What's Worth Economic Disruption in a Recession

This mindset is well beyond my capacity for sympathy, and almost incomprehensible:

Trains stood still and children played instead of going to school as workers around France went on strike to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to raise the retirement age to 62.

Neighboring countries suffered along with Paris commuters as walkouts by drivers delayed or canceled trains from Italy and Switzerland. Some flights were dropped or delayed. ...

The ranks of demonstrators swelled in comparison to a similar protest May 27. The Interior Ministry put the number of protesters around France at 797,000—double the number in May.

Such incidents should stand as a warning to the United States — a path not to take (any farther).

Tightening the Union Loop into a Noose

It could just be that I'm in my annual phase of presummer burnout, or it could be an indication of the complexity that Big Government imposes on a democratic society — to such degree that it ceases to be possible for the individuals who comprise that democracy to function as they must — but the number of fronts for manipulating the public sector feel like they've been multiplying, lately.

The issue that brings that statement to mind is the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) legislation that Democrats have brought to the table in Washington, which Bradley Smith describes, here. Given my usual areas of focus, this part earned a bracket in the margins of my issue of National Review:

DISCLOSE's partisanship is apparent in its different treatment of corporations and unions. Every major federal campaign-finance-reform effort since 1943 has attempted to treat corporations and unions equally. If a limit applied to corporations, it applied to unions; if unions could form PACs, corporations could too; and so on. DISCLOSE is the first major campaign-finance bill that has not taken this approach. For example, it prohibits corporations with government contracts of as little as $50,000 from making independent expenditures in elections or engaging in "electioneering communications." This very low threshold would bar not only large contractors such as Boeing but also thousands of small businesses from exercising the rights recognized in Citizens United. Yet no parallel provision exists for unions that bargain with the government for multimillion-dollar benefit packages. Corporations that received TARP funds are prohibited from spending, but unions at those companies — which in many cases benefited far more from the bailouts than shareholders — are not.

Smith doesn't go far enough, to my mind, by raising this as a matter of teams in a partisan dispute. It's actually part of a broad effort to shift the role of unions in our political society. Recall a post from November that noted, tangentially, that hospitals receiving federal money are barred from lobbying the government while their workers' unions are not (see "addendum," below). As the federal government continues to grow — especially in the amount of our economy for which it takes direct authority — the loop whereby businesses rely on the unions with which they negotiate to lobby the government will tighten into a noose, excluding organizations that are not unionized and siphoning off more money for politicians, bureaucrats, and the unions that serve as the middleman transferring economic wealth to the public sector.

ADDENDUM:

I've said before that among the greatest advantages of blogging to a mixed audience is that one is more likely than not to have errors or inadvertent stretches corrected. In that vein, Stuart called me on the statement about hospitals receiving federal money being barred from lobbying the government. Going back to my initial citation, I see that I paraphrased the following poorly:

SEIU's corporate campaigns, however effective, are nothing new. Stern's real breakthrough came when he realized that labor could offer a carrot as well as a stick Around 50 percent of SEIU's members work in the health-care industry as nurses, hospital attendants, and lab techs. The facilities that employ such workers benefit from a number of government programs. SEIU's pitch was simple: Let us organize your workforce, and we'll use our lobbying power to push for increased government spending on health care.

It worked. Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo recently observed in The Weekly Standard that, "under the brilliant leadership of Dennis Rivera, [SEIU Local] 1199 built a top-notch political operation, and with the hospitals, which were barred from political activity, formed a partnership to maximize the flow of government revenue." The alliance has been so successful, they wrote, that New York now spends as much on Medicaid as California and Texas combined. Rivera now serves as the SEIU's point man on national health-care-reform legislation, with over 400 union staff members working full time at his disposal. Sen. Chuck Schumer called him "one of the few key players" shaping the final bill.

In essence, I joined concepts that were only related: The union offers lobbying clout, but the political activity from which hospitals are barred probably doesn't have to do with the federal dollars that the lobbying seeks, but rather with such things as bans on non-profit political activities. My understanding is that unions are not so restricted.

So, the statement in specific was incorrect, but the point remains valid. To the extent that government restrains the employer in political activity and speech, while leaving unions exempt from those restraints, the union and the government gain leverage versus the productive organizations.

Cross Every Picket Line

Circumstances have made me slow to respond to this, and my position will hardly be a surprise, but I did want to express — ahem — solidarity with RIGOP Chairman Gio Cicione (as well as the RI Young Republicans) on the matter of crossing a union picket line to hold a Central Committee meeting at the Westin Providence hotel:

Explaining why the state Republican Party, along with the Rhode Island Young Republicans, decided to hold its State Central Committee meeting at the hotel, party chairman Giovanni Cicione said: "If Democrats continue to torture every local business with threats of strikes and boycotts, especially in the midst of this recession, Rhode Island will soon find itself with no employers left."

I'll go further: All taxpayers should make a point of doing business with companies that are facing union strikes. Trying to hurt employers in the midst of this recession is among the most asinine strategies that Rhode Island's unionists have yet conceived.

When Management Acknowledges Its Own Cards

Two factors are obvious in making Rhode Island school committees behave as if authority over the jobs is ultimately a weak card in negotiations: Some members see giving as much money as possible to teachers as one of their rightful objectives (whether they're teachers, themselves, or have some other reason for alliance), and other members are people who see their positions as a matter of community service, and they entered them not expecting to have to stand against organized, bare-knuckle negotiators.

Of course, Rhode Island has also set up a series of implied rules and what one might call "legal insinuations" that have led motivated school committee members to hesitate. That's why it took East Providence's challenging those insinuations — and winning — before its school committee could arrive at this point:

While it seems one-sided, the pact secures teachers' salaries and benefits. The School Committee imposed its 2009 salary and benefit cuts after the previous contact expired.

Read the article for the details, but the point that I wish to highlight, here, is that running the school system is not exactly a powerless position, when it comes to negotiations. It's well past time for Rhode Islanders in positions of authority to stop shirking their responsibility to think and act independently of the deadly, draining illusion drawn for the benefit of the state's public sector unions.

A Freeze Would Preserve Everything

Well, it's certainly not rocket science, but it's nice to know that New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie and I have come to the same conclusion when it comes to schools' supposed funding problems (subscription required):

In the last three years, state and local government-employee compensation grew 9.8 percent, compared with 6.9 percent in the private sector. That’s $1.43 in compensation growth for public employees for every $1.00 in compensation growth for private employees.

Those raises cost money, at a time when state tax revenues have taken a hit because of falling incomes and less consumption. For a time, states were able to close much of the gap with stimulus dollars. In New Jersey, now that the stimulus is running out, teachers' unions are urging the extension of a "temporary" tax increase inflicted last year upon residents making over $150,000 annually, and the elimination of the school-funding cut.

As Christie noted, this tax increase (as well as teacher layoffs and cuts to spending on classroom supplies) can be avoided by means of enacting a pay freeze. An April Rasmussen poll found 65 percent of New Jersey voters support a teacher-pay freeze. But while a handful of local unions agreed to accept one, the vast majority balked at the governor's demand. In return, Christie urged voters to reject proposed school budgets in elections on April 20. (In New Jersey, school budgets must be approved by voters annually.)

It has amazed me that school committees across Rhode Island have been talking school closures and the elimination of extracurricular activities. Requiring public-sector staff to experience even just a small amount of the economic pain makes all the problems go away. Of course, that's assuming that there really are problems. A frequent complaint about school departments is that their budgets are entirely their own concoction, and it's clear whose side school committees and administrations are on, for the most part, when it comes down to it.

The Subtle Tactics of the NEA

In an article about securing union approval of Rhode Island's application for federal Race to the Top education funds:

[NEARI President Larry] Purtill also said he is carefully monitoring the acrimonious situation in East Providence, where the School Committee last year unilaterally cut teachers' wages, forced teachers to pay more of their health insurance costs and recently threatened to cut wages again. East Providence is a NEARI local.

The Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals had their Central Falls problem resolved, and the NEA wants its sweetener, too. Race to the Top is looking more and more like a poison pill.

Central Falls: Tomorrow's News Today

The press releases are coming out concerning an administration-union deal in Central Falls. First in the emailbox was the union's take:

The Central Falls Teachers Union and the Central Falls School District reached a tentative agreement Saturday to implement a transformation plan for Central Falls High School for the 2010-11 school year in a way that involves all stakeholders—administrators, teachers, students and parents—to create a pathway toward excellence for everyone at the school.

Both the school district and the union agree that while this has been a difficult process for everyone involved, the negotiations resulted in a newfound appreciation for shared responsibility, and a solid commitment to bring lasting solutions that will improve teaching and learning at Central Falls High School.

As part of that agreement, which is pending ratification, the current staff will return to the school without having to reapply for their jobs. Teachers will need to recommit to their jobs and interview with the new principal. The agreed upon plan would also incorporate important changes designed to increase student achievement. These include a longer school day, more after-school tutoring, a new evaluation system designed to inform teaching and learning, and targeted and embedded professional development, among other changes. Details of the agreement will be released following a ratification vote by Central Falls teachers at a meeting Monday. A press conference is scheduled at the high school at 3:30 p.m.

Followed, just now, by two cents from Education Commissioner Deborah Gist:

I am really pleased that the Central Falls School Department, under Dr. Frances Gallo’s leadership, and the Central Falls Teachers Union have come to a tentative agreement about a plan to transform Central Falls High School, and that they will do that work together. The ideal situation is when we can do this important work collaboratively, and that's why this agreement is so promising. ...

From the outset, I have said that my one commitment is to ensure that we provide the best possible education for the students of Central Falls High School. The tentative agreement reached today is evidence that all parties can put aside their differences and work in the best interest of our students. Now it's time to move forward and work together to make Central Falls High School one of the best schools in Rhode Island.

We'll see who got what, but I have to think that the teachers have become increasingly nervous as the applicant pool to replace them has approached the 1,000 mark.

Everything's Negotiable in the Race to the Top

I'm not a fan of saying, "How high?," when the federal government says, "jump," and waves around a bunch of money. It's also detrimental to begin seeing federal dollars as some sort of cost-free windfall.

That said, the Race to the Top matter has brought forward the true face of labor unions and highlighted their strategies and motivation:

Recently, union officials have told Gist they want her to intervene in union-management strife in Central Falls and East Providence. While those two disputes continue, they said, they can't support the aggressive reforms Gist says are needed to fix failing schools. Gist and other state officials have said repeatedly that they cannot intervene. In Central Falls, the union local is fighting plans by Supt. Frances Gallo to terminate the entire teaching staff of the low-performing high school and hire back only 50 percent. In East Providence, the union is outraged the local school committee unilaterally cut teacher salaries and forced teachers to pay more into their health insurance. Both cases are currently in the state's courts.

"You want that $75 million? Well, make these two little problems go away. Make it clear who runs the show around here." (Not an actual quotation, by the way.)

Rhode Island's educational system is failing children and costing residents far too much — to the point that, in combination with other factors, it's strangling the state's economy. The law will decide what local remedies are allowed. To unions, though, that's not good enough. Any chance to extort for the result they want is legitimate, in their eyes.

And that, in case you needed further example, is why it's so dangerous to look toward consolidation and the movement of governing authority to higher tiers of government.

"Do you have to love labor unions to be a good Democrat?"

Blogger Mickey Kaus is running for U.S. senator in the Democratic primary in California and thinks its time for the Democratic Party to re-think their relationship with unions (h/t).

It's time for Democrats, even liberal Democrats, to start looking at unions and unionism with deep skepticism.

I don't mean we should embrace the right-wing view that unions are always wrong. Unions have done a lot for this country; they were especially important when giant employers tried to take advantage of a harsh economy in the last century, not only to keep down wages but to speed up assembly lines and, worse, force workers to risk their lives and health. If you think about it, unions have been the opposite of selfish. By modern standards they've been stunningly altruistic, lobbying for job safety rules and portable pensions and Social Security and all sorts of government services that, if they were really selfish, they might have opposed, because if the government will guarantee that your workplace is safe and your retirement is secure, well, then you don't need a union so much, do you?

I agree. Unions fought the good fight "back in the day" and served as a much-needed check on corporations as they gained hard-won victories for workers. Government regulations and oversights were instituted. But once those battles were won, union leaders expanded the definition of "union rights" and warned of bogey men so that they can keep the membership always fighting for something more and keep themselves in power. But this has led to problems for private sector unions whose demands resulted in a sort of workplace stasis.

At the same time unions were winning government protections, changes in the economy were making mainstream unionism itself an impediment to growth. We are no longer living in a World War II world in which big, slow-moving bureaucratic organizations are the engines of prosperity. Only fast-moving, flexible organizations prosper today. Technology changes too rapidly. Firms have to be able to make snap decisions: expand here, contract there, change the way they work every day. That was the lesson of Japan--how 1,000 little improvements in productivity can add up to a big advantage.

As Kaus explains, too many unions are stuck in the 1950's and their solution is to keep doing what worked in the '50's. Yet, even though times have changed, more strident unionism is "the official Democratic Party dogma. No dissent allowed." As market forces have shrunk private sector unions, government unions continue to grow, funded by tax dollars appropriated by the Democrats they've hired. In particular, Kaus is no fan of the modern teacher unions:

When I was growing up in West L.A., practically everyone went to public schools, even in the affluent neighborhoods. Only the discipline cases, the juvenile delinquents, went off to a military academy. It was vaguely disreputable. Now any parent who can afford it pays a fortune for private school. The old liberal ideal of a common public education has been destroyed. And it's been destroyed in large part not by Republicans but by teachers unions.

He also knows that some Democrats recognize the problem:

"The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life. But we politicians, pushed by our friends in labor, gradually expanded pay and benefits...while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages that pay ex-workers almost as much as current workers. Talking about this is politically unpopular and potentially even career suicide...but at some point, someone is going to have to get honest about the fact."

That quote is from Willie Brown, a Democratic hero, explaining why the state may go the way of Vallejo and General Motors. Easy for him to say; he's retired. But you won't catch any Democrats who are running for office saying it. They're too dependent on organized labor's money and muscle.

I doubt that Kaus will win his bid for Senate and I also doubt that there will be a serious rift between the union leaders and Democrat politicians any time soon. After all, the system works for them.

SNL: The 2010 Public Employee of the Year Awards

The nominees:

Markeesha Odom: Works at St. Louis DMV. At 24 years old, already twice name Missouri's surliest and least cooperative state employee.

Dennis Cosgrove: School custodian in Queens, NY. Set a record with 3200 hours on the job. All on overtime! Like many NYC custodians, Dennis is a year round resident of Florida.

Anthony Scalise: A clerk in the probate court of Mercer County, NJ. Elevator inspector for the city of Trenton and on 100% disability from his first city job in the sanitation department where an accident left him with a crippling fear of cats.

Watch below for the winner!

Making Committees Choose Between Funds and Friends

Chris Powell notes a strategy worth considering:

Nominations for Connecticut's mayor of the year should include Wallingford's William W. Dickinson Jr. for proposing, in the town budget he recently submitted to the Town Council, to reduce the school board's budget by exactly the amount the board planned to pay raises to teachers. The mayor thus clarified that school budgets aren't being cut but rather that school systems are being cannibalized by their employees.

The statement could be even more effective in towns that are between contracts — such as Tiverton. Especially in the case of financial town meetings, taxpayers could send a clear message that they've got a preference for certain line items in the district's budget.

When school committees are unwilling to force concessions beyond the point at which their budgets grow 6% (and are failing to achieve even those) during an historic recession and 2% inflation, it seems to me that some undeniable lessons from the people paying the bills are in order.

Labor Peace, Town or State

Julia Steiny makes a reasonable point about the ability of the General Assembly — with limits and mandates for local teacher contracts — to ensure "peace at the local level," but her assessment doesn't go quite far enough:

And this is the point: labor peace must be bought. And nothing is excluded from negotiations. Everything is subject to bargaining rights.

