For whatever reason the Mass AFL-CIO seems to be dominated by the hysterical police and fire unions. This story in the Globe today: Some patrolmen object to paper’s Obama depictions is illustrative. If one ever gets a chance to read the newspaper of the Boston Police Patrol mans Association it will make your skin crawl: BPPA It has been ridiculing and lampooning African American political leaders for decades. It really is despicable. Take The Boston Police, or the New England Police Benevolent Association, or NAGE, and you have a group of unions or leaders who one time or another have been accused of civil rights violations, sexual insensitivity or worse.
For whatever reason the police and fire unions are driving the AFL-CIO agenda. My guess is that they don’t necessary speak for the majority of unions or the rank and file as a whole?
The paper is quite vituperative in its opposition to both Patrick and Obama. Example:
There’s a lot in common with the right-wing talk radio view of the world.
but you have to be crazy to ignore it after the Brown election. Think lightining can’t strike again? Guess again!
Teachers unions spent millions and did yeoman’s work electing him. In January Patrick signed and praised a bill that took collective bargaining rights away from teachers in the schools that most need a teacher voice, teacher input, and (let’s face it) teacher cooperation. To us he says, consistently “I don’t believe teachers are the problem.” But he signed and praised a bill that blames teachers for the problems in the schools in the toughest places, that makes a Central Falls debacle possible in this state…then says he “doesn’t think that will happen in Massachusetts.”
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p>He took the entourage to a local rep council meeting and his message, according to my sources, was, in effect “Well, you could do worse.” Now THERE’S a reelection slogan.
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p>Patrick has reduced his base to swallowing hard and voting for him because the alternative is Baker or Cahill. If he thinks there will be wholehearted ass-busting on his behalf after taking away collective bargaining rights from the most beleaguered teachers…for the first time in 45 years..he is miscalculating. He’s got fences to mend.
The debacle was happening for years before it was closed/liquidated/whatever.
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p>If the worst thing Patrick has done is reforming the way things get done in underperforming schools (which is not a wholesale reform of MA education, which is emphatically not necessary), then he ought to do well.
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p>Taking away collective bargaining rights … yawn. Nobody outside the union cares. You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution.
Thank you, Charley, for completely crapping on Democratic allies (the unions) in your haste to provide cover for Governor Patrick. Condescension is key. Keep repeating the mantra, “he should do well,” over and over again until election day. That should work, when the unions have decided to stay home, keep the signs in the garage and the telephones silent.
I respect your posts since you will defend me when I am obviously correct. Deval is hell-bent on tearing down the SEIU. He is putting their members out of work. Unions are supposed to protect their members. Cash the check Deval. You’re not getting another one.
The foundation of the middle class in this country, any semblance of income equality we have left is based on collective bargaining.
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p>We’re witnessing the final dismantling of a society in which economic equality is an achievable dream, and you’re cheering it on, part of the problem indeed.
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p>Charley, I’m going to guess that you’ve never been dependent upon a union wage to provide food, clothing, a home, etc. I’ve never had a union job in my life, but I grew up in a neighborhood full of mostly one-worker homes, and most of those workers were union (including my Dad). The fact that all of these people could buy homes, a car, and provide for their families (again, mostly on one wage) says something.
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p>So, some of us outside organized labor do understand what’s happened over the last 30 years or so and see the dismantling of bargaining rights as a primary cause of the economic situation we’re in today.
The unemployment bomb that Central Falls’ Superintendent set off was not reform. It was drastic and it was change but it was not reform.
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p>Some teachers in that school were doing a good jobs with the kids they had. Why could not that Superintendent start evaluating what teachers were doing in class rooms? A teacher friend of mine at Jefferson Davis High School in Houston (95% Hispanic population, btw) once told me of a teacher there who just read the paper and didn’t even lecture the class–the principal walked in and fired the teacher. That’s reform. A problem is identified and fixed with a method that applies to it.
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p>Firing good teachers and telling them to re-apply shows a certain lack of caring about the actual education of the students.
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p>I understand that most people don’t care about collective bargaining rights of unions–fine.
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p>But why would someone like you, Charley, who believes in making government, schools, and healthcare work better for everyone, why would you accept the notion that getting rid of these rights would improve education? We teachers are part of the solution, but when you threaten us with firings not based on individual evaluations, you expect us not to protect ourselves and our families?
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p>We want better evaluation and better quality of learning (as you presumably do) so please, Charley, Deval, Arne and Barack, quit threatening & badmouthing us!
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p>Unions hae been the solution in creating a middle class in the middle of this capitalistic freedom loving country of ours for over 100 years.
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p>And many of us middle class suvivors honor our ancestors.
That I think collective bargaining rights are, in fact, a very big deal, in the same way as all have stated above, and for the same reasons.
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p>I do not believe in threatening and badmouthing teachers. I don’t think I’ve done so.
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p>No one should assume anything about my background based on the above comment, or indeed any comment I make.
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p>I also do not believe that what the governor has proposed, and gotten, amounts to taking collective bargainig away wholesale.
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p>I should have said that “The issue of the supposed ‘taking away of collective bargaining rights’ will not resonate with the public.”
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p>Public sector unions need to understand that they are negotiating not only directly with the powers-that-be, but also with the voting public. Therefore the deals that they strike need to be not simply a product of their power over bureaucrats or electeds; they need to be palatable and fair in the eyes of the public. Otherwise the public will demand changes; and lawmakers can make them, since, after all, they make the laws.
