR BRAIN...................IF YOU HAVE ONE.

Why would "Slow Joe" Larisa care that he was ruining East Providence?-his house is up for sale and he's moving to Barrington. Typical behavior from Slow Joe-he decimates the police, fire, and school departments, turns the city into a ghetto, and then moves to Barrington to get away from the mess he created.

well lets see, in CF they do not pay any taxes to cover school expenses. The state has taken over their system.

If Joey and friends can screw up our schools enough they hope maybe the state can take us over. IMAGINE what a tax decrease.

Besides; he has proven over his many years in city government he has shown nothing but hatred for the school department and especially teachers!!!

Larisa and his cronies not only hate teachers, but police officers, firefighters, and any other unionized workers. I'm sure he'll run for town council when he moves to Barrington, and sees how badly he can screw up that town.

1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)

2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?

3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS

4) IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.

5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !

I DON"T LIKE TO START RUMORS BUT I HEAR PAULIE M. WANTS TO JOIN UP WITH THE "RUMFORD" CROWD................LARISA, CUSACK, CARCIERI !

WORD IS THAT HE HAS BEEN MAKING OVERTURES !

HE FEELS THAT HE WANTS TO BE PART OF THE "WINNING TEAM"

FEELS THAT DEMS THREW HIM UNDER THE BUS

The three stooges a.k.a. Larisa, Cusack, and Carcieri, couldn't make a pimple on Senator Moura's backside. But don't fret "improveEP", Senator Moura will return "Townie Pride" to East Providence when he comes in to rid the city of the garbage that is the three stooges along with Val Perry and Dick Brown. I suggest they start cleaning out their desks soon.

Thinking that Mr. Moura would join up with Carceiri, larisa et al proves only one thing!

ImproveEP missed another AA meeting and has fallen way off the wagon before noon.

Do yourself a favor and call your sponsor!!!

And when you call your sponsor "improveEP", see if your sponsor can counsel "Fat Tony" Carcieri about brown bagging it at the EP High Schoool graduation-what a disgusting role model for the students.

Moura 101: Labor Union, hangin' on South Main like a teenage thug. I recall a bust at their headquarters. Yea, there's a community leader.

Hey "smartenup" ........................... you're talking about our future mayor. LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

I would rather have Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck as mayor than the useless grandstanding blowhard Larisa. This idiot and his few lackeys has destroyed the city brick by brick. It's time to throw this bum Larisa out-the sooner the better.

IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.

Wow improveEP-you've come up with a new useless comment. Let's hope that when Slow Joe Larisa is done decimating the police and fire departments, you or your family becomes a victim of violent crime or a medical emergency, and nobody shows up.

IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.

It's no wonder Larisa has one foot out the door-when you have an idiot such as "improveEP" doing your ghost writing, it's inevitable.

MUNICIPAL UNIONS = "PIGS AT THE PUBLIC TROUGH"

Keep it up "improveEP"-I have until 4:30 to respond to your nonsense-ON YOUR DIME.

State Rep. Doug Gablinske is quoted as asking union officials representing more than 9,000 teachers: “Do you not think that the pigs at the public trough have gone too far?”

THAT QUOTE IS FROM A DEMOCRAT, WHO WOULD KNOW BETTER?

Another cut and paste by Larisa's #1 bootlicker-"improveEP"-keep up the good work.

State Rep. Doug Gablinske is quoted as asking union officials representing more than 9,000 teachers: “Do you not think that the pigs at the public trough have gone too far?”

THAT QUOTE IS FROM A DEMOCRAT, WHO WOULD KNOW BETTER?

Paul Doughty

Students are on the Yorke show talking about the negative effects of bumping. They are talking about the shame of how great teachers are treated exactly the same as mediocre teachers. They are talking about their rights to a quality education. They are talking about individual teachers intimidated by unions.

How can union leadership blatantly continue to blow-off RI students?!

1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)

2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?

3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS

4) IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.