To prevail in negotiation, weak-kneed management has often won what it wanted, extra minutes of instruction or commitments to professional development, by giving away expensive perks such as more generous sick leave. To hide or delay paying for the give-away, perks were often additions to retirement benefits.

The operative clause is that "labor peace must be bought"; if it isn't bought at the local level, it will be bought at the state level. As we've recently seen, AFL-CIO honcho George Nee sneezes, and Providence quakes. If reformers somehow manage to push contractual limits through the General Assembly, it will only happen on the terms of National Education Association Rhode Island Executive Director Bob Walsh. And we can be sure that those aren't terms that we should prefer to what we can secure with labor decisions close at hand in our own communities.

Look. The basic calculation is as follows: If the people of Rhode Island don't care enough to counterbalance the unions when it comes to electing school committee members, and if there aren't three to five residents willing to stand against union aggression as elected officials in each municipality, then the even larger court of the state government is not a place that we want the ball in play.

Re: The Biggest Faction in the General Assembly

The comments to Marc's post on the number of General Assembly members who benefit from public pensions are understandable, but most miss the point. Cutting the General Assembly's pay and authority isn't going to address the essential problem — namely, that an official position that doesn't pay much will attract those who have other motivations, including other ways to profit. It's nice to think that "community service" will suffice, but devoting so many hours to such a position over a limited number of months per year puts quite a cost on that service. Retired teachers and such whose unions have given them so much have motivation to put in time for "union service," but most Rhode Islanders simply cannot justify the time.

As to cutting the legislature's authority, while that may be a laudable goal, we'd have to begin by cutting the government's authority. Otherwise the power currently held by a large number of legislators would be given to a handful of administrators and bureaucrats. In other words, change in that direction would have to go in the other direction.

Frankly, I'd be willing to argue for paying the General Assembly members more given two reforms:

• Representation is aligned directly with cities and towns, making it clear whom members represent, and providing a clear path from local politics to state politics.
• The "part-time" of the legislature is spread out across the entire year, with fewer hours per week. In other words, make the schedule more in line with what working people can manage.

Unfortunately, the people who would have to enact such changes like their current advantage, so such reforms would be the project of decades, and I'm not sure Rhode Island has that long.

Union Comfort Would Be Evidence of Danger

My main argument against looking toward centralized levers — whether in Providence or Washington — to reform education has essentially been that national teachers' unions are better situated to manipulate higher tiers of government than are concerned residents acting through democratic processes. Within the scope of town politics, an active group can have some hope of countering union propaganda, legal, and bullying tactics — not the least by changing the composition of elected bodies. At the state level, the excess funding that the union system creates for activist administration and lobbying will be of greater value.

That's not to deny that voters and a handful of forward-looking government officials could throw an important curve into the game, before the unions adjust their focus to those officials' offices. That possibility is perhaps what evoked union concern about RI Education Commissioner Deborah Gist's application for federal Race to the Top funding, and its absence is what ought to concern voters about the shift in tone for the second round of competition for those dollars. It's now clear that union support was critical for the causes of the two states that won initial funding, and that support will require that unions have an advantage in the centralization process:

During frank discussions, several speakers said fear and a sense of alienation kept most of the state's teachers union locals from supporting the first application. Of particular concern was a pledge to make student test scores and other evidence of student growth count for more than half of a teacher's evaluation. But the application was vague about exactly what factors would be used to assess a teacher's performance.

"There was a tremendous sense of fear," said Mike Crowley, president of the Rhode Island School Committees Association. "There was fear not knowing what this evaluation will look like. I think [teachers] want to come to the table, and we, as school committees and superintendents, also need to understand it, since we will be expected to carry it out."

The only way toward substantial reform is from the bottom up. Town residents must insist on evaluations that take student achievement into consideration, implemented by accountable administrators with the authority to make substantive changes. State and federal strategies that have any hope of winning union support will only tie the hands of local school administrations.

Magic Numbers and Pension Politics

Rhode Island GOP Chairman Gio Cicione makes a good point about pensions and General Treasurer Frank Caprio:

In fact, Mr. Caprio knew better a long time ago. As early as April 2002, when he was Senate finance chairman, Mr. Caprio indicated that an 8.25 percent return had "proved to be an overly optimistic assumed rate of interest for the fund" (reported in The Journal on April 17, 2002). Nonetheless, throughout his career in the General Assembly and his tenure as treasurer, Mr. Caprio promulgated this budget fantasy to mask the truth from taxpayers and from public employees who will depend on the state pension fund to provide their retirement benefits.

As a candidate in the upcoming gubernatorial election, and with the pension fund in trouble, Mr. Caprio is working now to appear fiscally responsible, but he has a lot to explain about his two-decades-long political record of endangering the retirement of public employees and increasing the pressure on taxpayers to fill the holes in the fund.

I'd expand the criticism to anybody in government who complied with the conspiracy to behave as if such expectations were founded in reality. Anytime people in government — or in any capacity — get to make up numbers that determine what they can do with the money at their disposal, others should be skeptical. They should be especially wary if the predictions are anything other than clearly conservative.

We are where we are, however, and it appears that Big RI Labor is content to lean on public officials to find some way through the mess that they've jointly created. Since the magic of government accounting cannot reach beyond the printed page into actual transfers of funds (at least in sufficient amounts), it's going to come down to one of two options: Taxes are going to have to increase greatly, or pensions are going to have to be trimmed. Union members should not risk tremendous confidence that it will be the former.

The Little Policy Details That Say So Much

Sometimes, in the noise and rancor of politics and budgeting, one's attention becomes monopolized by particular details. Consider the following:

[The state's public-employee unions'] chief target: a proposal to limit annual pension increases to the first $35,000 in retirement pay initially. The $35,000 would go up each year, in keeping with the Consumer Price Index, and legislative budget writers stripped from their final bill a provision that Carcieri sought — to reinforce a right they already have to adjust these cost of living adjustments of up to 3 percent annually.

By way of comparison, Massachusetts has, for more than a decade, limited its annual pension increases to the first $12,000 in retirement pay.

There's no excuse for so much of what goes on in Rhode Island. Oh, there are rationalizations and complaints, and they'll continue to float to the surface as bubbles long after the state has drifted to the bottom. But the poor leadership and self-serving lobbying have no justification but greed and corruption. One class rallies and demands the continuation of ill-advised and unsustainable handouts, and another class suffers until its members reach the threshold of whatever's keeping them in the state.

The cycle continues, and down we go.

What Are You Working Toward?

Scott Adams really captured something with this edition of his Dilbert comic strip:

Our progressive readers will no doubt declare this to be the reason that unions and government are necessary parties in the employment exchange. From my perspective, it's the reason that government ought to make it easier for all of us Dilberts to step out on our own and compete with our oppressive bosses — or at least work for some entrepreneur who can profit by luring dissatisfied talent from incumbents.

NEARI Report: the Supplemental Budget Process (and Much More)

The following was sent this afternoon to members of the National Education Association of Rhode Island.

I am not sure what was reported in the paper this morning since reporters were posting stories as they were briefed, but some of those turned out to be premature. The House Finance Committee did vote out the supplemental budget in an extraordinarily short time once it began. We arrived at the State House around one and they did not start their scheduled 11 am meeting until after 8 pm. For all those not yet eligible to retire, the COLA was changed to apply only to the first $35,000 of retirement income. This number would be indexed, which means it goes up each year. The eligibility age to receive the COLA was raised to 65. (Reps Fierro, San Bento and Savage voted against the changes.)

Reps received more phone calls and emails than ever before in such a short time, but we cannot stop now. We all need to remember that when this first leaked out on Monday the COLA cap was at $12,000 with no indexing. I truly believe your efforts had an impact – now we need to push them to vote “no” for any changes at all. Enough is enough and it stops now. Keep calling and emailing. It will be critical over the weekend as those reps leaning our way need our support and we need to turn the others around. We do have support in the House, and the Senate has been fighting this all along.

All the unions impacted are asking their members to come to the State House this Monday after work to lobby and show opposition to these changes. They are caucusing at 3 pm and meeting at 4 pm. Since the House vote will be Tuesday, this will be our opportunity to raise our collective voices. You and your members need to be there. We have been sending a very strong political message that a vote for this is a vote against public employees, teachers, and working women and if you do so, do not expect our help in November. We need your help on Monday delivering that message!

To show how unions working together can have an impact: at 4 pm a new budget item appeared out of nowhere that called for all municipal employees to contribute a minimum of 15% toward health care despite any collective bargaining agreements. At 7 pm, George Nee, president of the AFL-CIO, was called to the speaker's office and was told to tell the other union leaders that that item was off the table. (The only mildly pleasant moment of the evening came around 9 pm when a reporter for the Journal was running around the hearing room looking for that article since they has already posted it as a major headline a few hours previously.)

There was one other surprise that the reps on the Finance Committee did not know about, and I think they were not even sure about it when they voted. All teacher and school employee contracts must now be approved by both the local school committee and town council/city council with at least one public hearing held prior to the vote. If that ends up being the case, I believe we move to do away with school committees because they will have become useless in the process. (I know what you are thinking.) In addition to opposing the COLA changes, ask your reps to oppose Article 9 as well.

I mentioned this past Monday earlier and now it seems like such a long time ago. In three days time, though, we held two conference calls, send an all member email, blogged, tweeted and everything else in between. It all led to a member response level never seen before. I want to thank you and ask you not to stop. Remind your colleagues to do the same. To do nothing means we agree with what is happening and I know you don't.

A special thanks to local presidents, officers and staff who have been working to put an end to this. We need to be as energized as ever. I am certainly ready to take our opposition to the next step and beyond when you are, but right now it starts with more phone calls and a huge turnout on Monday.

The Union Does School Administration

It was hard not to give some credit to the union-run New England Laborers/Cranston Public Schools Construction Career Academy when it gave some of its money back to the town to maintain sports programs. Of course, one wondered why it would have extra money — charter schools aren't fully private schools — but the sentiment wasn't without its noble tinge. Well, Cranston School Committee member Stephen Stycos says there's more to the story, and as usual, it begins with an apparent conflict of interest:

I questioned the change and argued that if the Laborers charter school had $193,840 for the union, it should also give $193,840 to the Cranston public schools. [Michael] Traficante, who chairs the charter-school board of directors and the Cranston School Committee, and is an employee of the Laborers union, countered that the former superintendent promised the union would only have to pay for the "construction craft laborers instructors" for the school's first five years.

And here are some of the results:

Mr. Traficante, however, said the Laborers charter school wanted to help with Cranston's financial woes and came forward with a transfer of $187,218. In response to questioning from several School Committee members, we discovered that this "gift" was the state's reimbursement for special-education services already paid by the Cranston public schools. Had the charter school kept the money, it would have been paid twice for the same special-education services — once by its partner, the Cranston Public Schools, and once by the State of Rhode Island. Since Cranston pays for the special-education services, Cranston should automatically receive the money. ...

(The construction craft laborers instructors, however, who are hired by the union, receive a school-year wage and benefit package equal to $97,751, while a comparable technical assistant at Cranston's vocational school earns $45,870 in wages and benefits.)

Get That Board a Rubber Stamp

This is curious:

A state advisory board on Monday opted not to vote on a potentially controversial plan to overhaul the state’s unemployment law.

Thus, the matter will be left to legislators and Governor Carcieri to decide without benefit of the board’s recommendation. ...

The reversal came after [Chairman William] McGowan acknowledged having heard from a number of small businesses that were opposed to the tax aspects of the plan, and after it emerged that at least two of the board’s members were prepared to vote against the plan.

I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like it's a bad plan, given the economy, and the board members weren't going to give the lawmakers the political cover that they wanted, so they canceled the vote.

The Risk of a Recreational Medicine

My ambivalence about legalizing marijuana carries into this legal development, but I post it mainly as an interesting civic conundrum:

Tens of thousands of Californians are obtaining medical marijuana recommendations from physicians so they can use pot without fear of arrest.

But they still can lose their jobs.

California's Proposition 215, passed by voters in 1996, approved the use of marijuana for a wide range of ailments. But it doesn't require employers to make accommodations or waive any workplace rules for legal cannabis users.

On one hand, if employers feel that use of a particular substance, even outside of work, represents a potential risk of any kind, they ought to be able to continue testing for it. Employees are free not to work there, to take the initiative to compete in the market, or to attempt to affect the business by influencing its customers. On the other hand, although I always found (more than a decade ago) that pot does affect one's mental alertness even after its effects have worn off, but then, so does alcohol.

Whichever way the coin falls, though, I hope that this remains a state-by-state issue.

Balancing Public Sector Pay From the Town to the Nation

I've already been arguing, at the town level on up, that the economic downturn needn't tax the future, through debt, nor decrease programs that local folks want. Glenn Reynolds offers a bit of evidence that I'm right:

What if government workers earned the average of what private workers earn? States and localities would save $339 billion a year from their more than $2.1 trillion budgets. These savings are larger than the combined estimated deficits for 2010 and 2011 of every state in America. In a separate survey, the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis compares the compensation of public versus private workers in each of the 50 states. Perhaps not coincidentally, the pay gap is widest in states that have the biggest budget deficits, such as New Jersey, Nevada and Hawaii. Of the 40 states that have a budget deficit so far this year, 28 would have a balanced budget were it not for the windfall to government workers.

Rhode Island has been giving away the store, on this count, and many of the paying customers have been leaving, making matters worse. It's well past time to turn that all around. Perhaps folks who've just gone along to get along are starting to understand what's been happening as the decades have rolled on by.

Hey, Don't Worry About Federal Ed. Money

Even if Rhode Island doesn't win federal largess for its education improvement plan, as Marc is suggesting we will not, we still have every reason that we've always had to hold our heads high, such as this one that Julia Steiny mentioned last Sunday:

After the 1960s, many states went back to their labor laws to limit, assertively, the scope of bargaining. Apparently, Rhode Island now has the broadest labor laws in the country. Virtually nothing is off the negotiating table.

Oh, wait...

First to Unemployment

Rhode Island should not, under any circumstances, increasingly burden the state's employers with the costs of its unemployed, but clearly, something must be done to adjust for our long-term burden of unemployment. This conversation is therefore very necessary:

The state Department of Labor and Training on Wednesday proposed sweeping changes to Rhode Island’s unemployment-insurance system to try to restore the state's unemployment trust fund to solvency.

The plan would gradually raise the state unemployment tax paid by more than 30,000 employers in Rhode Island and cap or reduce benefits that an unemployed worker could receive.

The mix of solutions is a matter for extended debate, but this suggestion makes absolutely no sense to me:

Benefit changes would apply only to people filing claims in the future, not to those currently collecting, officials stressed.

Frankly, I see no justification for that distinction, except (maybe) to keep the state from having to recalculate anybody's benefits. It's not as if the currently unemployed invested more into the system, and it's not as if those who are still working will have additional time to prepare for a change in unemployment benefits that they don't yet know that they'll require.

Under the same logic, one could argue that no businesses that are currently making payments for their unemployment insurance should see an increase in their rates.

Re: Pensions; Why Should Healthcare Be the Only Calamity on Your Mind, Today?

Further to Justin's post, in the matter of the Chapter 9 bankruptcy by the City of Prichard, Alabama, a judge ruled ten days ago that public employee retirees do not have any greater standing than other creditors.

A bankruptcy court judge denied a motion Tuesday that would force Prichard to pay its pensioners, saying they do not qualify as administrative claims -- or day-to-day obligations -- of the city.

The judge gave the city until May 19 to file a reorganization plan.

Returning now to Rhode Island, asked on the Helen Glover Show a couple of weeks ago about the thought process of the all-powerful Speaker of the House on the matter of our under-water public pension system, former Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey replied,

I think actually Gordon Fox ... understands the depths of the problem. I think he's just going to play his game of roulette, also, where he's going to try to be in office as long as possible and he has to be beholden to the special interest public union leaders. And he thinks they control their votes. And so that's what he's going to do. He simply is just going to play out the game. And with $6.6 billion in assets, he thinks he can play it out until he gets out of office and leave it for somebody else to deal with.

