Posted on The Washington Examiner-By Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent-On June 30, 2011:
“This is a disaster,” said Mark Miller, the Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader, in February after Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed a budget bill that would curtail the collective bargaining powers of some public employees. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law—a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials, and protesters in the streets.
Now the bill is law, and we have some very early evidence of how it is working. And for one beleaguered Wisconsin school district, it’s a godsend, not a disaster.
The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it’s all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.
In the past, teachers and other staff at Kaukauna were required to pay 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance coverage and none of their pension costs. Now, they’ll pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their coverage (still well below rates in much of the private sector) and also contribute 5.8 percent of salary to their pensions. The changes will save the school board an estimated $1.2 million this year, according to board President Todd Arnoldussen.
Of course, Wisconsin unions had offered to make benefit concessions during the budget fight. Wouldn’t Kaukauna’s money problems have been solved if Walker had just accepted those concessions and not demanded cutbacks in collective bargaining powers?
“The monetary part of it is not the entire issue,” says Arnoldussen, a political independent who won a spot on the board in a nonpartisan election. Indeed, some of the most important improvements in Kaukauna’s outlook are because of the new limits on collective bargaining.
In the past, Kaukauna’s agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust—a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. “It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them,” says Arnoldussen. “Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor.” This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.
Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. “With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, ‘We can match the lowest bid,’” says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes. At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.
Then there are work rules. “In the collective bargaining agreement, high school teachers only had to teach five periods a day, out of seven,” says Arnoldussen. “Now, they’re going to teach six.” In addition, the collective bargaining agreement specified that teachers had to be in the school 37 1/2 hours a week. Now, it will be 40 hours.
The changes mean Kaukauna can reduce the size of its classes—from 31 students to 26 students in high school and from 26 students to 23 students in elementary school. In addition, there will be more teacher time for one-on-one sessions with troubled students. Those changes would not have been possible without the much-maligned changes in collective bargaining.
Teachers’ salaries will stay “relatively the same,” Arnoldussen says, except for higher pension and health care payments. (The top salary is around $80,000 per year, with about $35,000 in additional benefits, for 184 days of work per year—summers off.) Finally, the money saved will be used to hire a few more teachers and institute merit pay.
It is impossible to overstate how bitter and ugly the Wisconsin fight has been, and that bitterness and ugliness continues to this day with efforts to recall senators and an unseemly battle inside the state Supreme Court. But the new law is now a reality, and Gov. Walker recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the measure will gain acceptance “with every day, week and month that goes by that the world doesn’t fall apart.”
In the Kaukauna schools, the world is not only not falling apart—it’s getting better.
- Byron York, The Examiner’s chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.”
Source:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/06/union-curbs-rescue-wisconsin-school-district
Note: The following articles and/or blog posts relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:
I. Obama's labor union problem!
Posted on CNNMoney-By Nina Easton-On June 30, 2011:
“FORTUNE—How many ways are there to sidestep Congress’ refusal to make it easier for unions to organize? Let us count them. No, better than that, let’s add yet another example—this one involving Delta Airlines—to the growing pile of end-runs around Congress to reward a constituency this White House badly needs at its side in next year’s presidential election.
Labor leaders bet big on an Obama victory in 2008, hoping Congress would enact, and the Democratic president would sign, “card-check”—legislation designed to turn around labor’s sagging membership rolls by ending secret-ballot elections in organizing drives. But card-check has never been able to pass the Senate—not even when Democrats took over Congress in 2006. Instead, presidential appointees friendly to labor are deploying agency muscle.
The latest example is taking place largely out of sight—at the National Mediation Board, a little known agency that oversees union elections for railroads and airlines. Late in 2010, flight attendants for the nonunion Delta and its unionized Northwest Airlines (acquired in a 2008 merger) voted thumbs down on joining the Association of Flight Attendants. The board—where two of the three members are former top union officials—reacted by investigating Delta for “interference” in the election, prompted by union claims that the company circulated too much literature.
Another vote is likely to follow, even though this was the third time Delta (DAL, Fortune 500) flight attendants had rejected the union. And here’s another twist: The union lost that November vote even after the NMB changed the rules—in place since the 1930s—to require that only a majority of those who vote, not a majority of the workplace, needs to sign off on unionization.
“They voted under new rules that the unions asked for,” Delta CEO Richard Anderson told Fortune via email. “They’ve done everything asked of them. And because they said no to union representation, their decisions aren’t being respected; they’re being held hostage.”
Two years after the merger, flight attendants are still operating under different pay scales, and face restrictions on transferring to new locations or changing jobs.
