Here is a very rough, running summary of the two hour discussion between WPRO’s Dan Yorke and the NEA‘s Bob Walsh. Again, it’s pretty rough and, though I doubt I’ll get to it any time soon, I’ll clean it up if I have time. Remember, I’m not a stenographer].

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Edward McElroy is a Rhode Island native and happens to be president of the American Federation of Teachers, the fourth largest labor union in the country (1.3-million-members). In the keynote address at the Institute for Labor Studies 25th anniversary awards dinner, he recalled the legitimate fight in the 60’s and 70’s to get teachers the types of benefit packages enjoyed by workers in private industry. As reported by the ProJo:

. . .public school teachers did not have the right to bargain collectively for wages and benefits; most teachers did not have family health insurance.
Teacher and other public employee unions were weak, but it was an era when a thrumming manufacturing economy in Rhode Island provided thousands of well-paid, union jobs in the private sector. . .
One of the reasons that public employees won decent health benefits, McElroy said, in the 1960s and 1970s is that most private-sector companies in those days, particularly those with unions, provided health-care benefits to their workers.
Now, McElroy said, “union members are some of the only people who have decent health-care benefits.”
And he asked, rhetorically, “Do you think we’ll keep them if everybody loses them?”

This last seems to be a refreshing bit of head-slapping reality, no? Could it be that a union leader, realizing that union members (and public employees who rely on tax dollars to boot) are on the good side of the wage and benefits gap, may be willing to consider closing the gap by conceding some points, such as health care premium co-pays? Nah! Instead, McElroy’s solution seems to be: if more people are in unions, then more can enjoy good benefits! (Never mind whether or not the market, both public or private, good bear such outlays).

McElroy reminded his public employee brethren how much organizing help they had from private-sector unions. And he urged public-employee union members to help rebuild the labor movement in the state and nation by working on private-sector organizing campaigns. . .
Organized labor, McElroy acknowledged, is not doing well. “It is a time when union membership is dismally low.”
Just 13 million Americans now belong to unions. Only 13 percent of the U.S. workforce is unionized. In the private sector, that number is just 8 percent.
By contrast, about 35 percent of the U.S. workforce was unionized in the 1950s and 1960s.
The exodus of manfacturing from the United States and changes in the economy have crippled the private-sector labor movement. Now, McElroy said, it is time to rebuild.

As the article points out, McElroy’s AFT has expanded to included other public or quasi-public employees such as health-care workers and college professors. However, the AFT is looking to extend its reach.

“We are looking at organizing heretofore unorganized workers,” said McElroy in an interview before his speech last night. “There are lot of professional workers out there; the finance industry is largely unorganized, the insurance industry is largely unorganized.”
In particular, McElroy said, unions must do more to reach young workers. “Unions do have to go out and organize young workers and connect with young workers in a way we haven’t done before,” said McElroy. “I wouldn’t depend on any political party to organize anybody.”

The last bit is a laugher, after all

last night’s dinner of the Cranston-based Institute for Labor Studies drew its usual crowd of more than 500, made up of union leaders, the state’s Democratic political elite and a scattering of business executives.
Sen. Jack Reed and U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy addressed the attendees. Democratic legislative leaders were sprinkled throughout the tables, and the two contenders for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, Sheldon Whitehouse, the former attorney general, and Secretary of State Matthew Brown, pressed the flesh.

Yes, it certainly seems that the unions won’t look to one particular political party at all, does it? But what the heck, at least they are putting forward a solution. . .

The contract negotiations between Providence Mayor Cicilline and the Providence Firefighters Union continues to drag on. It seems that they can’t even agree on what they agree upon.

Cicilline said three issues are impeding negotiations: employee contributions to health insurance, cost of living increase for pensions, and “management flexibility.”
Cicilline said the firefighters must agree to pay 10 percent of their health-insurance premium just like four out of five city workers do.
Since he took office, Cicilline has negotiated five union contracts. Those unions have agreed to the 10-percent contribution. The police and fire contracts are the only major contracts that have not been resolved.
The administration has offered a 3-percent annual cost-of-living increase for firefighter retirees, but Cicilline said the union rebuffed the offer and has not made a counterproposal.
Doughty refuted the mayor, saying the union has made several concessions. The union has agreed, in philosophy, to pay 10 percent of health costs or thereabouts, Doughty said. The union has also indicated that would agree to a 3-percent compounded cost-of-living increase for retirees.
“I’ve told them we are willing to pay a co-share,” he said. “It’s going to look very similar to what the other unions [agreed to.]”
Cicilline said, “That has not been expressed to my negotiating team in any way.”
Doughty said, “There is no way that he doesn’t understand that this is on the table. I said it.”