Could Smith Hill leadership really harbor the notion that they could skate by this situation? Especially in view of the sharply escalating, budget-busting contributions that are required from the tax-payer as long as pensions are not addressed?

Alternately, could they be waiting for enough Rhode Island cities to declare Chapter 9 and for the fiscal situation on the state level to deteriorate so badly that they have to say to their public employee supporters, "Sorry, we have no choice but to ..." But to what? Whatever solution they may propose at that point, almost assuredly, it won't be as "nice" as the ones on the table now. And no one denies that those already stink on ice. Accordingly, though it might be tempting politically, would waiting for the disaster to actually strike really be such a wise course?

Pensions; Why Should Healthcare Be the Only Calamity on Your Mind, Today?

As you can see, I'm catching up on the items in my "to blog" pile. Here's a pension-related exercise in predictive mathematics (paragraphs copied out of order):

For more than a decade, the state has anticipated annual returns of 8.25 percent for its giant fund — currently valued at almost $7 billion — needed to cover retirement payments for thousands of retired state workers and teachers. ...

The difference between Rhode Island’s 8.25-percent projection and [Wilshire Consulting's] 6.9-percent suggestion could mean tens of millions of dollars for state and local governments already facing mounting pension costs. ...

While losing $2.4 billion during the near-collapse of financial markets between January 2008 and January 2009, the pension fund earned an average of 2.79 percent each year over the last 10 years, according to information provided by the state treasurer’s office, which manages the fund.

To repeat: A pension fund predicted to return 8.25% annually actually returned 2.79%, so the solution with which government officials are toying is changing the prediction to 6.9%. See, in government, predictions can be tweaked to coincide with political feasibility, not actual results. It's not like we're talking about real people's lives, or anything.

The Dangling President

Let's order things clearly: It was objectionable for a Central Falls high school teacher to dangle an Obama doll upside down with a sign saying "Fire CF Teachers," because it involved the students in a union dispute. Talk of its being a hate crime is utterly outlandish:

To Clifford Montiero, president of the Providence branch of the NAACP, the effigy represents a lynching of a black man, and brings back painful memories of decades of injustices.

"In my mind, this is a hate crime, and the teacher should be charged," Montiero said. "This teacher feels he can demean the president of the United States, an African-American who has overcome all this hatred. It is wrong. And when you take a nonviolent environment like a classroom, and introduce violence and hatred into it, you have crossed the line."

Even calling the thing an "effigy," as the Providence Journal does, goes a bit far. I look at the picture and I think Laugh In, not Mississippi Burning, with the President popping out to offer a one liner.

Meant to Be Versus Is

Not unexpectedly, my column in last month's Rhode Island Catholic was my first to garner a letter to the editor of that paper. I'm not sure, though, that William Schecher, of Smithfield, understood what I was trying to say when he writes:

The whole purpose of unions is to join together for the common cause of protecting and advancing the welfare of all workers, whether they belong to a union or not. This begins with a local union, whose members’ freedoms and initiatives must come together in solidarity as one, in negotiating contracts either in the public or private sector, or on a local or national level.

That may, indeed, be "the whole purpose of unions" in an idealized ideological vision (or in literature that unions push on their members), but it is not the reality of their activity. Indeed, my argument was that it's not a likely outcome based on the incentives of their structure.

A union aggregates the power of its members for concentrated political and economic force. Union leaders often use their political capital in ways that have little to do with their members, and they must devote much of what's left to keep the workers under their umbrella feeling as if they benefit financially by their membership.

More Re: Committee Wins

Here's the decision from Superior Court Justice Silverstein: PDF.

About halfway through the document, it appears that Silverstein would draw his lines very tightly around his ruling in favor of the school committee:

Under the language of § 16-2-9 a school committee must bargain in good faith with certified public school teachers in accordance with Title 28 and honor current collective bargaining agreements. However, under a narrow set of circumstances, when such collective bargaining negotiations have reached an impasse and there is no longer a valid collective bargaining agreement, a school committee must comply with the mandate in subsection (d) and avoid maintaining a school budget that results in debt.

However, in most of the substantive ways in which Anchor Rising readers might want a little bit of breadth to the ruling, they won't be disappointed. For one, the judge determined that a never-ending contract is not implied by existing laws (citations deleted):

Although the Union contends that the Committee was under a statutory duty to continue to adhere to the terms and conditions of the expired CBA until a successor agreement was realized, the Court disagrees. Title 28 does not contain such a mandate pertaining to school teachers' labor contracts, and in fact under § 28-9.3-4, "no contract shall exceed the term of three (3) years." Further, when previously discussing the effect of an expired contract this Court found it to be no longer valid and cited to Providence Teachers Union v. Providence School Bd., City of Cranston v. Teamsters Local 251, In Providence Teachers, when discussing the effect of a general arbitration clause in an expired contract, the Court stated that "[a]n expired contract has by its own terms released all its parties from their respective contractual obligations, except obligations already fixed under the contract but as yet unsatisfied." Here, the CBA by its terms expired prior to the implementation of the disputed salary and benefits changes. Therefore, the Court finds that the CBA was no longer binding and the Committee did not "abrogate any agreement reached by collective bargaining."

And when a school committee finds itself facing a budgetary shortfall (determined as a measure of its best knowledge on the date that it takes action), and when the contract has expired, employees don't have an overriding claim to district money beyond other line items under the committee's control (citations deleted):

The Union has continually argued that there were other avenues that the Committee could have taken to reduce the FY 09 deficit. However, this Court remains mindful that under § 16-2-9 the Committee is vested with the entire care, control, and management of the interests of the East Providence public schools. Further, under the same provision the Committee has both the power and the duty to adopt a school budget. Accordingly, this Court will not discuss whether the changes to the teachers' salary and benefits were the only or even the best possible way to comply with the balanced budget mandate of § 16-2-9(d). However, this Court does note that the parties stipulated that the teachers' salaries and benefits consumed 63% of the Committee's total revenue from all sources for FY 09. Therefore, given the mandate in § 16-2-9(d) that a school committee "shall be responsible for maintaining a school budget which does not result in a debt" and the evidence before this Court that the Committee was, in fact, facing a debt for FY 09, this Court declares that the Committee acted lawfully under Title 16 by implementing the teachers' salary and benefit changes.

Lastly, Siverstein found that the State Labor Relations Board cannot, in effect, make law to suit its rulings (citations deleted):

The Court is mindful that when deciding such questions, the SLRB is empowered under § 28-7-22 to issue orders and award the relief it deems to be appropriate. However, our Supreme Court has cautioned that "[n]o state official by administrative action can affect the substantive rights of parties as they have been set forth by an affirmative act of the general assembly." Further, as indicated supra, administrative agencies are bound by statutory schemes and a decision or award is invalid if the decision or award contravenes a statutory scheme.

La Cosa AFTstra

Columnist Mark Patinkin has been focusing on the teacher dispute in Central Falls for weeks, now, but an essay on teachers who (quietly) disagree with the union's activities brings to the fore a central reason that many of us have a constitutional aversion to unions:

"As a C.F. High School teacher I agree with you," the e-mail said. "The Union blew it. The only mistake you made was writing that we voted it down. This is untrue because we were never given the chance to vote. The Union leadership made the decision for us and many of us are not happy."

Why not express that unhappiness?

"Many fear Union retribution," the letter said. ...

"You have to understand," one wrote, "not only would I be going up against my own teacher's union, I would leave myself open to abuse from every teacher's union in the country and perhaps beyond."

No doubt, some union organizer or other has pointed to Patinkin's column, and will point to this very post, as evidence that breaking ranks and speaking out will only open the union to political attack. One can hardly dispute that "solidarity" is part of what empowers unions to accomplish what they do. That doesn't, of course, mean that members or society at large should want them to accomplish those ends. Indeed, the insidious problem of silence is that it allows union reps to pick their own objectives and limit all internal objections to a controlled, intimidating environment.

Keeping the Pension Blood Flowing

I didn't want to let this one slip by without mention:

The business-backed [Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council] found that the state taxpayer contribution to those pensions nearly tripled over the last decade, jumping from $79.9 million in 2001 to a projected $218 million in the coming year. ...

... Overall, state personnel expenditures will consume $1.7 billion in the coming year, according to the report, which found that retirement costs are the fastest-growing component of personnel spending.

This trend just can't be maintained. Voters have to learn to look past this sort of rhetoric from unionists:

Yet [National Education Association Rhode Island Executive Director Bob] Walsh acknowledges that the report will fuel criticism that his workers' benefits are too rich, especially given the shift in the private sector.

"Just because the private sector jumped off a financial bridge, does it mean we should follow?" he asked...

People who benefit from big government like to argue that voters can, by their votes, decide to do anything: Private businesses determined that they couldn't sustain generous pension benefits, but voters and their representatives can just choose differently. In a limited, short-term sense, I suppose that's true. In a sense that acknowledges reality, however, the laws of economics will decide differently, or at least exact a price that voters wouldn't have been willing to pay had they been well enough informed to anticipate it.

Spin on the Health Panel

Rep. Joseph McNamara (D, Pawtucket) — himself the Alternative Learning Program Director for the Pawtucket School Department — recently published an op-ed defending legislation that he submitted (and which passed) that created a healthcare panel to design insurance benefits for all of Rhode Island teachers. (The legislation, incidentally, inspired the introduction of our legislative stooge list.) The intention of his essay is to lull Rhode Islanders back to sleep, on this matter, but he shouldn't succeed.

Most centrally, his argument cites internally incompatible benefits to the legislation. First:

... the Department of Education studied the issue and found that combined purchasing of health benefits for education employees could save up to $15 million a year.

Yet, second:

... the legislation provides that "choice of benefit plan designs, medical insurance cost-sharing, payment for waiving medical insurance, eligibility for receiving benefits and providing benefits for retirees shall continue to be negotiated" by the districts.

If districts remain able to choose different programs from different insurers, then the maximum savings cited by McNamara cannot be achieved. In other words, the law can only function by limiting school districts' options. Indeed, that is its plain purpose. Note this sly admission that the law amounts to another unfunded mandate:

... it includes the requirement that the value of at least one of the plan designs "shall not be greater than the lowest" plan in effect today.

I don't have the time, just now, to sort through every district's actuarial report, but general familiarity with the issue is enough to suggest that the "lowest plan" is hardly a discount program. If there were such a plan currently in effect, McNamara would surely have cited it as evidence; that he doesn't offer any details for this claim suggests that vagueness suits his political purposes. Essentially, the legislation ensures that the now-mandated health insurance benefits will never decrease, except perhaps minimally with inflation. As for districts' ability negotiate cost-sharing and so forth, here's the actual language (PDF):

Choice of benefit plan designs from those approved in accordance with section medical insurance cost-sharing, payment for waiving medical insurance, eligibility for receiving benefits, and providing benefits for retirees shall continue to be negotiated pursuant to sections 28-9-3 and 28-9-4.

28-9-3 and 28-9-4 do not lay out rights to negotiate certain parts of a contract. Rather, they deal with arbitration. I'm open to correction from legal experts, on this, but defending how one takes the phrase "pursuant to," it would be plausible to argue that the only way to reduce healthcare costs within McNamara's legislation would be through arbitration.

It's a simple matter of reasoning: During a time of growing dissatisfaction with the imbalanced remuneration of public-sector employees, one such employee introduced legislation mandating health insurance benefits with heavy influence from the relevant unions. Keep your eye on that ball; the rest is just fancy footwork.

(Of course, since the legislation passed, attentiveness must be to having it repealed and removing all .)

Taking the Discouraged into Account

Back when I made my (thus far) erroneous prediction that Rhode Island's unemployment rate would hit 14 or even 15%, I didn't take into account the effects of discouraged workers. Doing so, the rate would actually be much higher than that.

It is, without a doubt, a confounding variable, which is why I'm not so sure that this statement can be considered to be accurate:

Forecasters say a larger work force is a positive sign in that it shows that formerly discouraged workers who had given up searching for work are confident enough in the job market to start looking for employment again, even if it takes time to find it.

Put aside questions about the encouragement that we ought to take from the impressions of discouraged workers about the prospects of the economy. I've seen no evidence in print or in life that such confidence in the job market is actually a factor.

It seems more plausible, to me, that "discouraged workers" are seeing their allotted time of unemployment benefits running out and are therefore redoubling their efforts. If that's the case, then one effect of extended jobless payments has been to temporarily shrink the workforce, which is arguably a good thing in the short-term, although the long-term effects of taking that money out of the economy and habituating people to not working may swamp any advantage.

It may also be the case that spouses and children are entering the workforce because the primary household earner has been having such trouble. In other words, an increasing workforce, in the current economic circumstances, could be either a good sign or a bad one.

General Assembly Waiting for Problems to Fix Themselves

Honestly, I don't know how Rhode Islanders can read articles like this one without wanting to storm the State House. In brief, the General Assembly is now letting months pass by without resolving this year's nine-figure budget deficit, and every day of delay makes the task more difficult, thus building political tolerance for the most dim-witted (but typical) solutions:

Key legislators acknowledge that the delay has forced them to consider options that may balloon future deficits, such as refinancing the payment plan for the $4.33-billion unfunded portion of the pension system for state workers and teachers.

Any homeowner should know that the possibility of refinancing the house to pay the grocery bill ought to be evidence that it's time to cancel the premium channel package from the cable company, but the General Assembly marches on, even after years of one-time fixes that have without doubt harmed the lives of future Rhode Islanders — applying stimulus funds to programs that will require continued revenue once the federal largess dries up, sacrificing future tobacco settlement money at a loss, and so on. At a first-year savings of $40-45 million, reamortizing the pension debt wouldn't even come close to addressing the $220 million budget gap, yet it's the only big idea floated as a possibility in the article. And here's the shiny new House Speaker, Gordon Fox (D., Providence):

"No COLAs for life, for instance, for me is a non-starter," Fox said. "Do you want someone when they're 80 years old to be living in poverty? I don't think we, as a society, want to do that."

Being inclined to be charitable, I'm not sure whether to ascribe that statement to stupidity or dishonesty. Eliminating automatic cost of living adjustments (COLAs) to pension payouts in no way prevents the General Assembly from enacting such increases in pension benefits as will prevent 80-year-old former state employees (many of whom would have been retired for more than twenty years, at that point) from starvation. Thus far in his time as speaker, the only case that Fox has competently backed is the case for relocating beyond his taxation reach.

Meanwhile, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Daniel DaPonte (D, East Providence, Pawtucket) dips into the musty playbook for the "blame the governor" card:

"People understand that it's the chief executive and department heads that manage the state on a day-to-day basis," DaPonte said. "The General Assembly does not run departments. We pass a budget, and year after year after year, departments overspend."

I'd replace "understand," in that quotation, with "have been misled into believing." It is the General Assembly that tells the departments what work they must do and what money they must hand out. And that's the one area the shysters refuse to go, because it's how they buy their offices.

Long-Term Unemployment, Private Sector Only

By now, you've likely decided whether or not you agree with the statement that the Obama administration's approach to "stimulus" was meant not so much to stimulate growth in the private sector economy as to shore up the public sector and insulate government at all levels from the real effects of the recession. Whether the private sector will begin to grow again of its own accord and bail out the borrowing of the public sector remains to be seen.

George Mason University Economics Professor Alex Tabarrok is specifically worried about the bifurcation of the workforce:

... I am more worried, however, about the long term consequences of creating a dual labor market in which insiders with government or government-connected jobs are highly paid and secure while outsiders face high unemployment rates, low wages and part-time work without a career path. ...

Moreover, once an economy is in the insider-outsider equilibrium it's very difficult to get out because insiders fear that they will lose their privileges with a deregulated labor market and outsiders focus their political energy not on deregulating the labor market but on becoming insiders ...

Once again, we in Rhode Island have an especially relevant perspective on the direction in which the country is now headed, inasmuch as we've tested the waters, found them frigid, and continue to beckon in the other states anyway. We're well accustomed to arguments that the problem is that public-sector union jobs kept up with inflation while private-sector employment did not, and that we shouldn't respond to the latter by bringing down the former. We've all heard the "I got mine" responses that lie behind all related debates with supporters of public-sector unions.