5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !

improveEP says:

1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)

2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?

3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS

4) IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.

5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !

11/3/09, 05:27 PM

Jackbb,

Thanks for the stats above on RI's education ranking. I was heartened to know we are beating the pants off the "moonshine" states.

With stats like that, we might be able to bring back the jewelry industry. The Chinese are getting tired of the bench press work.

response to garymm

Yea pretty bad huh if you dig deeper and find out what we spend it will make you vomit. Obviously a serious problem here considering the population and other new england states have no where near as bad as we are. When you look at cities that have about our population and state budget is even worse.

Jack

Oh and the comments from the researchers are very telling of what has not ever worked and that is the same thing they keep trying here throw away more of our money.

Did you know?

Our overall taxes rank fourth in the country and are the highest in New England. Our school costs are the largest on a per capita basis in New England, yet our educational achievements are in the bottom 25% of U.S. performance. School budgets comprise about 60% to more than 70% of all municipal budgets in Rhode Island. Rhode Island teacher salaries are the 9th highest in the United States.

IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT ELECTED. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.

FOR HIGHER TAXES, VOTE UNION !

ImproveEP hasn't had an original idea in several months now.

Just cut and paste the same nonsense again and again and again...

ImproveEP

REPEATING THE SAME POST OVER AND OVER AGAIN DOSEN'T MAKE IT TRUE!

JUST LOOKS LIKE THE BRAINWASHED REPETING THE PARTY LINE OVER AND OVER AGAIN!

TIME FOR YOU TO SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP.

"I have no problem whatsoever paying a little more in taxes. It's a small price to pay for the quality of life we enjoy."

THIS RECENT QUOTE SHOWN ABOVE IS FROM A RABID UNION BLOGGER NAMED "union-teacher"

HE OBVIOUSLY THINKS ITS OKAY TO PAY MORE TAXES IN THE MOST "TAXED OUT" STATE IN THE COUNTRY.

THEREFORE PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING:

1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS UNION - POLICE UNION - FIREMENS UNION)

2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM WHICH GOES TO THESE GREEDY UNIONS?

3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE HARDWORKING TAXPAYERS

4) IF YOU WANT TO PAY HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES THAT THEY SUPPORT AND WANT ELECTED. YOU WILL THEN PAY HIGHER TAXES.

I GUARANTEE YOU THAT!

5) IT'S REALLY JUST THAT SIMPLE !

Wow "improveEP"-you actually came up with something a bit more original than your usual nonsense. What happened-did Larisa and Carcieri throw you some extra dough today?

Hot off the wire, US Army says 70% of the US youth cannot come up to Beetle Bailey standards.

http://www.sphere.com/2009/11/03/70-percent-of-young-americans-are-unfit-for-military-duty/?icid=main|hp-desktop|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sphere.com%2F2009%2F11%2F03%2F70-percent-of-young-americans-are-unfit-for-military-duty%2F

"The latest Army statistics show a stunning 70 percent of military-age youth are ineligible to join the military because they are overweight, can't pass entrance exams, have dropped out of high school or had run-ins with the law."

Can't pass an army entrance exam? Now there's a statistic I'd like to see some comment on.

Of course the union bashers are going to blame it on the teachers, but 99.99% of the problem is the unfit lazy parents who set a poor example for their children, do not give them the structure, discipline, and drive to succeed, and view school as glorified day care for their spoiled brat kids. It's time for parents to take some responsibility for their juvenile delinquent kids upbringing, and stop blaming the teachers union.

That sure doen't surprise me Garymm

There is definitely a health problem in this country.

Union teacher,

Point well taken!

There will be even less next year for schools,change needs to come fast.It needs to be change for the better.The statuo que has got to go.

PROVIDENCE -- State tax collections plunged over the last four months, yet another sign that Rhode Island's economy is going nowhere fast.

The state Division of Taxation presented figures at a State House conference on Thursday which showed the amount of money the state collected in tax revenue for the four months ended Oct. 31 fell in several key categories when compared with the same period last year.

