How Are Union Members Like Mushrooms?
National Education Association of Rhode Island President Larry Purtill has sent a message to members of his union:
Despite these results, I knew that those who disagree with our vision and mission would not stop their attacks. What I did not suspect was the ferocity that those attacks might take. On the air, outrageous comments have been made about staff and our organization and certain talk shows have fueled the fire with over-the-top remarks. The facts are these: UniServ Director John Leidecker has been charged with a misdemeanor relating to emails. The specifics of the charge are still unclear, and he will be obtaining his own legal counsel to represent him in this matter. No other employee or leader of the organization was involved in the alleged activity, and John is continuing to work while waiting for resolution of this issue.
Those who wish to know just how unclear the charges against Liedecker are can get exact quotations from some of the evidence on WPRI.com (see here and here.
A positive outcome from this controversy would be an increase in the number of teachers who come to see Liedecker’s behavior not as some aberration, but as a perfect fit for the pattern of practices in which their union’s leaders engage. Liedecker, along with his associate, Pat Crowley and others, is a familiar face at every hostile union event. He was even one of two NEA agitators to attend a speech by Providence Journal editor/columnist Ed Achorn at the Barrington library a while back; curiously, he left shortly after I began liveblogging
This — not some antipathy toward teachers or their profession — is why many of us take such a sour view of education unions.
Liedecker, Crowley and Walsh are nothing but a bunch of punks. What is truly amazing is how negatively they reflect on so many good teachers. That the teachers just allow these Nazi tactics to go on is disgusting. In the end, the teachers very much deserve the nasty reputation they get for allowing these punks to be their face.
The scum at the NEA is no different than Hezbollah firing rockets from hospitals and schoolyards. They are hiding behind the general goodwill that teachers would enjoy, to conduct their smearing, cowardly campaigns.
When are the teachers going to say enough is enough?
Mike-the ball is in the teachers’ court.It’s their union and as such is a private entity even if they represent public employees.
Maybe at some point they will realize they are being ill-served or maybe they’ll continue to believe these people have their best interests at heart.Who knows?
Are Crowley,Walsh,or Liedecker even teachers or have they been?If so,where and for how long?
I seem to recall Walsh got rich as a banker and now he’s a big time left winger.Nice.
Good luck getting the word out, Joe. Here are a few choice snippets from the Providence Teachers’ Contract:
16-3.3 The Union shall have the right to place material dealing with the proper and legitimate business of the Union in the mailboxes of teachers. No rival teachers’ organization shall have the right to place any material in the mailboxes of teachers.
16-3.4 Members of the Executive Board of the Union and/or the building representative shall have the right to schedule Union meetings of the teacher members in the school before or after the regular school day hours and during the lunch time of the teachers involved, upon prior notification to the principal and provided it does not interfere with the operation of the school.
16-3.5 The Union shall be given a place at the end of the agenda of the building teachers’ meeting for announcements.
16-3.6 Administration shall not participate in recruitment, solicit membership forms or collect membership dues for rival teacher organizations.
— http://www.proteun.org/joint_proposal/JointProposal.htm#16
To me, that reads as “You can’t spread the word about any other alternate collective opportunities; if you do, we get the last say at every meeting anyway. As a last resort, if you go word-of-mouth, we can pull you away from whatever you’re doing and have a chat.”
I’m waiting for one of you to write something about the government’s over reach and abuse of power in searching a citizens home because of some emails.
We’re all interconnected, out here on the Internet, and it would be very easy to come up with pretenses to take out unquestionably legitimate Web sites with which the powers who be have problems. We’re not to the point of virtual black helicopters, yet, but it’s critical to have an eye on such developments.
The easy comfort that all of those people who support additional surveillance likely offer to each other is that those who do no wrong need have no fear. The problem is that those who would abuse power are often masterful in labeling a convenient batch of activities as “wrong” according to the law. Think, for example, political speech.
That’s Justin on both counts.
“The scum at the NEA is no different than Hezbollah firing rockets from hospitals and schoolyards.”
“That the teachers just allow these Nazi tactics to go on is disgusting.”
Both of these quotes are from this thread. Does the writer’s lack of proportion trouble anyone? Does Rep. Gablinske’s comments that teachers are “pigs at the trough” and his likening of the NEA to “organized crime” also offend reasonable people?
“I’m waiting for one of you to write something about the government’s over reach and abuse of power in searching a citizens home because of some emails.”
The RI constitution has some strong protections for elected officials, and for good reason. It’s one thing to prank a ‘regular person’; even then, you should expect some legal pushback. Impersonating an elected official on the night before the election is tinkering with Democracy in a way that should involve criminal proceedings. There are exceptions for clearly-defined parodies already; from what I’ve read, this crosses well over that line.
I’m waiting for one of you to write something about the government’s over reach and abuse of power in searching a citizens home because of some emails.