It can be disorienting how quickly the very same advocate can switch from proclamations about fairness to denials that inequitable balances in the pay and benefits matter for measuring government employment packages. All we can do is stiffen our jaws and patiently explain that the objective isn't to tear down the publicly backed segments of the middle class; it's to prevent financing that group from strangling the economy that ultimately must support it.

Issues on Suburban Minds: Regionalization and Arbitration

I know many of the right reform crowd in Rhode Island disagree with my general take on regionalization, but I'm relieved to see this, from Tuesday's Newport Daily News:

Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, and Rep. Deborah L. Ruggiero, D-Jamestown, met with members of the Town Council and School Committee before the regularly scheduled council meeting to discuss legislative issues. Both legislators said they would not support any regionalization of municipal functions unless the communities involved agreed to the consolidation. ...

Weed and Ruggiero both agreed that the impetus should come from cities and towns.

I'm even more relieved to see this:

When Weed asked school officials for a list of their legislative priorities, several members held up wrists bearing plastic handcuffs.

"No binding arbitration," Kaiser said, referring to legislation that would require binding arbitration for teachers. "This is not the time to handcuff school committees."

Council President Michael Schnack agreed. "There is no negotiating with binding arbitration," Schnack said. "You get a terrible contract and terrible results."

Weed said she did not think the idea had a lot of legislative support.

Of course, continual vigilance will be required. A lack of legislative support is not necessarily a good enough reason for legislation to fail.

When Union Leaders Head for a Cliff

Mark Patinkin tells an interesting anecdote in relation to the Central Falls teachers' firing:

I have been in a union for 30 years, and have come to feel that in standoffs with management, members often get into a collective self-righteousness that makes them vote against their individual good. ...

In the mid-'90s, I was reading a union publication that proudly featured a service being offered to striking journalists in Detroit. The service was a mobile food pantry in the back of a truck. It was visiting a picket line. There was a picture of newspaper people "shopping" for handout food in the pantry. They needed the service because they'd been out of work for a long time.

My reaction: Why is the union proud of this?

I'm not sure how Mark's union is or was structured, but in unions with national organizations behind them, once you get beyond the particular employer, striking doesn't affect the union leadership. Indeed, the disruption and realization of the threat contribute to their power.

C.F. Teachers Union: Two, Four, Six, Eight; When in Doubt, Litigate!

From yesterday's ProJo 7 to 7 News Blog.

The Central Falls Teachers' Union filed three unfair labor practice charges with the state Labor Relations Board Monday, its first move to appeal the mass firings of 93 teachers, support staff and administrators at the city's only high school.

And the basis for the charges?

Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, which represents Central Falls, said the local filed three charges against Central Falls school district: failure to negotiate; refusal to provide information to the union; and the terminations themselves.

This seems pretty easy to dispense with.

1. Central Falls did, in fact, negotiate with the union, earnestly and at length.

2. You can't negotiate without providing information.

3. Terminations are the natural conclusion to unsuccessful negotiations IF the ultimate goal - a good education, for example - is something more than perpetual employment at an ever rising price.

Who is ultimately to blame for these unsuccessful negotiations is a separate matter. By refusing to put this matter to a vote of its members, it is the C.F. teachers union which is to blame. That they failed to put it to a vote has turned out to be a bad mistake, one that the union hopes to correct with litigation. (Whoops, no, my mistake. Let us not forget that all of the union's actions, including the overwrought candlelight vigil, are - all together now - "for the chiii-hilll-dren".)

Management-Union Friendship and Money Seeking

Linda Borg's Sunday Projo article, "In Providence, more collaboration than conflict," weaves a tale of cooperation between the the city's schools superintendent and its teachers' union leadership:

Call it a tale of two cities.

While the superintendent and union president have been going at it in Central Falls, Brady and Smith have worked together on a plan to radically reshape five of the state's lowest-performing schools.

Her Saturday article, "Providence teachers face job uncertainty," gives some indication as to why. First of all, Providence has already effectively experienced the "turnaround model" that has Central Falls roiling:

Teachers, however, had to reapply for their jobs, and only 50 percent of the existing staff chose to do so. What made Hope High School successful was that, in the end, the teachers who stayed were committed to making radical changes, from moving to longer class periods to spending more time planning instruction.

Union President Steve Smith credits "the faculty" with initiating that idea, but whatever behind-the-scenes maneuvering there may have been, it was ultimately a difference in the union's behavior, not the district's plan. Further along in the same article, we find a clue that might explain the two sides' inclination to cooperate (emphasis added):

But for teachers to embrace dramatic change, they want the district — and the state — to give them the resources they need to get the job done, Smith said. He is bringing those concerns to School Supt. Tom Brady so that the School Department can push for federal monies to pay for additional support, whether it's creating alternative classrooms for disruptive students or remedial classes for students who are performing below grade level.

Let's take as given that the cooperation in Providence is desirable, whatever its motivation. We still should consider such evidence as the newly proposed funding formula. Providence has been underfunded, and no doubt stands to drink deeply from any pool of Race to the Top federal money that comes to the state. The Department of Education has determined that Central Falls, by contrast, is already receiving much more state money than is "fair."

In summary, the Providence union has already acquiesced to the sorts of changes that the Central Falls union is fighting, and education leaders on both sides of the negotiating table in Providence have reason to expect their good behavior to be rewarded mightily.

Rocky Waters in the Dem-Union Love Affair

I'd like to believe reports that big labor is in throes of disappointment with Obama and the Democrats:

Labor’s high hopes for major gains under President Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress have dimmed, raising fresh doubts about union leverage even in the best of political times.

I'd suggest that the "best of political times" is not likely to coincide with the worst of economic times, which has surely limited the Obama administration's ability to hand over the keys to the treasury. After all, the Democrats had to use much of the political capital they'd allocated for labor by preserving the jobs of public-sector union members under the deceptive guise of "stimulus."

I love this part, too:

Some labor experts say unions have come up flat in mounting an effective liberal response to conservative "tea party" activists who helped Republican Scott Brown win the special Senate election in Massachusetts to succeed Democrat Edward M. Kennedy, who died last year. An AFL-CIO poll showed that 49 percent of union households supported Brown.

"There’s been no indication that there’s muscle behind their money," said Leon Fink, a labor historian at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "There was no equivalent mobilization for public works or for a progressive health care measure."

Not to give anything away to the opposition, but the tea parties' success manifestly isn't a story of superior organization and "activism," as generally understood. The unions' problem on this count may be observed a layer below the surface of the above paragraphs: The unions are trying to mount a "liberal" response when many of their members have different ideological tendencies outside the direct application to their careers.

Rhode Island Statewide Coalition Winter Meeting Table of Contents

Anchor Rising's complete coverage of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition's winter meeting:

• My on-the-scene liveblog
• Video: RISC Chairman Harry Staley's opening remarks
• Video: 630AM/99.7FM Host John DePetro
• Video: Central Falls Superintendent Frances Gallo
• Video: RISC President James Beale and Business Network Organizer Jeff Deckman
• Video: Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri
• Video: Board of Regents Member Angus Davis

630AM/99.7FM Host John DePetro at RISC's Winter Meeting

John DePetro took on the role of first featured speaker at the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition's 2010 winter meeting, described in my liveblog of the event. (More video in the extended entry.)

Continue reading "630AM/99.7FM Host John DePetro at RISC's Winter Meeting"

Board of Regents Member Angus Davis at RISC's Winter Meeting

NOTE: Any members of the media who couldn't make it to the meeting and rely on this video for future reports are encouraged to do so, but a brief note of the video's source would be appreciated.

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Rhode Island Board of Regents member Angus Davis came out with guns blazing in a surprise speech at the Winter meeting of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, as described in my liveblog of the event. (More video in the extended entry.)

Davis was especially animated when discussing an email from gubernatorial candidate Linc Chafee at the beginning of this clip.

Yesterday, I received an email from Senator Chafee. In this email, Senator Chafee asked for clarification on whether or not teachers had really been offered 100% job security, describing it as, quote, the basic question that must be settled, unquote. He said he does not want to, quote, inherit the labor mess, unquote, as he works to build a more prosperous Rhode Island as governor.

What kind of leadership thinks the basic question about a school in which only half of children graduate and 90% can't do basic math — what kind of leadership thinks that the basic question involves job security for its adults rather than the educational outcomes for its children?

Continue reading "Board of Regents Member Angus Davis at RISC's Winter Meeting"

Central Falls Superintendent Frances Gallo at RISC's Winter Meeting

NOTE: Any members of the media who couldn't make it to the meeting and rely on this video for future reports are encouraged to do so, but a brief note of the video's source would be appreciated.

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Herewith, the video of the speech given by Central Falls Superintendent Frances Gallo at the Winter meeting of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, as described in my liveblog of the event. (More video in the extended entry.)

Although the entire speech is notable as the most comprehensive statement of Supt. Gallo's position that I've seen (and I don't claim to have searched high and low), the beginning of this segment may be a new news item:

I'll answer now, although I was never asked by anyone: No. We can't mediate now. I'll say it clearly, and I mean no offense to anyone, but those ads continue. What kind of an effort at true desire for change when you keep those ads.

Continue reading "Central Falls Superintendent Frances Gallo at RISC's Winter Meeting"

Yeah, We Have No Idea

Here's another instance of the disconnect of the labor unions:

"We think it’s an outrage," Jane Sessums, president of the Central Falls Teachers Union, said, as hundreds of union supporters from across the state began flowing into Jenks Park. "Our members are feeling awful, devastated. How would you feel, being terminated?"

One gets the impression that, on some level, they don't believe that anybody ever gets laid off anywhere. Some construction companies in the Newport area have laid off almost as many employees as work in Central Falls. The worst part is that the teachers could have avoided the whole thing if the unions weren't so intent on standing their ground in hopes of averting a statewide conflagration of concessions and reform.

Not Much of an Education Story

We're in sad circumstances when this hardly seems like much of a story at all:

The [Cranston] School Committee Tuesday approved a nearly $123.6-million budget that eliminates high school teams, the enrichment program [aka, honors programs], the elementary school strings, band and choral program, and lays off about 16 employees.

The teams cut are: freshman baseball, basketball and football; girls junior varsity field hockey; golf (coed); tennis (boys and girls); and indoor track (boys and girls).

Rhode Island students are being palpably harmed because adults lack the imagination and political will to beat back other adults' greed. Which brings us to Pat Crowley testifying before the RI House Finance Committee:

The education cuts would apply immediate pressure on municipalities to raise property taxes, cut staff or reduce student programs, according to Patrick Crowley, assistant executive director for the National Education Association of Rhode Island.

What's missing from Crowley's list is something that officials fear to make a public point about: reductions in remuneration. The reason is that it's the obvious necessity. They behave as if negotiations and concessions are some mysterious bending of reality that happens when officials and union leaders get together for verbal fencing behind closed doors. They're wrong, and they should fear (as I do) that continuing failure to step forward into the light and declare the game over will result in voters' demanding a Central Falls in every town.

Jobs Americans Won't Take?

This little blurb stuck out as I sifted through the newspaper, the other day. Why should this be so:

Despite high unemployment in Connecticut, Census jobs are going begging.

The Hartford office of the U.S. Census Bureau is struggling to fill between 1,000 and 1,500 temporary jobs that pay $15 to $22.75 an hour.

More than 4,200 have applied for the jobs, but the census office needs to recruit more by April 27 because most will drop out or never show up for the jobs.

Are people becoming used to idleness and dependency, or is something else going on here?

From the Garden to the Ocean

One must suspect that Ed Achorn is link-seeking when his column addresses both state-government dependents and the state of my youth, New Jersey:

Ultimately, while the public-employee unions and other government-fed special interests keep fattening up, the middle class suffers from a loss of jobs and opportunity, and the poor suffer from a loss of charitable dollars. The quality of life goes down, as money to pay for vital government services disappears, leaving a state with poor roads and bridges, aging school textbooks, leaking roofs and canceled sports programs, while the politically connected demand the same plush benefits they have long received.

In the comments to my Sakonnet Times letter, a teacher is claiming that he can't possibly survive with a 5% cut. The disconnect from what the rest of us have been experiencing is palpable. There's just not much more my family can cut from its budget, and nothing more we can trim and still justify living in a state that won't recover from its economic slump for years to come.

We have to turn things around quickly, in Rhode Island, because the downward spiral is self-propelling; the faster it goes, the faster people will leave, and the faster it will go. It isn't a matter of whether public-sector employees can afford a cut. If current trends continue, the cities and towns and the state will find it more difficult to pay them every year.

Politics & Pupils

Monique and Matt talked Central Falls and Chafee on last night's Matt Allen Show. Stream by clicking here, or download it.

The Cause of the Firings

Every working Rhode Islander, and all of those looking for work, can see the disconnection of Central Falls union rhetoric:

"We still hold that this termination of the entire faculty is a violation of the contract and contrary to state law and federal law as well," [teachers union President Jane] Sessums said. "This is a termination of the entire faculty without cause, we believe."

You want cause?

• Only 4% of students proficient in math in 2008-2009, up from 3% the year before, with 75% "substantially below proficient."
• Only 45% proficient in reading.
• Only 29% proficient in writing.
• Only 17% proficient in science.
• A 48% graduation rate.
• A 50% failure rate for the current school year.

As a body — and it is the teachers' decision to be handled as a collective union — the teachers are failing. Every year, every day, students are deprived of a successful educational experience. That must change, and since the union's been blocking the avenue for change that doesn't entail a mass firing, a drastic step must be taken.

The Same Old Local Political Roundabout

As circumstances deteriorate, it's instructive to observe the varying reactions and strategies for handling them. In Tiverton, the established order, so to speak, has redoubled its efforts to keep the negative focus on Tiverton Citizens for Change in the hopes that people won't notice that the plans for improvement bear a striking resemblance to the plans that got the town into its current mess. I've got a letter pointing out the 'round-and-'round nature of the debate:

On January 27, 2009, the school committee approved a largely retroactive contract for teachers that ate up about $300,000 of that year’s budget, added approximately $150,000 to the current year’s, and is contributing more than that to the $600,000-plus increase in salaries and benefits budgeted for the next fiscal year. At a November 2008 meeting, Ms. Pallasch argued for approval, saying, “Let's start working on the new one, and give ourselves a little bit of room to refocus on the classroom and away from the adults.” The argument was that we should resolve the running dispute while there was still time to negotiate the subsequent contract amicably.

At the time, I spoke up to predict that the union would not negotiate. Rather, it would wait out the recession based on the obvious reasoning that it could avoid concessions during hard economic times and — as we’ve taught its members to expect — receive retroactive raises when times improved. I also handed out a chart showing that there had been no abatement of the increases in teacher salaries and benefits in the past decade. Indeed, the per-pupil dollar amount had gone up more (54%) than the same number for the state as a whole (40%). Over the same period, the chart showed that most other expenditures had hardly moved.

Well, negotiations did not resume with an amicable tone. Indeed, in August, the union pointed out a clause in the contract extending it for another year. The school committee had somehow missed the trick that it was supposed to notify the union of its intention to negotiate the next contract a full month before the previous one was actually approved. Changes in healthcare copayments for which the committee had budgeted went out the window. So did negotiations.

And the usual suspects are back, making all of the union's arguments for it in advance of the debate. Wealthy people wanting to increase taxes rather than stand firm with the organized labor behemoth that has soaked up a growing portion of our educational and municipal funds.

The system is broken. Revving it up for another season is not the solution.

"Rally For Fairness" - Solidarity to Descend on Central Falls

[This fascinating e-mail was forwarded to me tonight. It has presumably been circulated to all members of NEARI.]

