Having rejected both gambling amendments, the Senate is now debating Senator Tisei’s proposal for a wage and hiring freeze across state government. This is a continuation of a debate that started a couple of days ago.
This could be interesting — it’s a Republican initiative, but Senator Baddour just spoke in support of it.
UPDATE: Here comes the roll call. So far, sounding like a sea of “no.” The merrie band of five Republicans will all vote yes, and presumably Baddour will too. We’ll see if they get anyone else … well, O’Leary and Walsh voted “present,” and Petruccelli, Brewer and Tucker voted yes. Not a total GOP wipeout, but pretty close. Up next: Tisei’s proposal to repeal the Pacheco law. Good luck with that one.
Please share widely!
for the curious (it’s the one that says “Further Other 56.1)
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p>My hand on my heart, this morning this was marked ADOPTED.
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p>So what does THIS mean? I realize the budget isn’t ‘final’ until it’s passed to be engrossed, but does this mean that amendments marked Rejected or Adopted can be reversed??? Can a motion for reconsideration be made on a passed amendment?
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p>Where the hell do they think they are, Town Meeting?
A hiring freeze is a feel-good, lazy way to govern.
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p>Springfield does this — stupidly — from time to time. Turns out that at one point, because of a hiring freeze, they were not hiring people in departments such as building inspections which actually bring revenue into the city.
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p>Another time the city lost the person who went around to the various buildings fixing broken windows. So what happened? Couldn’t hire another glazier due to the hiring freeze, so windows had holes in them during the winter, letting heat out of the buildines. Duh!
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p>A blanket rule like “no hires” is too broad. Hiring should be under more scrutiny, but positions should be allowed to be filled if they are vital.
the bulk of the opposition seems to be based on the hiring freeze aspect — several have argued that when you lose someone, sometimes they have to be replaced. No one has said much about the wage freeze. This amendment will probably fail, but if Tisei had drafted it better it might well have passed.
My Father worked at a company that instituted a hiring freeze while they had contracts that were going unfulfilled due to lack of people to do the work. They later solved this problem by firing 90% of the sales staff. Within a few months there was no longer too much work.
On one side are union darlings Sens. Donnelly and Tolman. On the other we have Sens. Baddour, Tisei, and Hedlund.
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p>Sen. Donnelly and Tolman score some points saying how easy it is to paint state employees as lazy, do-nothing hacks pigging out at trough, and they’re entitled to earn a liveable wage.
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p>Sen. Tisei counters by saying if the Senate really cares so much about public employees, why didn’t they include any money to give wage increases for those who take care of the mentally disabled and mentally ill?
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p>Sen. Baddour mixes up both sides by pointing out the intellectual dishonesty of defending the pay raises agreed upon by Gov. patrick, while not admitting that the unions are never actually going to get their raises — CAUSE THERE’S NO MONEY!
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p>Stay tuned!
because that would really mean the end of western civilization to the public employee unions.
The wage/hiring freeze had already PASSED before Tisei was taken up!
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p>”No agency…..may increase the compensation of any employee in excess of an employee’s compensation as of June 30, 2009. In addition, no department or agency wmay fill any vacancy (excpet police, fire, prison guards, the ones with juice…).”
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p>It’s a hypocrital show designed to blame the evil Republicans instead of the Chair of Senate W&M. Howz about a roll call on BREWER’S adopted amendment? $5 bucks says it was a voice vote (and no, I didn’t look it up).
Oh ya—and immoral, unethical, and corrupt government. It makes no difference what party is in power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The reason for aforemnetioned is the case is that the enlightened electorate of Massachusetts
apparently are pretty dim. They haven’t figured out that a governor is powerless unless the power of the veto actually works.