Simply put, someone’s not telling the truth. Why do these games have to be played? Whatever happened to honest brokering? Sheesh.

There was a government worker union rally held yesterday in Providence, but this wasn’t your father’s or grandfathers mill worker union rally, folks. This rally was for members of public service employee unions: state employees, teachers, firemen, police, etc., supported by taxes and rather ungrateful for it. Here are just a couple things that were said:

At times, the rally got downright nasty. Scott Malloy, a professor at the University of Rhode Island, said he was sick of “the rich” pushing unions around “in order to bring down the taxes of the wealthy.” He called the governor “that shifty bum.”
Stan Israel, vice president of District 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, called Carcieri a “liar and a cheat.”
But for the most part, the unions told stories about the work they do.
Pat Mancini, a registered nurse at the Rhode Island Veterans Home, said: “I am proud to stand up and say I am a public employee.”
“I am tired of hearing this myth about the virtue of the private sector,” she added, naming a string of troubled companies. “We do the work the private sector can’t do or won’t do.”

Apparently, Prof. Malloy’s definition of “the rich” extends to many of us firmly ensconced in the middle class. Of course, it wouldn’t have served his class-warfare rhetoric to admit that non-public employee “working” Rhode Islanders are the ones getting fed up with the self-righteous proclamations of those whose salaries are paid through taxes.
As for Mancini’s comments, the reason the private sector can’t or won’t do those jobs is because they haven’t been allowed (charter schools, for instance, have been severely restricted and demonized by the same unions) or because it would require that they hire union members and thus wouldn’t be cost effective enough for a private company to make a go. Both err if they think that they can gain the high ground by belittling those who ultimately pay their wages: the taxpayer, both individual and corporate. (Before I go on, I will say that I have much more tolerance for the demands of policmen and firemen than I do for the average public union employee, like crossing guards or the average hack. The former put their lives on the line and deserve generous benefits for the risks they take. The latter don’t perform a service that requires any unique skill-set.)
You see, only the state can “afford” to pay public union employees the benefits and wages they now enjoy. Of course, public service union members seem to forget that it’s not the government’s money that they are getting. It’s the taxpayers’. And the taxpayers are beginning to compare their flatlined 401k and their Health care plan that requires, on average, a 23% co-pay with such things as the relatively early retirement and comensurate good benefits, guaranteed raises and no health care co-pay enjoyed by public employees. Then, as if the disparity wasn’t enough, they are confronted with the complaints of the government union members; the whining that by being asked to make a health care co-pay or to modify their retirement scheme they are being “disrespected”; calling the reform-minded governor a “liar and cheat”; their sense of entitlement and their over-inflated sense of importance.
Taxpayers support the governor, the treasurer, reform-minded legislators and school committees that have asked for sensible solutions to alleviate the high tax burden already carried by many. For this, we are accused of being disrespectful towards government union workers and are confronted with demands that would result in the tax burden going up.
Well, I’ve had it. I feel like I’m being disrespected by the unions who think I’m wealthy enough to continue to support a salary and benefit structure much more generous than the one I enjoy. They obviously don’t value my well-being and that of my family enough. Every tax dollar they extract from “government” is, in reality, extracted from the pockets of taxpayers, including me. That’s less money for me to put food on the table, clothing on the backs of my kids and to pay medical co-pays when they are sick or need medicine. It means less time that I can spend with them as I work longer to pay for the car that just broke down or to fix the pipes or to make sure the heating bill gets paid. It means that I won’t be retiring at 58 or 60 because I won’t have been able to put enough into my 401k, which is inherently “riskier” than a pension fund, because instead of putting in 12-15% of my salary a week I only put in 6% (all un-matched) because I have bills to pay. The money and benefits the unions thumb their noses at and claim are disrespectful don’t come from the government. They come from me, the average Joe taxpayer, who would jump at the chance to get such a deal. Instead, I get insulted. I am sick of my future being lessened or sacrificed so that those of ungracious government union employees can be better. I’m sick of being taken for granted.