As you are aware, Commissioner of Education Gist and Superintendent Gallo of the Central Falls School District are set to fire all 74 of the district's high school teachers tomorrow. In one of the most blatant acts of anti-unionism in decades, the leadership of the district has decided, instead of providing the resources necessary for a quality education, to point fingers and blame teachers for the administration's lack of appropriate action. Join with teachers, parents, students, union members and concerned individuals at a rally tomorrow to support the Central Falls teachers.

The Rally for Fairness is tomorrow, Tuesday, February 23, 5 PM, at Jenks Park on Broad Street in Central Falls. It is time your voice is heard in the struggle to protect collective bargaining and ensure every student has the resources available to succeed. The district is moving forward with this inappropriate and illegal action even though, following teacher evaluations over the past two years, not one was put on corrective action. It is moving forward without following due process, engaging in nothing more than a union busting tactic.

For more information go to www.CentralFallsKidsDeserveBetter.com. There you can sign a petition in support of the teachers and learn more about the schools in our state's smallest community. You can also stay updated by following Central Falls High on Twitter and checkingthe NEARI website, www.neari.org, tomorrow for the latest on the rally and directions. We encourage you to follow NEARI on Facebook and President Larry Purtill on Twitter for this and other valuable information.

Your local president has been invited to a meeting at NEARI this Thursday, February 25, with Commissioner Gist. It is an opportunity for him/her to ask questions and raise concerns about the events taking place in Central Falls and Rhode Island's Race to the Top application. You can also see your local president, if you have not already done so, to lend your name to those of your colleagues who are concerned about the content and process involved in submitting the application. Concerns over the lack of collaboration in writing the grant, the use of test scores to make up 51% of a teacher's evaluation, automatic termination after two ineffective years of evaluation, elimination of the I Plan and certification tied directly to evaluation, and the drive to make one out of every five schools in Rhode Island a charter or mayoral academy are just a few of the issues in the grant application.

It is up to you to speak out against these hasty political changes that will not improve student performance. NEARI supports highly effective teachers in every classroom, a strong evaluation system, and appropriate professional development. What we don't want to see are teachers and staff blamed for a lack of resources and a weak political will to do what is right. Join with your colleagues so you do not become the next Central Falls, East Providence or Glocester.

Toward More Christian Unions

My February column for The Rhode Island Catholic takes up the subject of the Church's support for labor unions:

Catholic theology enters the political mix with the holding that God works through the individual conscience. What organized labor does, in the ideal, is to combine the power of individuals to construct a stronger, more substantive assertion of human conscience. In the workplace, the purpose is to counterbalance the economic power of business leaders or the political power of government officials.

The problem is that these sources of power are not parallel. A company gains influence by increasing the importance of its products and services to the market. The source of a business's power is therefore manipulable as a means to an end and constrained by regulation, competition, and employee morale. The source of a government's power is the entire society, and we rightly constrain its actions through civic structure. The parallel dynamic and constraints for unions are complicated by the doctrine that people — union members — must always be ends in themselves, with inviolable rights to pursue their own interests. And it's a much more comfortable (and remunerative) project to extort money from local communities than to fight foreign tyrannies on behalf of a distant workforce.

The Unions Cannot Survive a Perpetually Down Economy

The thing that most irks me about unions in general and public-sector unions in particular is their way of obscuring natural alliances for the benefit not of their members, but of their organizers and political allies. Now, I can't speak to the in-fights that union discipline may be keeping out of public view (although I suspect many union readers just chuckled at the notion of such organization), but the workers should realize and begin reacting — soon — to the dire straits into which their leaders are steering them.

Consider this ho-hum article about inadequate funding for public-sector unions in Rhode Island:

The study shows that Rhode Island has no reserves for state employees' retirement benefits and handles them on a pay-as-you-go basis. ...

Karpinski, who oversees the state's pension plans but not other retiree benefits such as health insurance, said that due to some pension reform measures and full annual payments to the plans, the state system is on the road to recovery. But, he stressed, the key question is, can it keep the momentum given the tough financial times the state is facing?

As Rhode Island government and political structures are currently compiled, state workers must begin to consider the possibility that their pensions will evaporate entirely. There are no reserves, and "catching up" requires an economic recovery that nobody sees on the horizon — nobody, that is, who hasn't been seeing one on every horizon for the past two years. If the state responds per its habits and attempts to squeeze more revenue out of residents and businesses, they will leave, and leave the state worse off for it.

The only long-term hope for the unions is to become free-market advocates extraordinaire, with a little bit of faith in the winds of economic freedom. Rather than sticking by the tried-and-doomed alliances that have left them trying to subsist off a rotting economic carcass, they must realize that, when times are flush, nobody cares much about their greatly remunerative deals. Lower taxes. Eliminate mandates. Erase regulations.

Private citizens are only loosely tied to the state. Union members are lashed to it with career investments and retirement plans. They need the economy to take off. The reason for optimism is that Rhode Island is such a naturally attractive place to live and do business that throwing of the unnecessary governmental weights will make recovery light work. The reason for pessimism is that union culture leaves labor leaders' way of doing business as secure as, well, as secure as established politicians in Rhode Island.

Learning to Hear the Union

Mike at Assigned Reading is dead on that the Newsmakers head-to-head between Central Falls union representative Jim Parisi and Superintendent Frances Gallo is very revealing about the two sides' priorities. Perhaps the most crystallized example of unions' determination to spin rather than inform — because everything's "negotiable" — comes at approximately 9: in the video:

Asked about the extra tasks that the administration is requesting from teachers, Parisi says:

What people aren't informed of is that Central Falls teachers already have more common planning time and professional time than any other public school district in the state, because we were a willing partner to make that happen. How come the union and its teachers don't get the credit for something like that?

Sounds like a reasonable statement, no? The teachers are already working hard, compromising, so that they can accomplish as much as possible for their students. Well, the spin unravels when Gallo explains:

That time is taken out of the school day — out of the instructional school day. We're trying to add the time to the after school time so that the instructional day remains such. We actually have an instructional day of just over four hours.

In other words, that state-leading planning and sit-down time was negotiated as time away from the most difficult part of the job: interacting with the students. A union will brag about helping its clients to lower their blood pressure — leaving out, of course, that it does so with a knife.

Trading Schools for Raises

The Newport Daily News isn't very friendly about putting information online, so I don't have a link to the story, but I read this weekend that the Tiverton School Committee is floating the idea of closing the town's high school. In hopes of saving $450,000, as I recall, the town would either send its students elsewhere or bring in a charter school company to run things.

Meanwhile, in West Warwick, closure of an elementary school is expected to save $750,000, with the students dispersed to other schools and fifth graders heading to middle school. A reader emails:

So you are looking at placing 10 and 11 yr olds with potentially 15 y/o kids in the middle school. It gets even worse, its one thing to save the $750,000 but to then budget $900,000 in Teacher Step raises is mind boggling. Closing a school to fund Teacher raises, West Warwick is currently in the top 5 in salaries, with the top step at approx. 79,000 and health care contributions this year at 10% and next yr at 15%.

Here in Tiverton, the proposed increase in salaries, for next year, is $535,954. In other words, multiple Rhode Island communities are toying with the idea disrupting the lives of the students for whom they have responsibility in order to fund pay increases for well-remunerated public-sector workers in the middle of a painful recession and the economic collapse of the state. As if to add insult to injury, evidence of the quality of education in the state continues to be negative, such as this from the Providence Business News:

According to the College Board, 1,766 students in Rhode Island's class of 2009, or 17.3 percent of the class, took at least one A.P. exam during high school, compared with 26.5 percent nationwide. That was up from the 1,555 students in the class of 2008 who took an A.P. test and 1,112 in the class of 2004. ...

The organization said 10.7 percent of last year's class — or 62 percent of A.P. test-takers — earned a passing score of 3, 4 or 5. That was up from the 9.5 percent who passed at least one the prior year, but lower than the 15.9 percent of students who did so nationwide.

If we're to resist the urge to let emotion run away with us, we must admit the probability that some of the school closure talk is little more than a ploy to rile the public to accept tax increases and shame the teachers' unions into accepting concessions. Even so, the current dynamic is unacceptable: that the anxieties of residents are being manipulated in an attempt to achieve the obvious and reasonable step of holding salaries flat, or even trimming them a little, for professionals who, as a group, are failing their students.

The Union Chooses Firings

Anybody who's surprised that the teachers' union in Central Falls has chosen to stare down mass firings and do battle rather than submit to some eminently reasonable additional responsibilities should think through the future scenarios of the game.

With administrators now standing firm on key planks that were previously popular political catch phrases, the unions are going to challenge authority way up to the top — to Education Commissioner Deborah Gist and beyond. Their secondary strategy will be to delay significant changes until they have an opportunity to change the players. They've lost no ground in the General Assembly, either in recent elections or in the selection of the new speaker of the house, and they've an opportunity to affect the governor's office, this year, which means access to the Board of Regents, from which the commissioner ultimately derives her authority.

If the unions can delay the mass firings, through friendly labor review authorities and the courts, for even just one year, they'll have time to re-rig the game entirely in their favor. If they lose on questions of authority, they'll use their political clout to turn the top-down model to their favor. In other words, when voters, school committees, and district administrators seek localized, bottom-up reforms, the newly enhanced authority of the state and the education commissioner will be used to squelch the movements before they can begin.

Consider the thoughts of the only Central Falls teacher whom I've seen offer public comment outside of the union channel:

Sheila Lawless-Burke, an English-as-a-Second Language teacher, said teachers are not opposed to working harder — or longer; they simply want the opportunity to negotiate the details of their contract, not have it imposed from above.

"It's all about the politics," she said, "about making Fran Gallo look good. The issue is having the right to negotiate. Once we allow the superintendent to get her foot in the door, where will it stop?"

Even under circumstances of dire failure, the unionists want to assert their rights to drive up costs and usurp management authority. What Lawless-Burke ignores is that politics is the game of figuring out "where it will stop" when differences of opinion negate a hard rule. It will stop when the public decides that the superintendent has exceeded her mandate. That's how politics work.

It's also the reason that local administrations and the state education bureaucracy should devote some of their attention to fostering community-level involvement of additional players. I mean not only extending some budgetary authority for the schools to town councils and mayors, but also opening channels of communication and cooperation from taxpayer groups and the like.

The top-down reforms, in other words, require a complementary bottom-up foundation, not only to solidify local support from the folks who ultimately pay the bills, but also to rope in stakeholders who will cry out when the unions attempt to manipulate the game at the top. The unions may succeed in reversing Commissioner Gist's reform efforts such that the options offered to failing districts all entail additional benefits for union members, but they'll find it much more difficult to silence constituencies who've been allowed into the decision-making process.

Hurting a Dedicated Constituency

In an article about the ways in which Democrats' preferred policies hurt black Americans, Kevin Williamson emphasizes union racism and especially the minimum wage:

THE first answer many economists will give to that question is: the minimum wage. Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate who spent much of his career showing how government programs reliably end up hurting those they are intended to help, was scathing on the subject, calling the minimum wage "one of the most, if not the most, anti-black laws on the statute books." And he's not alone: Acongressional survey of economic research on the subject, "50 Years of Research on the Minimum Wage," has a string of conclusion lines that read like an indictment, the first three counts being: "The minimum wage reduces employment. The minimum wage reduces employment more among teenagers than adults. The minimum wage reduces employment most among black teenage males." Other items on the bill: "The minimum wage hurts small businesses generally. The minimum wage causes employers to cut back on training. The minimum wage has long-term effects on skills and lifetime earnings. The minimum wage hurts the poor generally. The minimum wage helps upper-income families. The minimum wage helps unions." Helping the affluent and high-wage union workers at the expense of the young, the poor, the unskilled, and small businesses: That amounts to a lot of different kinds of injustice, and it also amounts to a wealth transfer from blacks to whites. ...

And it's not just that the minimum wage prices some low-productivity workers out of the labor market: It's that it prevents entry into the labor market in the first place for the most marginal would-be workers. If Will the candy hustler's real economic output is worth $6.67 an hour, his implied wage on the subway, he's unemployable with a $7.25 minimum wage. He can sell candy on the subway, but he can't sell candy for Big Candy Corp., make connections, learn what it's like to go to an office every day and have a boss, get references, get promoted, and sign up for the tuition-reimbursement program. And that, not the paltry lost income of a minimum-wage job, is the price he pays. Very few American workers actually earn the minimum wage--about 1 percent, in fact--but the minimum-wage job is a gateway into the labor force for many young workers. The value of your first job isn't the money you earn from it: It's your second job, and your third. With the right experience and network, a candyman like Will can do well for himself. But without that first job, he has a much higher chance of becoming a statistical blip on the long-term unemployment charts than a middle manager at Hershey or a salesman at Cadbury.

Perhaps for reasons of length, Williamson doesn't even touch on the deleterious effects of liberal social programs (from the welfare state to easy divorce to abortion on demand) and extra-statutory principles (like identity politics) that have destroyed family structures in minority communities. If the Ku Klux Klan had called grand meeting in the middle of the last century to contrive a national conspiracy that would effect long-term evisceration of blacks' progress, the bigots could hardly have done so more effectively than the American Left.

A Clash of Realities in Central Falls

You'd think some higher-up planner in the teachers' union would begin advising members that it's time to back off for a while for the purpose of public-impression rehabilitation. Apart from the wholly inappropriate imagery of using a candle-light vigil for a union action, the particulars of the circumstances in Central Falls are absolutely certain to elicit a response of "are you kidding me" from any Rhode Islander not in the thrall (or payroll) of the union.

First there's the performance of the high school (news report and Dept. of Ed. PDF):

• Only 4% of students proficient in math in 2008-2009, up from 3% the year before, with 75% "substantially below proficient."
• Only 45% proficient in reading.
• Only 29% proficient in writing.
• Only 17% proficient in science.
• A 48% graduation rate.
• A 50% failure rate for the current school year.

Then there are the salaries:

The average teacher's salary at the high school ranges between $72,000 and $78,000 a year, because most are at the district's top step, Gallo said.

That's without incorporating benefits and all of the other perks of being a public school teacher. Then there are the demands for doing what any professional should be expected to do when collectively performing so abysmally:

Gallo said she offered to pay teachers $30 an hour for two additional weeks of training in the summer. Gallo also said she would try to find grant money to pay teachers for 90 minutes a week of after-school planning time, also at $30 an hour.

But she says she has no extra money to pay for other changes she is pushing for, including lengthening the instructional day by 25 minutes, so teachers work 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. instead of 7:50 a.m. to 2:25 p.m. She wants teachers to formalize a rotating tutoring schedule, so a teacher is available to help students for an hour before or after school, and she wants teachers to have lunch with students one day a week.

"Right now, they have no duties," Gallo said. "But I don't want them to see lunch as a duty. I want them to establish true relationships with not a few students, but all students." ...

Union officials have been pushing for $90 per hour and want the district to pay for more of the additional responsibilities.

Then there is the transparent mealy-mouthedness from the union, with this on the one hand:

James Parisi, a field representative of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Allied Health Professionals, said that Gallo had asked teachers to work a longer school day, attend after-school training and set aside two weeks in the summer for professional development. Parisi said the union balked because the district wasn't willing to pay teachers enough for the additional time and work.

And this on the other:

"We've been supportive of the transformational model, we think it's the right path," [Central Falls Teachers' Union President Jane] Sessums said. "But we need more details. We've never been opposed to the additional time that is needed. Our concern is that we really get an opportunity to understand what is necessary."

It's time for those teachers who've retained a modicum of professional integrity to step forward and tell the union to back off. They've a responsibility to improve the school in which they work without proclaiming that poor performance should justify even more reward.

Contrasting Candlelight Vigils

On Tuesday, a candlelight vigil was held for the five people killed in a fire over the weekend.

Also on Tuesday, the Central Falls teachers union held a candlelight vigil because they had received layoff notices.

Projo.com actually had a picture and story about each vigil on the front page last night which accented the comparison.

Let's assume for a moment the worst motives on the part of the superintendent: she laid all teachers off on a whim, not because the district has been chronically low performing. (John Depetro just pointed out that 50% of students in the Central Falls system are failing.)