Sales tax revenue, a prime barometer, dropped by nearly $20 million. That number alone suggests that Rhode Islanders made $282 million less in taxable purchases -- of items such as computers, appliances, TV sets and jewelry -- during the last four months than in the same period a year ago.

Try that again THE STATUS QUO has got to go!!!!!!!

The Union_Teacher Creed

Must be past 4:30 as UT Pronounced ( eewwt ) has gone back to his bleak little world where he never wins and screams all the rest of the live long day and night until he wakes up and takes his meds and thinks I Stuart Smalley ( eewwt ) am a good person, I Stuart Smalley ( eewwt ) will tell people today how good I am,

I Stuart Smalley ( eewwt ) will tell all the other people what they are with every vile insult I learned from The glorious GODS of Union leadership, who I Stuart Smalley ( eewwt ) bow to without question when I am on my knees praying to them like a good little minion.

Bless the Union Leaders for they have seen to the destruction of Companies, Businesses, and Taxpayers for we have taken money from them and will continue to do it till we can't walk from the weight of what steal and will continue to steal the blood out of the American economic system until it collapses.

Bless the Union Leaders for they are the GODS of destruction even if their Membership doesn't approve we will intimidate the members if they try to object, we will make sure those who do end up first on the list for firing or layoffs.

We are the first and the last to destroy all that was ever good in the American industrial system under the guise of helping workers. We will only use them to further are secret agenda of a socialistic society where only we have the power and the taxpayers are lowly servants kept in check by having no money. ( because we took it )

We shall make all the rich pay more and more till they flee the country and close their companies and millions out of work. oops scratch that we did it all ready to auto industry and it kind of isn’t working hum can't figure that out. Well who cares we will just get more money from taxpayers that will take care of it. We are Union Leadership GODS.

I know we will force card check and then we can intimidate all workers because they will no longer have a secret ballot like that stupid freedom America has always had. We will make this a third world country if we have to destroy the country to do it by making the Government stupid enough to take over all business and financial markets and healthcare system except exempt Unions of course. The taxpayers will suffer but who cares we are Union Leadership GODS.

I Stuart Smalley alias ( eewwt ) do here by affirm this diatribe and will follow it tell I too starve and lose all my wealth and become another nail in the coffin of the America I wanted to create. Thank you Union Leadership GODS.

Paul Doughty

THE FOLLOWING WAS POSTED BY A UNION AGITATOR:

"Fortunately next year's elections are right around the corner, and a new broom will be coming in to sweep this idiot Larisa and his small band of cronies out the door."

MY QUESTION IS: WHO IS YOUR "NEW BROOM?"

IS IT "PAT DOWN" PAUL MOURA, THE UNION BAD BOY AT CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS WHOSE BEHAVIOR EMBARRASSES EVERYBODY AROUND HIM?

IS THAT YOUR "NEW BROOM?"

GOOD LUCK!

Paul Doughty

Paul L. Doughty, Ph.D. is Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus of Anthropology and Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. He was born in Beacon NY and received his BA degree [1952] at Ursinus College [Pennsylvania]. Along with his wife Mary (Polly) he worked for the American Friends Service Committee in Mexico and El Salvador for two and a half years in rural development projects in cooperation with several Mexican and Salvadorian government projects.

Paul returned to the US to study anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and at Cornell University where he earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology under Allan Holmberg [1963] with minors in Rural Sociology and Conservation. Subsequently he conducted applied research and international development work in Peru, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico dealing with urban growth and migration, land reform and community development, earthquake disaster relief and recovery among other topics.

Paul first became acquainted with the Vicos community in 1960-61 and later visited Vicos many times as Coordinator in Peru for the Cornell Peru Project (1962-64) and in-country director of a 2 year evaluation of the US Peace Corps in Peru in that same period. Since that time he has often revisited Vicos, most recently in 2004.

