Unions
When Rhode Islanders hear about some government abuse or other — like firefighters alternating time off so that they are always paid overtime when they actually work, thus earning multiple times their salaries even if they only work a standard week — they shake their heads and marvel that things go so badly around here. …
On his In the Dugout show, yesterday, Mike Stenhouse implicitly made that connection. On the one hand, Ken Block was on the show to talk about firefighter overtime abuse in Warwick, while on the other hand, pollster Jim Eltringham addressed public opinion on a proposed Transportation & Climate Initiative gas tax. Stenhouse also leveraged his baseball connections…
When you get one of the regular giant mailers from a cabal of government labor unions advocating for higher taxes, it’s pretty obvious what’s going on. They want government to collect more money so they can arrange with elected officials to transfer more of it to them, with the promise that the unions will feed…
In the end, it wasn’t even close. Of 5,800 warehouse workers at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama, 3,215 (55%) voted in the union election, 2,536 ballots were considered valid, and 1,798 (71% of the valid ballots) were against unionization. Yet, judging from media reports before the election, this couldn’t possibly have been the case.…
It’s funny how obviously incentives play a role in people’s actions, such that you get the same response to the same incentive even though the issues at hand are completely distinct. Consider Katherine Gregg’s recent article in the Providence Journal after the attorney general confirmed that the RI Convention Center can no longer hide its payroll…
Yet another giant postcard arrived from Rhode Island’s special-interest labor unions promoting the government’s taking more money from the pockets of Rhode Islanders. This one is to promote the results of a poll that the group Revenue for Rhode Island apparently paid Fleming and Associates to conduct (although naturally, that point isn’t clear on the…
The Providence Journal’s headline on a Katherine Gregg story draws attention to an important point about what is hidden: “RI lawmakers ask: Should police face stricter discipline?” Put simply, the bright spotlight on race makes conspicuous what the politicians, unions, and activists are trying to keep off to the side, in the dark. International Brotherhood of Police…
For their weekly conversation, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss Governor Daniel McKee avoiding the underlying problems at Zambarano, the media ignoring the underlying violence of BLM rallies, Providence ignoring the underlying issues with public safety, and the implications of fundraising results from Congressmen James Langevin and David Cicilline.
One way of looking at Governor Dan McKee’s decision to hold off on implementing his predecessor’s plans for the state-run Zambarano psychiatric hospital is as a battle of union interests. Raimondo’s plan to spend $65 million (initial asking price) for a new facility would have made construction unions happy, whereas McKee’s move serves the service…