Posted by Phil at December 2, 2010 5:39 PM
Keep waiting […].
No one has the right to commit the CRIME of impersonating a candidate and lie about his positions in order to fix an election. It should be a felony.
Now we know why Walsh, Crowley and the rest demand to know posters real names-so they can intimidate them at their homes and places of business and commit criminal identity theft.
A bunch of thugs, criminals, far left kleptocrats and pedophile protectors; the teacher unions are pigs. My guess is you are one of them?
It’s no coincidence that Pol Pot, the Khmer Rogue and so many of the Communist “vanguard” have been public school teachers.
The State Police had to apply for a search warrant to search this person’s home and the NEA HQ.
Phil has probably never applied for one.They don’t hand them out for no reason.A serious,documented potential violation of law has to be presented under oath.But I guess small things like that are below Phil’s elevated vantage point.
Joe
I know this though, a misdemeanor is far less serious than a felony charge. Most misdemeanors result in only fines while felonies can result in prison stays or death. Maybe you should consult with that radio felon Buddy Cianci next time you’re kissing his ass on the air.
mangeek
“tinkering with Democracy” ?
A powerful Democrat lawmaker didn’t get his way.
tinkering??
tommy cranston
I do not want to know your real name or any other names you use for reasons one could only imagine, but with all your pedophile references it’s not too hard to guess. Now that’s a felony.
People do go to jail for misdemeanors.
There may be more than one charge here depending on what they find on the computers.
If Phil thinks I kiss Cianci’s ass,all well and good.Funny thing is,I never voted for him,nor do I know him,and I wasn’t a supporter of his in politics.
But since Phil is the kind of person who makes thinly veiled bigoted remarks to others,why does anything he says matter?
The individual who hacked into Sarah Palin’s e mail got a year in custody for it.
“A powerful Democrat lawmaker didn’t get his way.
tinkering??”
Phil, are you officially ok with what Leidecker is accused of? Please just clear that up for me. If you are ok with that, and you think the laws should be ok with this “sophomoric prank”, I’ll be so happy, as I’ll have two years to plan out more “sophomoric pranks” for the next election.
Phil,
You want to talk about lack of proportion?
How about what Lie-decker did? And then Walsh calls it mere sophomoric pranks. Yeah, Phil, the State Police ALWAYS respond to sophomoric pranks with search warrants and raids of homes and offices.
The problem with you union punks is that you think we are just like your membership – cowering at your every word.
Guess what – we’re not all as stupid as your membership.
Mike-i don’t think there’s a quahoggers union.That’s what Phil says he does for a living.
However,he has a Pavlovian reaction to anything the leftists do.Him and OTL and sammy and David S:”yessir,yessir,Mr.Walsh,three bags full”.
Mike-you’re absolutely right-the State Police can’t possibly have gone to the effort to obatin a serch warrant for a computer at the HQ of a large public employees’ union and a home based computer belonging to an official of the union just to investigate a simple,isolated misdemeanor.Judges don’t issue such a warrant on a whim or thin evidence.
I’m not going to speculate,but it sounds like something more serious and not an isolated “prank”is under investigation.
BTW I certainly don’t agree that members of the teacher’s union are stupid-just intimidated by potential harrassment at work orchestrated by the powers that be on Bald Hill Road.
You know,it’s apparent Phil listens to Buddy Cianci,although I can’t imagine why.He seems to have missed the times I totally disagreed with Buddy about comments he made regarding some good police officers that he may have had a political motive for criticizing.I don’t like putting hardworking honest people like Maj.Fitzgerald or Dep.Chief Kennedy in the middle just because Esserman is a putz.There’s no one on the radio or tv or in print with whom I am 100% on the same page.I try to think for myself.
joe,
Why put my name into a thread where it did not previously exist? Until this post I had nothing to say on the subject. I do now, “You are being a ridiculous ass”.
OldTimeLefty
Lately you’ve been making comment6s similar to that regarding my posts.I consider the source,as now,and move on.
joe,
You can’t be that much of a fool. I never drag your name, or anyone else’s, into an argument where it has not previously been cited or noted. I said nothing in this post and you drag my name into it. If I am mistaken, and I have used your name where it was not previously mentioned, please cite it. Otherwise don’t drag me into an argument in which I had no fight.
OldTimeLefty
OTL-I basically included you with the other leftists on this site.You normally are on the same page with them.
joe,
Unworthy stereotypical thinking!
As another matter of fact, if facts be a concern of yours, I also challenge you to find any mention of Walsh in any of my previous comments. I believe that this is the first time I ever mentioned his name in this blog.
OldTimeLefty
היי, אני רוצה להמליץ לכם על הדברה והדברת מזיקים עם נסיון של שנים רבות בתחום ההדברות , ריסוסים ולכידת נחשים.
שלום רציתי להציע לכם מידע על קידום אתרים בגוגל או פרסום בגוגל?
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