His other work included being director and senior analyst in the evaluation of US-AID Food for Peace programs in Peru [1983], consultant and analyst for Indigenous Development Programs in Peru (1997) and Ecuador (2003) for the World Bank. He taught at Indiana University [1964-1971] and also directed its Latin American Program before moving to the University of Florida as Chair of the Anthropology department in 1971. He was a founder and later, president of the Latin American Studies Association; president of the Society for Latin American Anthropology; and president of the Association of Senior Anthropologists.

Improve EP said:

""craigimass" is a union hack"

Interesting since I worked for myself my entire life and....last time I looked, there were no unions for self employed mom and pop shops and inventors.........nor residential kitchen remodelers in the sticks.....etc.

But apparently, he knows me well....

Binding Arbitration in Connectiucuit:

from 2002-2005: there were 410 teacher contracts negotiated, only 10% (42) went to arbitration!

Of the 1,313 Municipal Union Contracts negotiated, only 4 %(57) went to arbitration.

These are HARD FACTS

And prove that BINDING ARBITRATION is not the financial death of our cities and towns.

He's gross and perverted obsessed and deranged

His mind has been twisted he's thoughts have been changed

He talks about Government as if it's a tool

To pick peoples pockets with Government rule

This poster called union he's no friend at all

If you follow him get ready to fall

He knows only one way and that way is greed

The best I can figure it's part of his breed

As soon as we beat him well be in the black

And then once again we'll have our State back

THE RI. STATEWIDE COALITION PEOPLE WORKING TOGETHER TO SAVE OUR STATE www.statewide coalition.com join us

Response to those Supporting and touting Connecticut’s Binding Arbitration Thought you should read this. Before you want it here.

BINDING ARBITRATION LAWS COULD BANKRUPT CONNECTICUT!

May 11, 2009 Press Conference, hosted by Connecticut State Representative Arthur O’Neill

Mike Guarco who heads the Connecticut Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility.

The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

As municipalities struggle to find the money to support their budgets they are faced with the realization that 85% or more of local property taxes are dedicated to supporting union salaries and benefits, which are, in turn, driven by State Binding Arbitration laws. They also struggle with the fact that many management rights, due to Binding Arbitration, have been transferred to the unions. From the unions dictating the size of classrooms, to the control of town cars, to the number of fire stations which must remain open, to the work schedule of police which results in the build up of overtime which is factored into their pensions, neither the Governor nor town officials can control their budgets or the taxes we pay until Binding Arbitration Laws are reformed.

Minimum funding requirements to local Boards of Education are due to sunset in 2009. However, this funding requirement may be extended by the legislature which could explain why many teachers unions have refused to give concessions even though many of their students are witnessing the effect of unemployment in their own households.

When Governor Rell introduced her budget with no tax increase she asked the State Legislature to give her what she and town leaders needed in this economy to control their budgets and their personnel. The Governor asked for reform of State Binding Arbitration Laws. She asked specifically for, and I quote: Suspension of binding arbitration requirements for two years while we confront our economic troubles. At the end of the two-year suspension, I propose that we limit mandatory subjects of binding arbitration to salaries and benefits only.

The Federation believes that many more reforms to Binding Arbitration must be made but we endorse what the Governor has requested as an initial effort toward reform. The Governor also asked the Democrat-controlled State legislature to reject the $86 million contract for 5200 state employees driving some salaries to a 6% increase in wages.

As we stand here today, all three of Governor Rell’s requests have been ignored by the Democrat-controlled legislature. The 5200 member union got their raise and her two proposed reforms to Binding Arbitration have been ignored.

With the Federal government sending Connecticut $745 million for education and millions more for other projects, more government employees will be hired and fall under union contracts. There is an obvious concern when this federal money is depleted as some ask the question - Who will fund these new hires? The answer is simple – local and state taxpayers!