On average, nonunion Delta flight attendants take home 12% more than their unionized Northwest counterparts (based on a typical 75-hour-a-month schedule); they enjoy more generous profit-sharing and retirement matches from the company; and they don’t have to dole out $43 a month in union dues. (Delta ranked No. 1 among airlines in this year’s Fortune Most Admired Companies list).
Delta’s pilots and flight superintendents have been unionized for decades, but 85% of its workforce is nonunion—and employees ranging from meteorologists to aircraft maintenance technicians have turned their backs on unions nine times since the merger.
The Delta flight attendant vote offers a telling microcosm of why labor is so desperate to change the rules to make it easier to organize. Only 11.9% of all workers (and only 6.9% of private sector employees) belonged to unions in 2010, compared to 20% in 1983. In the Delta vote, the flight attendants union not only lost 13,000 potential new members, but also 7,000 Northwest flight attendants already paying dues. That’s a big financial hit.
Changing the rules is a strategy also deployed by the higher-profile National Labor Relations Board, where the President opted for a recess appointment of union lawyer Craig Becker after it became clear his confirmation would be blocked by Republicans (backed by alarmed business groups), along with a handful of Democrats. Last week, NLRB proposed sweeping new rules cutting the amount of time available to employers to make their case prior to a union vote—an action the Chamber of Commerce rightly denounced as a “another not so cleverly disguised effort to restrict the ability of employers to express their views” during a union campaign.
That move followed an NLRB action in April accusing Washington-based Boeing (BA, Fortune 500) of illegally investing in a $2 billion assembly facility for its 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina, creating 1,000 new jobs in that right-to-work state. The NLRB claims Boeing is retaliating against striking machinists at its Washington state factories. But South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley more accurately describes the NLRB action as an unprecedented attempt to mandate where a private company can create jobs.
Earlier this month AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka President warned Democratic politicians that they had better deliver for organized labor if they want financial help in the 2012 elections. “For too long, we have been left after Election Day holding a canceled check waving it about—‘Remember us? Remember us? Remember us?’...Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a snootful of that shit,” Trumka declared. “If [political] leaders are not blocking the wrecking ball and advancing the interests of working families across the country, working people will not support them.”
It’s pretty obvious that’s the message the White House and its allies are hearing. But with the economy stuck in mud, it would make more sense to listen to these telling comments from Delta’s Anderson:
“Attacking American businesses directly undermines the administration’s stated goal of encouraging job creation and economic growth. Delta has created new jobs, but unfortunately this environment makes it difficult to predict what we will be able to do going forward.”
Source:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/30/news/economy/obama_labor_unions.fortune/index.htm
II. Biden Spews Communist Rhetoric at Union Rally!-Posted on GodFather Politics-By DOMINIC-On July 4, 2011:
http://godfatherpolitics.com/155/biden-spews-communist-rhetoric-at-union-rally/
III. National Education Association gives President Obama an early endorsement!-Posted on The Chicago Tribune-By Tara Malone, Tribune reporter-On July 5, 2011:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-nea-endorsement-vote-20110705,0,612955.story
IV. Governor Walker Signs Balanced Budget with No Tax Increases!-Posted on MacIver News Service-On June 26, 2011:
http://maciverinstitute.com/2011/06/governor-walker-signs-balanced-budget-with-no-tax-increases/
V. Victory in Wisconsin, but the Fight Goes On!-Posted on The Heritage Foundation-On June 16, 2011:
VI. Networks that Excused Nazi Signs for Scott Walker’s Collective Bargaining Law Now Skim Over Its Vindication!-Posted on The Media Research Center-By Scott Whitlock-On June 15, 2011:
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2011/20110615125320.aspx
VII. The Judas Media!-Posted on Floyd Reports-Guest Writer-On April 27, 2011:
Note: My following blog posts contain numerous articles and/or blog posts and videos that relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:
Is President Obama inciting riots across the US?
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/is-president-obama-inciting-riots-across-the-us/
Progressives and Communists Are Out of the Closet Together!
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/progressives-and-communists-are-out-of-the-closet-together/
Is it important to understand the Marxist assault on the foundations of our system?
Note: If you have a problem viewing any of the listed blog posts please copy web site and paste it on your browser. Be aware that some of the articles and/or blog posts or videos listed within the contents of the above blog post(s) may have been removed by this administration because they may have considered them to be too controversial. Sure seems like any subject matter that may shed some negative light on this administration is being censored-What happened to free speech?-You Decide.
“Food For Thought”
God Bless the U.S.A.!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q65KZIqay4E&feature=related
Semper Fi!
Jake
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