Labor
Something still isn’t making sense, for me, from a Friday article on RIPEC’s study of RI education: RIPEC has released a report entitled Education in Rhode Island 2008 that is chock-a-block with data, and it reinforces RIPEC’s standing message that lagging student performance does not reflect the size of the investment. And yet (emphasis added):…
None can doubt that this is part of the “value add” of the union structure, but it still strikes the ear as sinister: The organization opposing efforts to eliminate the state’s income tax has received two-thirds of its funding from large teachers unions based in Washington D.C. The Boston Herald reports in Wednesday’s editions that…
In a town that has witnessed nearly a 12% increase in property taxes in the past year, this sort of thing should get the union-busting, pink-slip-preparing blood boiling: [Johnston teachers] were a no-show on Monday at Winsor Hill School’s open house, an event where they typically meet parents and fill them in on their instructional…
So the teachers head back to class today, in Tiverton, and although their contract is still under negotiation, there appears to be some movement. One of the reasons, however, is probably not a positive: … both sides agreed to keep the details of negotiations private, in a departure from the practice of publicly airing differences…
Nothing says Labor Day quite like a good Samuel Gompers quote…Time is the most valuable thing on earth: time to think, time to act, time to extend our fraternal relations, time to become better men, time to become better women, time to become better and more independent citizens.In terms of understanding the subtle shifts of…
Granted, I don’t have his business experience, but sometimes news reports give the impression that Governor Carcieri doesn’t have a feel for the push-and-shove momentum with which one must grapple when bringing painful, but necessary, change: “We’re going to do our best efforts to negotiate and discuss this in good faith and get a resolution,”…
Congratulations to the National Education Association’s Pat Crowley for managing to push his story about Governor Carcieri’s Florida condos onto (astonishingly) the front page of the Providence Journal, which used it as a contextual gotcha against the backdrop of the union healthcare story. (Gee, I didn’t realize that the governor is rich!) Normally, I wouldn’t…
Bob Kerr sounds a familiar argument, although I find it no more persuasive in print than in pixels: I know as well as any keen observer that labor unions cause hair loss, teen pregnancy, sexual dysfunction, adolescent obesity and poor gas mileage. I have heard repeatedly from the dashboard sages how unions are plotting to…
According to the Sakonnet Times, the Tiverton teachers’ union is softening its demands in the face of fiscal reality. I note, also, that according to an RI Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education table published in the Providence Journal, not a single Tiverton school had sufficient performance or progress to merit commendation after the last…
Richard Forbes, of Warwick, offers an argument we’ve heard before: I continually see negative commentaries about unions. Many people express resentment that union members (especially state worker and teacher unions) have excessive perks that the general population cannot obtain. Their anger is directed toward the wrong place. In the past, unionization raised the bar for…