Tag: Unions
PensitoWire
- Deep South Daily: Hindsight Is 20/20: Obamacare Critic Turns on GOP for Not Expanding Medicaid
- Wonkette: Congrats, Santa Barbara! You Got Oiled By One Of America’s Slimiest Pipeline Companies!
- Alternet: Whoa — The US Senate Just Took a Step to Allow Doctors in Veterans’ Hospitals Recommend Medical Marijuana
- Gawker:Walmart’s Leaked Anti-Union Training Video: This Isn’t About You
- Liberal America: 28 Reasons I’m DONE Talking To Most Of My Conservative Friends And Family Members
- TPM: GOP Guvs With ’16 Ambitions Hamstrung By Budget Crises Of Own Making
- Digby: The GOP’s Despicable Scheme to Play Dumb on Iraq: A History Lesson for Rubio & Jeb
- ThinkProgress: How Atheists Are Turning ‘Religious Freedom’ Laws Against Religion
Boeing CEO Might Want to Retire After All
The heart will still be beating, the employees will still be cowering.
— Jim McNerney, CEO of Boeing Aircraft, explaining why he won’t retire when he turns 65 next month. McNerney apologized for the part about his employees cowering, saying it was a joke, after their representatives labeled it, “the Jack Welch style of anti-personnel management.”
Gulag Wisconsin: GOP Anti-Union Law Replaces Union Workers with Prisoners
Prison inmates have replaced union workers in Racine County, Wisconsin, thanks to the changes to the states collective bargaining laws that went into effect at the end of June.
The Journal Times reported prison inmates will now be able to do tasks such as landscaping, painting, and shoveling sidewalks in the winter that were previously performed by unionized employees.
Inmates are not required to do any work for the county, but can receive time off their sentence if they do. Racine County Executive Jim Ladwig said the use of prison labor would not result in any public works staff reductions.
“We’re gonna have them do landscaping at county buildings, have them pick up trash on the roads,” he told local Fox News 6. “So we can use some of the county personnel to do difficult tasks, such as putting in a parking lot at the park.”
Next up: Arrest people for joining unions and send them to prison where they will work for free.
Stephen King Tries to Awake the State
Thank a union gal too, Stephen.
Florida Residents Unite to “Awake the State”
Sign at an “Awake the State” rally in Orlando
When the Florida legislature opened its 2011 session, there were a lot more people than usual in Tallahassee. The tea party sent in folks from all over, not just Florida, to support Gov. Rick Scott’s proposals to give away billions in revenue breaks to corporate interests and make it up by slashing paychecks and benefits to public service workers like teachers, rescue personnel, and law enforcement officers. But across Florida, counter-protests by these public servants and their supporters carried the day.
Ocoee Elementary School media specialist Isabel Chipungu electrified the Orlando crowd, declaring that teachers are being demonized.
“I love my job, but I’m angry,” she screamed from atop a picnic table in Senator Beth Johnson Park in downtown Orlando. “Teachers in this state are once again being made the scapegoat for all of the budget problems our politicians created. And we are again asked to pay the price. We have not had a raise in five years.”
While tea party zealots cultivate an air of chronic aggrievement and persecution, their leaders think nothing of taking back promises – and legal contracts – to union employees.
“People seem to have forgotten that the middle class is made up of hard-working individuals — firefighters, police officers, teachers, the people who pick up your garbage,” said Ron Glass, an Orlando firefighter who is secretary-treasurer of the International Association of Firefighters-Orlando, Local 1365.
Wisconsin Poll Shows Governor Would Lose Today
52%
Amount of votes for the Wisconsin governor’s race that candidate Tom Barrett would get if the election were held today, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey. Scott Walker, who narrowly won the actual contest last fall, would take only 45% of the vote. Only 32% of those surveyed said they or someone in their household was the member of a union.
Poll: Wisconsin Voters Heavily Favor Public Employees, Protesters
Respondents heard a list of people and groups involved in the controversy and were asked, for each one, if they agreed “with the positions they are taking in the current situation in the state capitol.” The results presented in the following chart prepared by the pollsters show large majorities agreeing with “public employees” (67 percent), “protestors at the state capitol” (62 percent) and “unions” (59 percent) but far fewer agreeing with “Republicans in the Legislature” (48 percent) or Scott Walker (43 percent agree and 53 percent disagree).