Binding Arbitration laws exert an unhealthy power by government sector unions over taxpayers and those public officials who are not intimidated by the unions and actually want to do the jobs they were elected to do. The Governor attempted to do her job – she produced a no tax increase budget but wanted help from the legislature through binding arbitration reform. Without the two year suspension of binding arbitration laws as requested by the Governor, the end result was the State unions receiving a no layoff guarantee for two years while the state anticipates a near $8 Billion deficit for 2010-11.

Taxpayers, the Governor, and the CEO’s of the 169 towns are held hostage to union contracts. Either the wage increases are paid or our officials are forced to go back to the bargaining table and give the unions what they want. And who wouldn’t want to be guaranteed their job. But this guarantee is at the taxpayers’ expense, many of whom do not have jobs and couldn’t comprehend expecting their employer to give them a no layoff guarantee.

And there is much to fear for our State, our towns and our families, many of whom have lost their jobs, their homes and their savings. The losses in the housing market are now being seen in the commercial market. General Growth Properties, which filed for bankruptcy, owns the Buckland mall and malls throughout the country. As commercial bankruptcies and home foreclosures escalate, the impact on sales taxes, property taxes, state income taxes and other taxes and fees will be significant. The loss of those taxes will come at a time when the greatest cost of government will grow as wage increases will have to be paid to State government sector unions who agreed to limited concessions while receiving a two year no layoff guarantee.

So as the scale tilts with less money coming to the State and the State having to pay more, what will the end result be? Could it be less money going to towns which will, in turn, have to raise property taxes! Or will state officials have to raise taxes if their collection rates cannot be sustained. And if the towns and the state cannot find the money they need to keep the engines of government running, with their greatest cost being state and town employee salaries and benefits governed by binding arbitration, then what?

With the economy continuing to plummet, mounting job losses affecting the payment of state and local taxes, and a two year no-lay off clause for state employees as the state’s debt continues to climb, Connecticut and some of the 169 towns in the State could be brought to the edge of bankruptcy. Ironically, the end result would be dissolution of public sector union contracts.

The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations encourages State legislators to reform State Binding Arbitration laws as the Governor has proposed. We ask local elected officials and taxpayers throughout the State to phone or email their state representatives and tell them that without Binding Arbitration reform it will be impossible to limit the growth of government spending and control property taxes.

In conclusion, I would reflect upon the past to demonstrate the effects of Binding Arbitration today. When elected Mayor in 1989, under a strong mayor form of government, I refused the Mayor’s car. I then instructed town personnel to find another means of transportation to and from home as they could no longer rely on town cars. I was grieved by the unions. I thought for sure I would win as this condition was not included within their union contract. But I was wrong. I lost based on Past Practice. If a union is allowed to do something long enough outside the realm of their contract, they have earned the right to continue the practice according to arbiters. The effects of that arbitration decision rendered several years ago are being felt today by towns which are trying to take their taxpayer owned vehicles back from the unions. In order to get them back, they must return to the bargaining table and agree to give the unions something in return.

Jack

Response to taxpayerEP says:

Binding Arbitration in Connectiucuit

The years you a quoting were the beginning and like most things that people think are great at first in the long run as always with the government the taxpayers suffer. As stated by the post above the Sate of Conneticut is in deep trouble with this now and it will take a herculean effort to reverse it.

It is not proven it does not work long term obviously and I'm sure in this Stae it would be even worse with the corruption that exist here.

Jack

It is simple: binding arbitration on fiscal matters results in increased costs that have nothing to do with improving student achievement. That's all anybody really needs to know to know that it is bad.

And binding arbitration has saved cities and towns millions of dollars in legal fees incurred by union hating school committees who are nothing more than co-conspirators with their lawyer buddies throwing them more legal work.

Are you referring to M. Gursky? He's done well..never been unemployed thanks to the unions "throwing him legal work."

True smartenup (eewwt) seems to think Union laedership never uses lawyers haha what a joke to bad its not a joke.

(eewwt) Needs to get Professional help.

Jack