Even under the hypothesized circumstance of a completely baseless layoff, isn't a candlelight vigil overly dramatic and inappropriate? Don't such vigils usually pertain to more profound matters of death, war or a violent crime spree?

Even FDR Was Wary of Public Employee Unions

This article by Rich Lowry and this piece in the Wall Street Journal both alluded to Franklin Roosevelt's wariness towards public employee unions. I was surprised. So I dug around and found one source that supports this claim. In a letter to a public employee union, Roosevelt explains that, yes, they do have a right to organize, but there are some restrictions:

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

Well, that hasn't really come to pass now, has it?

Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that "under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government."

Interesting that he viewed strikes by Federal employees in such a way.

Ahh, the Transparency of the Campaign Finance Reform Inspired 527 Schemes

We've heard the caterwauling in reaction to the recent Supreme Court ruling regarding corporate political donations. But, whether you like the idea of big business giving directly to political candidates or not, you have to admit that at least it's a relatively transparent process. A simple check of any number of sources will readily reveal who gave how much to whom. The same cannot be said of other organizations--particularly 527's. Here's a good example of the shenanigan's that go on (emphasis is mine):

Continue reading "Ahh, the Transparency of the Campaign Finance Reform Inspired 527 Schemes"

Post-Contract Expectations Make All the Difference

Megan McArdle highlights an important distinction between union and individual employment contracts:

Obviously, people who are not in unions write employment contracts, which are similarly hard to write. But non-union employment contracts operate in an environment where both sides often hope to continue the relationship beyond the initial term. This offers quite a bit of good-faith flexibility, because people who are too rigid about the exact letter of their contracts are apt to find that their contract isn't renewed. Even in contracts with a very definite term, there are reputational considerations. That's just not how unions operate, because the union can't be fired by the employer. When the contract expires, you're going to negotiate another contract. The result is that people in non-union employment contracts can tolerate quite a bit more ambiguity on both sides than people in a collective bargaining situation.

That's the dynamic that the school committees and town councils of Rhode Island must address. If intransigence from the unions may result in reconfigured hiring policies or a more stringent baseline for the next contract, they'll be more apt to be reasonable — and their members will be less inclined to such practices as work-to-rule.

State Exceptions to Unemployment

Owing to some legislation put forward by union-friendly state Senator John Tassoni (D, Smithfield, North Smithfield), I've been poking around state law related to unemployment insurance. Tassoni's bill would remove the word "private" from the following paragraph related to the state's workshare program:

"Eligible employer" means any private employer who has had contributions credited to his or her account and benefits have been chargeable to this account, and who is not delinquent in the payment of contributions or reimbursements, as required by chapters 42 – 44 of this title.

The obvious question is why public employers wouldn't be eligible for this program in the first place, and I can't say that my digging has led me to an answer. It has, however, unearthed a peculiar exemption. Government employers don't have to make regular contributions to the unemployment trust fund and can instead reimburse the fund for benefits paid to laid-off employees. Why should that be allowed?

My understanding is that employer payments into the fund are invested (assuming a positive balance) and are not reimbursable upon the closing of the business. When a particular employer lays off workers, its payment rate goes up (in the same way that auto insurance goes up after an accident or ticket), and when the fund is low, employers have to pay more in order to build it back up. Public-sector employers that make pay-as-you-go reimbursements to cover executed benefits do not contribute to the body of money that earns investment returns, and since they don't make regular payments, they would not pay more no matter how many employees they lay off or how low the fund might be.

This doesn't appear to be relevant to Tassoni's bill, however, because it would still only apply to an employer that has "contributions credited to his or her account." The new question is therefore what proportion of public employers make contributions, and the previous question about the reason for their initial exclusion from the workshare program remains.

Of course, the issue of more general concern is why the state's largest employer — i.e., the state and its subsidiaries — wouldn't have to participate in a program that is ostensibly set up to spread employment risk.

Making the Trial Their Expense

Chris Powell offers it in a different context, but his idea would be a brilliant defense against the ever-looming sledgehammer of litigation threats in contract disputes:

The boards that have capitulated to the lawsuit threat say it is all a matter of avoiding litigation expense. But if a board really believes that First Cathedral is so preferable as a graduation site and that the religious objection is so contrived, it could stand its ground without incurring much expense at all. For a board would not have to prove its case in court; the plaintiffs would have to prove theirs. A board could put up as elaborate a defense as it wanted, or none at all. The plaintiffs almost certainly would call school officials as witnesses anyway, and so without special expense they would have a chance to tell the court how they saw things. Maybe volunteer counsel could be found for the board. Damages seem unlikely. It’s an issue likely to come up again elsewhere, so it may be worth adjudicating.

In any event, a school board that capitulates only to avoid the expense of litigation here is advertising wimpiness, advertising that it does not have the courage of its convictions and thus inviting a lot more litigation over grievances far less serious than this one.

If it gets to the point of being a choice between capitulation and lawsuits during negotiations, seek volunteer lawyers (perhaps from a local taxpayer group) to offer the minimal defense that would procure a ruling. That way, unions bear costs and face risks when filing suits, and the elected officials do not. (Well, of course there's always some risk, considering that judges can do just about anything, these days.)

Formulas, Formulas....funding, weighing and otherwise

I was surprised to learn that Warwick is alone in "weighing" its students based on whether or not they have an IEP (Individual Education Plan). It goes like this: kid with normal educational needs = 1; kid with IEP = 1.5 (and sometimes 2). So, as the Warwick Beacon reported last week, "there are 10,482 students enrolled in Warwick schools. Or are there 11,582 students?" Obviously, with a cap on class size of 28, this can affect how many teachers can be hired. To use an extreme example, If there are 28 IEPs, that really means there are 56 kids, and thus two teachers are required.

[T]he school administration is looking at all ways it can save. Increasing class sizes by eliminating weighting isn’t likely to occur until after the teacher contract expires in August of 2012, if then. Nonetheless, the weighting system that is unique to Warwick is being considered. It’s not the first time.

For as long as school human recourses and counsel Rosemary Healey can remember, elimination of weighing has been on the list of School Committee demands at the opening of contract negotiations. That demand has always been dropped for some other concession.

She said the weighing system was introduced in the 1980s and has been a part of the teachers contract ever since.

How expensive is it?

No one has figured out the precise cost of weighting students, but it is estimated to have resulted in the hiring of an additional 110 teachers. Each teacher is estimated to cost the department $100,000 based on salary and benefits. That’s an annual cost of $11 million.

According to Richard D’Agostino of the Warwick School Department, 20% of Warwick students have IEPs. And that's down a few percentage points since Warwick instituted a more comprehensive screening process! I don't doubt that there are legitimate benefits to IEPs for those who truly need them, but I don't like the way this emotionally-loaded "bargaining chip" is being played.

Teachers Union President Jim Ginolfi likewise acknowledges the prevision may be unique to Warwick, but also in part credits it for making the system outstanding.

“I think Warwick is in the forefront. Warwick has always been in the forefront with special education students”, he said. Elimination of weighting would not correlate into a reduction of costs since the district would still be obligated to meet the requirements of those students with an IEP, says Ginolfi.

“They’re going to need more time to devote to those students”, he reasons....Ginolfi argues that there is flexibility with weighing.

He observes the district has options. It can put all special education students in a single class; it can move IEP students into resource classrooms for special instruction, and it can introduce special education teachers into classrooms where there is a mix of IEP and regular students.

Until they enter negotiations Ginolfi can’t say whether weighing is one of those issues the union would hold out for. As for trimming costs, Ginolfi offered no suggestions.

“Education is expensive”, he said, “and that is why we need a (funding) formula at the state level.”

Ginolfi's "options" are calculated to be unappealing to parents of kids with IEP's, who (understandably) won't be happy about what sounds like "warehousing." But that will all have to wait, because the real unionist solution boils down to: "Sorry, can't help ya...let's wait for contract negotiations or a funding formula."

A Refresher on Teacher Salaries

Pat Crowley's in the comment section slinging mud at my numbers. For consistency's sake, here's the relevant chart for the state as a whole:

Crowley's claim is that the increases in teachers' salaries are not keeping up with inflation. One could argue the relevance of that fact on the grounds that everything else must therefore really not be keeping up with inflation. One could argue the relevance of that fact, I should say, if it were a fact. There are two ways in which Crowley likes to make the inflation claim deceptively. The first, less applicable here, is to look at the category of "instruction" and draw his inflation numbers from that.

When he tried this trick back in 2007, I explained that, while the "instruction expenditures" category increased 19.8% from 2000 to 2006, in comparison with 19.9% inflation, teasing out teacher pay showed their salaries increasing 28.1%. Last year, I put the point in graphical form:

Another method that Crowley employs, that is probably more relevant in the current context, is to lump all teachers together to hide the continual increases in all of their salaries. I've looked at this, too, and the trick is that Rhode Island has been on a teacher-hiring spree:

Obviously, hiring young teachers will bring down the average salary. Indeed, the more teachers we hire, the more it appears that their pay isn't going up:

Of course, the system must then deal with this mass of teachers as they progress through their sometimes double-digit salary increases, what with cost-of-living adjustments and steps combined. Brace yourselves, Rhode Island; salaries and benefits are going to be absorbing much more of the budgets for your students' schools, and the odds that the very same teachers will be able to turn around their abysmal results with even fewer resources are slim to none.

The Usual Ommission from School Budget Fights

Anchor Rising readers shouldn't have any trouble guessing (let alone discerning) what's missing from this report out of Cranston:

Wednesday night, on what was the first chance for the public to speak on the proposed budget, students, coaches and parents flocked to Cranston West's auditorium, where the School Committee budget hearing was moved to accommodate the expected crowd.

Many donned team jerseys (revealing a clear home-team advantage) and defended the value of sports and the added push that rivalry brings.

"Don't expect us to give up without fighting for what we have worked so hard to build up," Deanna Archetto, a senior who swims for Cranston West, told the School Committee.

"There have to be other options that don't involve chopping from the bottom," she said.

The $1.1-million in proposed cuts — which include the elementary school enrichment program along with strings, band and chorus, following the recommendations of a court-ordered performance audit — follow the state Supreme Court ruling last month that found the district ignored the financial reality, continued to overspend its budget and then sued the city for additional money.

For readers who may be new to the site, I offer this clue:

At a time when the executive director of the National Education Association of Rhode Island is playing games with an application for nine-figures of federal assistance so as to keep his union's members above accountability,* residents who wish to protest cuts to sports and other services should target their ire where it belongs.

* Which is not to say that I support the continued federal takeover of our educational system. I'm merely pointing to the clear priorities of the teachers' union.

Bankrupted for Solidarity

Ted Nesi reports:

The increase in the share of all Rhode Island workers belonging to a union posted an even more dramatic increase, jumping to 17.9 percent. ...

In New England, no state had a larger share of workers in a union than Rhode Island. It was followed by Connecticut (17.3 percent), Massachusetts (16.6 percent), Vermont (12.3 percent), Maine (11.7 percent) and New Hampshire (10.8 percent).

The Labor Department also reported that the median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers were $908 for union members last year, compared with $710 for employees not represented by a union.

Given that a majority of union workers are now employed by government, the declining pool of non-union workers is increasingly having to fund the livelihoods of their better-paid neighbors. Moreover, with unions by definition highly organized, where public policy is apt to lean in their favor, in opposition to the private sector, especially within the public sphere, where market forces apply only weakly.

Unspinning the Union

Capers Jones responds in an edition of the RISCy Business newsletter to the pension-related spin of Patrick Crowley, of the National Education Association, Rhode Island. After citing a number of statistics related to public-sector employees and education with which all Rhode Islanders should be passingly familiar, Jones writes:

These statistics show that government pensions have been impacted by the rapid increase in government employees compounded with the rapid increase in government salaries and benefits. This information indicates that it is time to do a serious analysis of how many government workers are actually needed to run our towns, schools, and the state itself.

For more than 30 years Rhode Island has experienced meteoric increases in government and educational employment compounded by much higher salary increases than private business. Now these two compound issues are coming together in massive and unsustainable pensions. Nationally, unfunded government pensions are approaching a trillion dollars and may trigger the fiscal collapse of more than half of the states.

The sooner those whom Crowley ostensibly represents realize that collapse of their system and of the local economy is the only likely outcome of a failure to reform, the better it will be for everybody.

A Local War Against Reality

In keeping with the War on Reality theme, our state's most egregious propagandist has been striving to insert another grain of sand into the minds of Rhode Islanders who don't like to think too hard:

The key feature of the pension system is that the bulk of the funding comes not from the taxpayers but from the workers themselves and the investment decisions made by the pension fund. This is why for every one dollar spent by the taxpayers on the public retirement fund there is $4.56 generated in economic activity — money that is spent in local economies and in local businesses. A return on investment like this is something the state should celebrate, not denigrate.

Luckily, even the General Assembly is not wholly amenable to Patrick Crowley's charade:

"That dollar comes from someone," [Rep. Laurence] Ehrhardt [R, North Kingstown] said. "Doesn't it then have the same effect on the other end?"

"No, it doesn't" Crowley responded.

Ehrhardt listened to the explanation but gave no ground.

"I have a graduate degree in economics," he said when Crowley had finished. "I completely disagree with you."

Need this be explained? Every dollar that a union member puts into the pension fund comes directly out of the economy in the form of taxation or spending that he or she might otherwise undertake. The same is true of every dollar that the taxpayer contributes. (Actually, the taxpayer contributes it all; one major aspect of Crowley's scam is to treat these as separate contributions.) Where those dollars would be spent, rather than invested, they necessarily take away from expenditures on which Rhode Islanders place a higher value, whether dire necessities or quality of life indulgences, and where they would be invested, anyway, there's no reason to assume that a pension fund will have better returns.

I fear too many of our fellow residents, especially those who occupy seats in government, will be all-too content to store Crowley's grain of imaginary sand and allow it to turn into a pearl for unionized public sector workers and bankruptcy for the state.

What Consolidators Are Missing

I suppose this Projo editorial opposing the newly legislated board for statewide health insurance benefits for teachers is better late than never, but the editors continue to keep two and two from being joined:

Obviously, Rhode Island can do much better than rushing through a new system whereby a panel of special interests reward themselves at the taxpayers' expense. The approach adopted is, in essence, a new and costly mandate on local communities, with less, rather than more, local input into spending decisions that affect the bottom line.

That will always be the case, once the messy reality of human self-interest is introduced to the shiny machinations of planners. Better policies on a case-by-case basis may delay the deterioration as power and money are consolidated, but they will never prevent it.

More importantly, though, we all should have learned by now that there are other aspects of Rhode Island's government that must be fixed prior to consolidation. Handing a mandate to consolidate to the ruling class that has brought Rhode Island to its knees is like buying a home-owner's insurance policy from the thief who just broke in and stole all of your belongings.

Blame and Motivation in Education

Friday night's Violent Roundtable on the Matt Allen Show featured Rhode Island House Minority Leader Bob Watson and legal analyst Lou Pulner, and I was surprised to find Pulner nearly standing alone when the conversation turned toward the teachers unions' blocking the state's federal Race to the Top application (on which the RI Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals has just changed its position):

Matt Allen: The teacher unions in Rhode Island are stuck, because they do not want teacher evaluation to be dependent upon student performance. I guess Deborah Gist's proposal is 51% of teacher performance and evaluation will be based on student performance and standardized tests.

Lou Pulner: Gee, what a bummer that would be, huh? Think about it --- that we're actually going to rate our teachers based upon how they're students are doing in class and on exams.

Bob Watson: And you know what's always interesting is you wonder if you inventory the rank and file, how many of them are in agreement with the positions that the teachers union's take.

LP: I'll bet you 80%. They don't want to lose their job because they're doing a poor job.

BW: On certain core issues, I think you're right. But then there are other areas, I think that there are certain areas where some of the better teachers --- and I happen to have a brother that's a teacher and a sister that recently retired, my mother's a teacher, having retired, so I've got some bias, I suppose.

