Labor

Cuts for the Little Guy, Not for the “CEO”

By Marc Comtois | April 11, 2011 |

Sheesh. I just found out the CEO of a 900-employee operation, who just cut employee pay and increased their health care payments, pulls down $265,870 a year. And while his workers are all worried about pension problems and their retirement future, he’s looking to retire next year at 55 and has few of their worries.…

Buying Into the Pension System, ‘Cause We Can Afford It!

By Marc Comtois | April 8, 2011 |

“Bill would help Teachers Retire Early” says the ProJo headline to Randall Edgar’s piece. Really? How about “Bill Would Increase State Pension Obligation”, because that’s what it really does. Looking to expand on an option that is already available to most public school teachers who have worked in private schools, state Sen. Frank A. Ciccone…

A Tale of Pensions

By Justin Katz | April 8, 2011 |

Ted Nesi has allowed far-left radical Tom Sgouros guest-posting privileges to his blog, which the latter used to offer an excellent example of his typical rhetorical style. Sgouros likes to explain complicated issues as if he’s writing for children, so as (it appears) to leave the adult reader with a “well, gee” feeling and to…

Pensions from the Top

By Justin Katz | April 4, 2011 |

This paragraph from a weekend PolitFact points to the really disturbing part of news about $100,000-plus pension payments: The Wisconsin report didn’t compare starting retirement salaries. It simply catalogued the elements each state used to calculate the amount. To do the calculation, you take a worker’s final average salary (usually the average of the last…

Whose Voice Are We Hearing?

By Justin Katz | April 4, 2011 |

Another interesting aspect of the article on Education Commissioner Deborah Gist’s new regulations that Marc mentioned yesterday is the way in which one of the objections is answered in a separate article on the same page: “If they gut collective bargaining, they are heading down a road to destroy public education,” said Larry Purtill, executive…

A Subject for Saturday Daydreaming

By Justin Katz | April 2, 2011 |

So the public-sector labor unions in Wisconsin, on top of threatening businesses that decline to take a side in their fight for a continued monopoly on government jobs, have found a judge to interfere in the legislative process in an unprecedented way and are now pushing to change the makeup of the state’s Supreme Court…

Koch Brothers and Unions

By Marc Comtois | April 1, 2011 |

Oh, the shades of gray! A number of organizations are advocating a boycott of the products that come from companies owned by the Koch family. This is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it could potentially hurt the wrong people. The Koch brothers own Georgia Pacific. It is…

Some Pension Crisis Solutions

By Marc Comtois | March 30, 2011 |

Local 2882 President Cathy Paquette: The answer to the pension problem … is, if you hire more state workers …You would get more people paying into the pension system, and you won’t have any unfunded liability. Yeah, I get it. More workers now to pay for current retirees. Then we just keep hiring more, every…

How the Game Is Stacked for the Teachers’ Unions

By Justin Katz | March 30, 2011 |

Predictably, teacher-legislator James Sheehan (D., North Kingstown) is vocally opposed to Providence Schools’ attempt to save the necessary money while causing the least amount of harm to students. At bottom, Providence’s approach is an attempt to keep the teachers who offer the most value per dollar, which will also allow it to keep more teachers,…

Re #1 to a Question from the Woonsocket Fire Department Restructuring Discussion

By Carroll Andrew Morse | March 27, 2011 |

In response to Monique’s post on the restructuring of the Fire Department by the Woonsocket City Council, commenter Tom Kenney asked…Are you willing to negotiate with the unions for those concessions or is your answer the same as many conservatives are proposing…do away with collective bargaining altogether?Here’s how I would answer the first part of…