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p>So, I’m chastened by the reaction to my overstatement; it was hasty and actually unintentional. But that theme of “change” meant something, folks. And if you want to make things better, you’re going to make people uncomfortable, including your allies. The fact that the teachers’ unions don’t like the new law doesn’t, by itself, convince me that it’s a bad thing.
“Taking away collective bargaining rights … yawn. Nobody outside the union cares.”
Progressives used to care. Workers having a voice in the decisions affecting their working conditions, their hours and their wages used to mean something to progressives. But as Charley shows, that’s so…yesterday.
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p>Things work so much better when workers, from teachers to line workers, are powerless, right Charley?
Well here’s to your “good government” foolishness: it won’t work. Central Falls will allow half of the teachers to be rehired. Assuming some of the teachers were quite good, and their only error was accepting a job in that school, the chances of them staying there are slim. Why reapply for a worse job with even less input, longer hours, and absolutely no job security? So you have winnowed the teaching staff and it will be the good ones that blow away. Great thinking!
You “good governmenty” types are so much smarter than the rest of us.
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p>Meanwhile, Deval has lost the support of the people who funded his campaign to a large extent. So, bluster all you want, “progressives.”
JimC noted this trend? earlier over at Blue News Tribune.
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p>There is an interesting back ‘n forth over at richardhowe.com between Dick Howe and the IBEW Local #103’s BA, Lou Antonellis.
Antonellis:
DickH:
Antonellis:
DickH:
Last Saturday at the Tewksbury Political Activities Breakfast. She has no clue. She talks about high unemployment in Lowell and Lawrence. The talk time is over. DO SOMETHING!
She also ignores the fact that 55% of Americans DO NOT WANT HEALTH CARE DEFORM!
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p>http://www.rasmussenreports.co…
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p> She has no clue.
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p> The really nice thing about the breakfast… It was bipartisan, and everyone behaved.
Democratic anti-unionism is part and parcel of the limousines liberals (Sorry, Charley. Still love you, man). Collective bargaining rights? Without it, you don’t have unions. You don’t want unions. Fine. Say so, don’t yawn. It’s too reminiscent of Marie Antoinette.
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p>I’ll sound like a Republican when I say this, but it’s the Harvard educated elite and other well-pedigreed ilk who think everything will run better when the smartest people in the room can tell the rest of us what to do. The problem is, as smart and educated as they are, they don’t know everything. They are smart enough to tell us what we should do in the classroom, what we should accept for pay, how much our opinions should count.
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p>Education is a case in point. We’ve got Barack “Harvard-educated” Obama who hires Arne “Harvard-educated” Duncan to bribe Deval “Harvard-educated” Patrick with grants to do what the rest of the privileged class thinks should be done to for the poor folks who fail to measure up. Their policies and legislation lack empirical support and offer little in the way of actually addressing the achievement gap they claim to be addressing. They commission reports full of data, reports that lack the very rigor they demand in the classroom.
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p>There are definitely some asshole union locals out there. The Springfield Police Department union, for example, once picketed the Democratic State Convention for the Republicans. Andy Card’s brother-in-law organized the action.
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p>The Boston Police Department’s union could be the same way for all I know. If you want reactionary, check the http://www.masscops.com site. I don’t know about the BPS teacher union, but I can tell you, based on my experience, (not cocktail parties), that there are plenty of non-asshole union locals out there.
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p>Without teacher unions, teachers wouldn’t make a living wage. There were economic reasons for teaching be a woman’s profession for much of our history.
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p>Mark
Progressives were outraged that the commission examining health care reform didn’t have a doctor on it. Part of Howard Dean’s credibility was to be a doctor talking about health care reform.
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p>However, education is run by people with almost no experience in public education in their domain. Neither Duncan, Patrick, or Obama studied or worked at public high schools or university. Patrick has zero experience with Massachusetts public education, Obama zero experience with American public education. Teachers are banned from the governing body of Massachusetts public education.
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p>And this is fine.
(Lets get some facts (or estimates) on the table.
Between the MTA and MFT I would bet they have around 130,000 members in massachusetts. I would also bet that the overiding of collective bargaining rights in under performing schools potentially applies to 1-2% of all teachers in massachusetts. I know my numbers are estimates, but if they are close, they illustrate that this is hardly a massive attack; especially when you compare it to the kids who suffer in those schools.
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p>Likewise, the movement to put city workers in the states group purchasing commission, is hardly an attack on collective bargaining when one understands that bargaining over employer paid health insurance has hardly been a victory for city workers. The reaality is that city workers end up trading away wage increases so they keep their current premium splits and copays. This dynamic plays out it the good years. Now, in the current climate, they are agreeing to co pay hikes AND taking 0% wage increases. Employer purchased health insurance is no longer affordable for cities and towns. Put them in a group purchasing group, this will lower costs for the towns AND the employees.
is an injury to all.
The argument that it’s a small number sucks. These are the teachers who most need a voice, who most need protection against stupidity.
Bargaining over health insurance has surely been a victory for employees in my community.
“Likewise, the movement to put city workers in the states group purchasing commission, is hardly an attack on collective bargaining when one understands that bargaining over employer paid health insurance has hardly been a victory for city workers. The reaality is that city workers end up trading away wage increases so they keep their current premium splits and copays. This dynamic plays out it the good years. Now, in the current climate, they are agreeing to co pay hikes AND taking 0% wage increases.”
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p>If city workers trade wage increases for health insurance, that is their choice. They bargained it. They had a voice. If you are suggesting that giving up your voice, and taking what The Man decides is good for you will work to our benefit, there’s a bridge over the Hudson I can sell you cheaply.
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p>Disempowering workers: it’s SOOO progressive.