MA: My soon-to-be wife is also a public school teacher.

LP: But she's not political, you told me.

MA: She's not political.

BW: And when I knocked on doors in East Greenwich and campaigned for office, I found one of the predominant ...

LP: Where is your brother a teacher?

BW: In Cranston.

LP: OK. Good schools. East Greenwich, good schools. But if your brother were a teacher in Central Falls or Pawtucket, maybe you wouldn't be taking this position.

BW: As I said, one of the predominant second incomes in East Greenwich is a teacher's salary, and I've often found myself talking to a teacher from all sorts of parts of the state. They live in East Greenwich; they may teach in Central Falls. They have the same interests in having quality teachers in the schools, because when the good teachers are in a classroom next to a teacher that's slacking off and just not carrying their weight, trust me, all morale is reduced.

LP: But what happens, then, Bob? Then they bump in to a Classical High School because they have seniority.

BW: When it comes to certain issues relative to compensation, they share common ground, but I also think that, were it put out to a vote --- maybe it would have to be a secret vote, not one of those hold a paper card up in a room full of peers --- but if it were to come to a vote, I think more teachers than not would support this.

LP: But we're talking about a hundred million dollars that could come to the state of Rhode Island for educational purposes.

MA: Here's the thing, and I gotta tell you my soon-to-be bride's job has affected my opinion on this, because I get to see the inside, and let me just tell you this. Let me offer you up a piece of information. I know --- this is not from her, but from other situations that she's told me about --- where you have classrooms that might as well be hospital wards, because they are required by law to teach all sorts of kids and in all sorts of situations and all sorts of backgrounds and everything else.

LP: But special-ed can be backed out.

MA: Let me tell you something: Special ed is not backed out. Special ed, at least where she teaches, is in the classroom, with everybody else, and so you have these kids in this room, and they all have to pass the same standards that everybody else does, and then you gotta... you know... what kid didn't take a shower this morning, what kid didn't get breakfast this morning, what kid had to deal with a mother's boyfriend that night, what kid had to deal with this and the other thing, and one kid's got restive leg syndrome, so he can go and do jumping jacks in the back of the classroom whenever he wants to do it.

LP: Matty, I love you, but pillow talk aside between you and your betrothed is the fact that we need $100 million to enhance our education here in the state of Rhode Island, and the fact is that teachers ought to step up, and maybe they ought to work a little bit harder to make sure the students in their class are achieving.

BW: You know, Lou... show me a bad student, and I bet there's a bad parent at home waiting for that kid.

LP: Every time? Not every time.

BW: More times than not, Lou, and let's face it: We have too many people having children, and they don't keep the responsibility of raising those children properly.

LP: That's the babies are having babies argument. You're getting violent, Bob; you're getting violent right now. [Laughter.] This is VRT at its best.

BW: I can't use words on the radio, but I want to make my point: blame the parents; don't blame the teachers. A lot of good teachers try to do what they can, and Matt just explained just a typical day in a classroom.

LP: Bob, you don't think there are teachers in there who have the same curriculum and the same syllibus for forty freakin' years, and they're going through the motions.

BW: Because certain things don't change. Math doesn't change. Reading, writing, arithmatic shouldn't change.

MA: Let me just say this: I think that there's a happy medium. I think that student performance should be a factor. I just don't know how much of a factor it should be.

LP: For $100 million, I say raise it up a notch.

MA: I think we do need to go through and separate the wheat from the chaff, though, in the teachers' ranks, because some people I hear about need to go.

Coming from the legislative leader of the opposition party in Rhode Island, Watson's position is just not acceptable. Indeed, if it's an indication of the alternative that voters have in November, parents needn't wait until then to determine that they have to move or find a way to pay for private school. Watson's commentary is so knee jerk as to be dumb and so biased as to be offensive.

According to the latest Infoworks! document (PDF) from the state Department of Education, fewer than one-fifth of Rhode Island high school students are proficient in science, and just about one-quarter of them are proficient in math. Are 75-80% of Rhode Island's public school students living with bad parents? Or is Mr. Watson a bit too sanguine about 40-year-old lesson plans? (I use that reference emblematically, not literally.)

Matt's introduction of the conditions in some classrooms only highlights the critical factor. Note that he had to become intimate with a teacher before hearing about the challenges that education policies can present for them. As somebody who pays attention to local news, he's surely been very well aware of proposed salary cuts and healthcare copay increases, but when was the last time teachers worked to rule because their working conditions made it impossible for them to perform?

Perhaps if teachers' pay were strongly tied to the performance of their students, they'd be taking the lead in education reform, rather than standing in its way as a unionized matter of course. That probability brings us to the bigger problem of our blameless system. Let's quote Watson again:

Blame the parents; don't blame the teachers.

In the archetypal example of the Rhode Island Way, Watson here attacks the one group in the educational chain that is not on a government payroll. The General Assembly blames the towns, because after all, they have direct control over contracts and policies. The school committees and administrations blame the General Assembly for mandates and insufficient funding and the unions for contractual demands that drain control and resources. The teachers blame all of the above as well as the parents.

Well, if the folks on government payrolls have no power to improve the quality of education in the state, then those payrolls ought to be decimated. They're a waste of money. Redirect the resources to "good parents," so they can select an appropriate private school, and to social workers, so they can assist the "bad parents."

But I don't believe that the blame lies solely with the group whose main interest in the education system is through the well-being of their children. If we step back from the finger pointing and look at the situation as adults seeking to develop a functional educational machine, it is clear that mechanisms for incentives and accountability must be introduced. Evaluate teachers almost entirely on their performance, with formulas that adjust to the actual students — their challenges and their prior performance — and give the ultimate say to administrators, who are in a position to know all of the less-tangible considerations. On the other end, keep the General Assembly and federal government out of the equation.

In that way, the communities that are most affected on a personal level will have the ability to trace and change problems from the school committee dais down to the classroom in a chain accountability rather than evaded responsibility.

Labor Gets its Special Health Care Deal

At the end of this post I alluded to the special deal that unions--after much b***ing and moaning-- have extracted from Team Obama Health Care Force. In short, the tax on so-called "cadillac plans" won't be applied to collectively bargained health plans. Heritage's James Sherk observes:

What a deal. Unions want the health care spending, but they do not want to pay for it. Obama gave them just that. It also makes for a great recruiting pitch: join a union, get a tax cut.

No doubt. But wait, there's more!

That is just one of the many handouts unions get in the health care bill. It sets aside $5 billion to subsidize the costs of employer health benefits for early retirees. Few nonunion employers, of course, pay pension and health benefits for workers to retire at 55.

Or consider the small business exemption from the employer mandate for businesses with less than 50 employees. All businesses, that is, except construction companies. The costly employer mandate applies to any construction firm with more than four workers. Why would Congress kick small construction contractors when they are down? Because the construction unions asked Congress to. They did not want their small competitors to get out from under the bill’s costs and gain a competitive advantage. What if those costs put small contractors out of business? That is just too bad.

Nothing like looking out for the little guy, eh? But back to the exemption: Daniel Foster looks at the tea leaves:

Look for Obama and Congressional Democrats to the expand the union carve-out to cover a swath of the "middle-class" (the universal solvent of American politics), so they can camouflage this massive giveaway to a pet constituency.

One House Democrat is already saying a "consensus" could be built around such a scheme by further increasing the Medicare payroll tax and applying it to capital gains to make up for lost revenue.

This would amount to nothing less than a bill of attainder against on all constituencies that are not especially useful to the president and his party.

The shell game continues.

Why the Proposed Teachers' Health Insurance Board is an Unconstitutional Violation of Separation of Powers

A non-trivial question concerning the new teachers' health insurance board proposed by the legislature but opposed by the Governor is which branch of government it would belong to.

It's obviously not the judiciary.

And as currently structured, the board cannot be an offshoot of the legislature. A legislature has no power to delegate its statewide lawmaking authority to a group of non-legislators operating outside of the normal lawmaking process -- unless it is through the rule-making authority of an executive branch agency.

That leaves the executive branch, which makes sense, as this new board is basically a regulatory agency charged with overseeing the actions of school committees in certain aspects of teacher contract negotiations. However, the legislature does not have the power to designate anyone it chooses as makers of administrative rules that ultimately carry the force of law; according to the principle of separation of powers, this power can only be delegated to a constitutionally recognized executive.

This aspect of separation of powers, fundamental to the structures of our state and Federal governments, is spelled out directly in Article IX Section 5 of the Rhode Island Constitution…

The governor shall, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, appoint all officers of the state whose appointment is not herein otherwise provided for and all members of any board, commission or other state or quasi-public entity which exercises executive power under the laws of this state; but the general assembly may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they deem proper, in the governor, or within their respective departments in the other general officers, the judiciary or in the heads of departments.

Rhode Island legislators have no basis for ignoring Article IX and replacing the Governor with labor unions or other organizations in making appointments to state boards (no matter how much they might like to) unless they're claiming the authority to create new branches of government without needing a constitutional amendment.

Re: Is a New Way for Labor to Limit the Options

Turning on my home computer after a weekend on the road, I was relieved and concerned to see the legislative bomb that Andrew has spotted. Relieved that we've come across this in time to shine some light. Concerned because I recall glancing at these bills back when they were on the agenda and making the conscious determination that I didn't have time to sort through them for pluses and minuses; the reform movement, in Rhode Island, really has to find some way to finance folks who'll take it upon themselves to comb proposed laws for this sort of thing.

Having reviewed the language, I'd add one more reason that legislators who refuse to let the veto stand should face a heavy political cost. Note this language in the House version:

... School district employees whose collective bargaining agreements expire on or after July 1, 2010 shall, upon expiration of such collective bargaining agreements, receive benefit plans authorized in accordance with chapter 27-72. ...

Upon implementation of the uniform health care benefit plan designs or at such other time as specified herein or as specified in sections 28-9-3.2 and 28-9.4-3, all public school districts and charter schools shall implement one or more benefit plan design(s) authorized in accordance with this chapter.

Not only does this law place any healthcare benefits in the hands of a union-dominated board accountable only to union members, it mandates that schools must offer them. Whether there's a feasible public or private alternative or schools just can't afford healthcare benefits anymore, they'll have to provide them. And not only union schools, but charter schools, as well. Once again, the sinking ship of state reveals the rats trying to shore up all that they can, rather than helping to keep the vessel afloat.

Again, now that it's been vetoed and noticed, any legislator who helps to make this a law should find him or her self out of office at the earliest opportunity.

ADDENDUM:

We can also take this legislation as evidence that reformers must be very, very careful about any budgetary or developmental strategy that calls for consolidation.

The Members' Interests Are Not Primary

Mike, of Assigned Reading, noticed a strange omission of activism on the part of his and other teachers' unions:

Teachers enjoy some of the best benefits available. And as a result, we working class Americans will be subjected to a 40% premium tax, a punishment for having healthcare plans better than most Americans.

One would think the teachers’ unions in particular would be loud and vocal in their opposition. This would be true if the teachers’ unions were most interested in teachers. But when push comes to shove, the unions will put down their arms if it helps secure a victory for the Democrats.

I wonder if union organizers ever get heat from their members for activism that is either unrelated to or actually hostile toward their interests. The impression, from outside, is that there's a sort of compromise between teachers unions and teachers, such that the former pull all kinds of stunts and compromise the quality of education in order to provide ensure incessant growth for the remuneration of the latter, who pay dues more as a fee for service than as a cost of entry. In other words, the union gets to do whatever it wants, because it's really an independent organization from the workers whom it supports.

Somehow, I don't think it's supposed to work that way.

If the Legislation Weren't So Irredeemably Stupid...

... I'd wonder whether we had an effect on this issue. Governor Carcieri has vetoed the apprenticeship gift to large, union contractors legislation:

In accordance with the provisions of Section 14, Article IX of the Constitution of the State of Rhode Island and Section 42-1-4 of the Rhode Island General laws, I transmit, with my disapproval, 2009 H 5582, "An Act Relating to Labor and Labor Relations."

This act would decrease the ratio of apprentices to journeymen in various fields of trade and industry.

Although I am a strong supporter of apprenticeship programs, and believe that such programs are necessary to maintain and foster a dynamic workforce in the building trades, this bill is flawed and could have some unintended consequences.

Apprenticeship ratios should provide ample opportunities for young people to enter the ranks of the skilled workforce and at the same time allow for a level of supervision and on-the-job training commensurate with their needs. It is unclear that the ratios proposed in this bill strike that delicate balance.

If the ratios allow for too few people to enter the building trades it will be nearly impossible to replenish the aging workforce in this area. It is also important to acknowledge that there is a cost to operating an apprenticeship program, and that cost must be borne by someone. Labor unions, though not exclusively, have traditionally operated many of the apprenticeship programs. In doing so, they bear a cost that other contractors and companies -- those that do not operate such a program --- do not incur.

In closing, although I am sympathetic to the concerns expressed by the proponents of this legislation, I am equally concerned that the proposed remedy may have unintended consequences that could harm many businesses and workers. I look forward to working with the various impacted parties to hopefully find some other more balanced solution.

I should also note some inside information that the legislative supporters of this bill — including House Majority Leader Gordon Fox, who proved himself unfit for public office in his passionate speech on its behalf in the special session, this autumn — wanted to make a performance of their support but didn't really want it to become law. Two lessons from that suggestion: legislation can be a dishonest business, and the unions shouldn't fall for the fake support from the recipients of their support and largess.

We Need a Taxpayer Grievance

How can an entity — whether a business, a town, a nonprofit, whatever — operate like this?

[Little Compton Firefighter Fred] Melnyk was off duty at the time, out of uniform, and had been in the fire-station earlier at 11:16 when the medical incident in question was called in. An emergency medical technician (EMT) with cardiac training, Mr. Melnyk immediately responded to the call by himself, driving the Rescue 1 to the scene at John T. Martin Road, one mile from the station.

He later found himself stranded there when two other firefighters, who had arrived in two separate fire trucks, fresh from finishing another nearby incident, took Rescue 1, with a patient inside, and drove to Charlton Memorial Hospital, 30 minutes away.

That left Mr. Melnyk with the two parked fire trucks that needed to be returned to the station. With him was the fire chief and his command car. A decision was made (that Lt. Woods later grieved) that Mr. Melnyk, still off duty and at no cost to the town, would drive the two trucks back to the station, and not leave them parked on John T. Martin Road, a task Mr. Melnyk accomplished in two trips, ferried back to the residence by the chief in the command car.

Lt. David Woods has filed a grievance claiming that he should have been called in for his four-hour minimum of overtime pay, receiving $127.36 for around twenty minutes worth of work.

A Process of Suffocation

The relationship is perhaps not entirely direct, but two stories from last Saturday's paper strike me as thematically related. First:

Because of poor design and construction and lack of maintenance, the underground parking garage at the Providence railroad station has suffered so much structural damage caused by leaking water that the state Department of Transportation says it might have to be closed.

The 360-space garage is a key transportation facility whose importance is likely to increase. It's the most convenient station parking and is full of commuters' cars on weekdays. The station will see more use, and presumably need more parking, when the state extends rail service south of Providence over the next two years.

At a time when Rhode Island desperately needs to ensure smooth sailing for the economy, public transportation infrastructure is crumbling. And second:

The head of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority's biggest union has threatened a strike if state officials remove binding arbitration, a mechanism for settling deadlocked contract disputes, from state law governing the authority. ...

RIPTA officials said that the possibility of eliminating binding arbitration for RIPTA employees came up at a meeting of a legislative committee looking into the authority's operations. RIPTA officials said they were asked to take the issue before the authority board of directors. The legislators suggested that RIPTA request that arbitration be removed from the authority's enabling legislation.

Even just a hint that officials might be considering the possibility of potentially revisiting binding arbitration sparked threats of the union's nuclear option. (Gee, that binding arbitration thing must really not be in a union's interests!)

In sum: During the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, with the state kept solvent merely through the ill-advised deficit spending of a radical U.S. president, as our transportation infrastructure falls apart under our desperate feet, public sector unions have their eye firmly focused on their own grubby hands. Rhode Island can't afford to tolerate this extortion and abuse any longer.

Regionalization Won't Make the Unions Go Away... Quite the Opposite

Somehow, this strikes me as a preview of the "benefits" of regionalization in Rhode Island:

Just hours after he closed the Douglas Avenue fire station, Mayor Charles A. Lombardi ran into a legal stumbling block from the firefighters union Wednesday afternoon and he agreed to temporarily reopen the station. ...

Firefighters want [Providence County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey] Lanphear to keep Lombardi from shutting down the station and reassigning personnel, about 12 employees, to three other stations in town.

Note that this wasn't even about eliminating positions — just moving work locations. The only savings that regionalization might promise, in such instances, is to spread out the cost of lawyers for participating towns and cities. Of course, the whole point of regionalization is to instigate this sort of change, so municipalities would be sharing an increased expense.

Prior to any regionalization efforts, towns and cities will have to begin asserting themselves in contract negotiations to regain management rights. My suspicion is that, once they've taken such a step, regionalization will look like far less of a panacea, because the situation would have already improved dramatically.

The Union Shadow Government

The "must read" label is a bit too easy to throw around, but a post on BigGovernment.com concerning union expansion — like a cancer in the canals of government bureaucracies — deserves it. We begin with this reminder of a peculiar story that some of you might have heard recently:

This past September Lisa Snyder, a 35 year old Michigan mother, made the news when she received a disturbing letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services. In it, the letter warned her that she was in violation of the law. Her offense? Watching a handful of neighborhood kids each morning for about 20 minutes as they waited at the end of her driveway for the school bus to arrive, with the blessing of their parents. State law in Michigan prohibits the home supervision of unrelated children for more than four weeks in a year without a child care provider license. Turns out a neighbor had complained and the Michigan Department of Human Services, the watchdog for home child care licensing, intervened by sending the warning letter. In Michigan, state employees for the DHS are represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union. Coincidentally, the union that represents the state’s home child care workers? Also the UAW.

Bring that mentality into the realm of healthcare, and the image begins to be frightening. Consider:

Also in Michigan, a story of three women who run their own independent businesses out of their homes, caring for neighborhood children. They each recently received a letter indicating that they are now dues-paying members of the Child Care Providers Together Michigan union — a complete surprise to them.

After a 2006 Executive Order by the Michigan Governor awarded the union (a partnership of UAW and AFSCME) bargaining rights for home child care workers, all it took for the union to convert all 40,000 child care workers to dues paying members was 5,900 signed union authorization cards. That left some independent home child care workers, who'd for years considered themselves self-employed, feeling dismayed and stunned.

A neat chart illustrates the path whereby government subsidies that parents used to help pay for independent child care services brought the self-employed professionals who accepted the payment under the dark shadow of "public service." In its current form, healthcare reform would move anybody who deals in health and wellness into the target zone of aggressive and politically powerful unions. In theory, in keeping with the Michigan example, "card check" would make it possible for a minority of people within a particular industry could unionize the entire group.

Such a structure would be good for people who like consolidated power within their own reach, but bad for the economy and bad for freedom.

The Focus of the Advocates

Julia Steiny's column last Sunday focused on declining numbers of students in Rhode Island, but the paragraphs on the cause stick in the mind:

Mather elaborates, "In general terms, people leave New England because of job growth elsewhere. Many young people go to New England for college, but when they're finished or ready to start a family, they go where there are more opportunities, more affordable housing, and a warmer climate."

Well, but NCES shows that also-not-warm mountain states Idaho and Colorado both will enjoy double-digit growth, 26 and 19 percent respectively, between 2006 and 2018. Even Nebraska and Minnesota are growing.

So yes, says John Simmons of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, the state's economy is the issue. He sighed as he rattled off a laundry list of badly needed changes to the state's tax structure, health-care system, pensions, and onerous regulatory burden. "If we don't begin to make changes today, by 2012, the problems become unsolvable. This has to be faced."

If it were actually true that, as outgoing National Education Association General Counsel Bob Chanin put it, "what unions do first and foremost is represent their members," it seems to me their focus would be wholly different. They wouldn't be funding left-wing Web sites and advocating for growth-killing progressivism.

Over at Assigned Reading, Mike, himself an RI teacher, reacted to a speech by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten thus:

Weingarten reveals through her speech what is an essential conflict: teachers unions only play for one team. Teachers unions have become arms of the Democratic party, activists for liberal causes and champions of politicians on the left. By aligning themselves with one side, they have effectively created enemies of the other. And they are major players in the blame game.

It isn't only the divisiveness and political activism, per se, to which union members ought to object, in this. They should find it unacceptable that the union organizations to which they pay so much in dues, and whose baggage they must carry, locally, are ideologically hindered from advocating for policies that would help membership in the long-term — policies that increase the wealth of taxpayers and expand the class of young clients.

Losing Sleep Over and Paying Attention to Education

I've got a letter in the online version of the Sakonnet Times (prospectively in the print edition out tomorrow) that begins thus:

Residents who wish to understand the gradual deterioration of Rhode Island's public school system need only contrast school committee meetings addressing two issues: teacher contract negotiations and abysmal standardized testing results. The passion that sets the auditorium on fire when adults' high pay and lavish benefits are threatened with mild budgetary restraint is nowhere to be found when, say, only 25.8% of eleventh graders prove proficient in science (down from 30.5% the year before).

I go on to make some general suggestions regarding the necessary shifts in attitude and policy.

While I'm on the topic: The Tiverton School Committee's workshop on merit pay is tonight at 6:30, in the high school library.

Moving Money Around in Different Ways

This quote from John Derbyshire's book, We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism, which I found via a review by Kyle Smith, in National Review, gave us opportunity for discussion and encouragement 'round the construction site:

American parents are now all resigned to beggaring themselves in order to purchase college diplomas for their offspring, so that said offspring can get low-paying outsourceable office jobs, instead of having to descend to high-paying, unoutsourceable work like plumbing, carpentry, or electrical installation.

In order to extend our conversation, I did a quick online search to see if anybody's posted a little more context and noticed — as I increasingly have — that the entire book has been posted online by Google, with searchable text. I'm torn.

It's great to have the high caliber of books bumping up Web content, and for hard to find literature, it's certainly a useful service. Everything that's entered the public domain would have to be fair game (and much of it was already online, somewhere). But I worry that nobody will ever manage to develop financial incentive to write books if they're readily available for free.

To be sure, it would be uncomfortable to read an entire publication in the format provided by Google, but e-readers are increasingly popular, and computer screens are increasingly readable. Our society is going to have to work something out, but with the current speed of technology, making the ability to process and distribute content at high speed, an entire literary culture could fall away while the lawsuits and compromises run their course.

Swing and a Miss

This morning, the NEA's Pat Crowley's lamely attempted to use Alinsky's Rules #5 (Ridicule) and #11 (" Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it") on Education Commissioner Deborah Gist and put up a post that displayed the sort of empathy and prudence we've all come to expect. In the post, Crowley vaguely alluded to getting the "Gist" (ha...ha...) of what the new Education Commissioner abilities were and then linked to this video with no further explanation. I suppose the reader was to anticipate that some egregious evidence contra the new commish was about to be laid out.

Instead, we saw a video that originally accompanied this story from the Washington Post from February this year (and which was mentioned in this story from the Johnston Sun Rise in October).

A few years ago, Deborah [Gist] said, she was flipping through a copy of the Guinness book and realized she didn't want to grow her toenails to epic lengths and had little chance of running 100 meters in less than 9 seconds. "Then I got to this record and it said 'Most Kisses in a Minute.' I've kind of been known for being affectionate in my kissing, and I thought, 'That's it. That's the one.' "

All she needed was 109 people -- you see, the record is for most consecutive kisses by different people.

On Saturday, about 140 people gathered at the house....She withstood the onslaught, and Vince and I clicked 118 kisses, minus six disqualifications, for a total of 112 and a record (pending Guinness's approval).

The event raised $20,000 for the Wellness Community, a cancer-support organization in Bethesda.

Gist was inspired to raise the money after her uncle died from cancer. I guess Pat thought this all was supposed to cast a negative light upon Gist, though I'm not sure what conclusions were to be drawn.

Understandably, the commenters to Crowley's post also apparently missed why this was so important to Pat and many praised Commissioner Gist for being light-hearted and caring (and even a community organizer!). I wouldn't have even commented on it...except now the post and the comments it generated have disappeared--"- This diary has been removed "--though reference to the comments can be found by checking some of the user profiles (like here, here or here) and this comment also mentions the disappearance of the post.

Why the post and comments were removed is obvious; it ends up putting Crowley, not Gist, in a poor light. But instead of blank space, maybe an explanation is warranted, guys? Regardless, it would appear the commissioner is winding Pat up so much with talk of teacher evaluations and dropping seniority that its affecting his well-known judgment and tact....ahem...or maybe he's just jealous that he didn't get a chance to kiss the commish himself.

Chariho Teachers Approve Contract: Stepping Away from Steps?

As the ProJo reports, the Chariho teachers have approved a new contract (PDF) that includes nearly the complete eradication of the traditional increases (go "here" to see what I mean by "traditional") in the hard-coded contract step increases. This is what the Chariho contract looks like:

Usually, a step contract would have something like a 2.5% annual salary increase for each pay step. Not here. This time the teachers' union and district agreed on a step schedule that remained constant over three years for steps 1-8, decreased for steps 9 and 10, fluctuated for step 11 and (apparently) added a new step 12 in 2010-11.

As I've shown by including the "Yr X Raise" column, that doesn't mean that teachers aren't getting a raise every year, it just means the usual increase in pay that comes via a step increase isn't being further compounded by a raise on each step, too. As an example, I've highlighted (in blue/green/red) what the "real world" salary increases would be for a new teacher as they progress to 2011-12 under this contract. Being guaranteed over a 6% increase per year still ain't a bad deal.

Whether or not we agree with the amount of increases from step to step, it is significant that there is no raise being applied from year to year for each step. Whether or not this will inspire--or embolden--other districts to follow suit will be interesting to see.

Update: Permanent Contracts Sent Back To Committee

Here is the status report on the permanent contracts bill, from the state legislature's website...

Senate Bill No.713
BY Perry, Levesque C, McCaffrey, Miller, Sosnowski
ENTITLED, AN ACT RELATING TO LABOR AND LABOR RELATIONS - CERTIFIED SCHOOL TEACHERS ARBITRATION
(would amend section 28-9.3-9 to provide that if a successor collective bargaining agreement has not been agreed to by the parties)
{LC1814/1}

02/26/2009 Introduced, referred to Senate Labor
04/01/2009 Scheduled for hearing
04/01/2009 Committee recommended measure be held for further study
06/03/2009 Scheduled for hearing and/or consideration
06/03/2009 Committee recommends passage
06/04/2009 Placed on Senate Calendar
06/11/2009 Senate read and passed
06/16/2009 Referred to House Labor
06/25/2009 Scheduled for hearing and/or consideration
06/25/2009 Committee recommends passage in concurrence
06/25/2009 Placed on House Calendar
10/29/2009 Placed on House Calendar
10/29/2009 House voted to recommit to House Labor

Total Bills:1

Legislative Data System Room 1 10/29/2009
State House, Providence, Rhode Island 05:41 PM

This should finish the issue for this session, barring a literal back hallway meeting of the Labor Committee, which is still procedurally feasible -- but no longer politically feasible.

Where Even the Watchdogs Are Corrupt

WPRI's been promoting its newest Target 12 investigation as "The Biggest Yet"; reporter Tim White sends along some specifics in advance of the official revelation:

CRANSTON – The Rhode Island State Police have opened a criminal investigation following a Target 12 Investigation into government waste.

The investigation, which airs tonight at 11 p.m., reveals four state workers at the Department of Labor and Training at home or on personal errands while on the clock. The investigation implicates the entire "Fraud Unit" at the DLT, a division designed to root out unemployment fraud and phony disability claims.

State police Lt. Colonel Steven O’Donnell says they were approached by state officials after Eyewitness News presented the DLT with their findings. O'Donnell says detectives are looking into possible charges of obtaining money under false pretense.

The four employees, identified by Eyewitness News as Debra Lombardi, Allyn Bosworth, David O'Brien and Claribel Terrero are suspended with pay pending the outcome of both the internal and criminal investigation, according to DLT spokesperson Laura Hart.

Their supervisor, Katherine Catanzaro has temporarily been reassigned, Hart says.

Target 12 obtained time sheets and itineraries of the fraud investigators that show they were not only on the clock when they were at home or on errands, but the itineraries reveal they claimed to be out on an investigation at the time.

On Sunday, I wondered whether it's possible to recycle something so thoroughly rotten as the Rhode Island government. When even the people assigned to seek out fraud are behaving fraudulently, the wondering may cease; tear the whole thing down and start again.

Update: Yorke Reporting that the Permanent Contract Won't be Passed Tonight

Dan Yorke of WPRO (630 AM) is reporting that he has spoken with House Speaker William Murphy's spokesman Larry Berman, who says that the permanent contract bill has been placed on the House calendar for procedural reasons only, because it needs to be officially tabled before the end of the session.

Perpetual Contract: Making a Spark in a Gunpowder Factory

Andrew's news might explain the lack of the usual angst from the state's unionists over legislative assurances that binding arbitration is dead, for the time being: The unions' first choice — perpetual contracts — is alive and well. You'll recall that the deadly bill, S0713, passed the Senate and the House Labor Committee and then mysteriously disappeared during the time of tea parties and ramping up town hall anger.

Binding arbitration grew in it's place, of course, and wouldn't it explain a lot of strange behavior from the General Assembly and the unionists, especially those associated with the National Education Association, if the pair of bills are a connivance to inflate an over-sized union life-raft as the ship of state goes down? Get everybody to react to binding arbitration and then send in the more vicious animal through the back door. Ed Achorn's column on binding arbitration reads even more darkly in this new context:

Many Rhode Islanders, suffering from "learned helplessness" and biding their time until they too can join the great middle-class migration from the state, have given up whimsical notions that legislators here would ever serve the public interest. In their view, the politicians will never be happy until the sign that adorns Dante's Inferno is placed along all roads and highways leading into the state: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

If this legislative ghoul does come to life, this week, the backlash should be quadruple what it would have been against binding arbitration: not only based on the demerits, but also in reaction to the deception.

BREAKING: The Permanent Contract is Still Alive in the Legislature

Following a comment from "Madmom", I checked the General Assembly's official online calendar, and found this...

Senate Bill No.713
BY Perry, Levesque C, McCaffrey, Miller, Sosnowski
ENTITLED, AN ACT RELATING TO LABOR AND LABOR RELATIONS - CERTIFIED SCHOOL TEACHERS ARBITRATION
(would amend section 28-9.3-9 to provide that if a successor collective bargaining agreement has not been agreed to by the parties)
{LC1814/1}
02/26/2009 Introduced, referred to Senate Labor
04/01/2009 Scheduled for hearing
04/01/2009 Committee recommended measure be held for further study
06/03/2009 Scheduled for hearing and/or consideration
06/03/2009 Committee recommends passage
06/04/2009 Placed on Senate Calendar
06/11/2009 Senate read and passed
06/16/2009 Referred to House Labor
06/25/2009 Scheduled for hearing and/or consideration
06/25/2009 Committee recommends passage in concurrence
06/25/2009 Placed on House Calendar
10/29/2009 Placed on House Calendar

Total Bills:1

Legislative Data System Room 1 10/29/2009
State House, Providence, Rhode Island 10:06 AM

This is not the binding arbitration bill, but the bill that says that expired contracts remain in force, if no new agreement is reached. The verbiage added to state law is...

(f) In the event that a successor collective bargaining agreement has not been agreed to by the parties, then the existing contract shall continue in effect until such time as an agreement has been reached between the parties.

CONTINUING...

Speculation: The argument you will hear made in support of this bill is that the legislature needs to freeze everything as is, while it figures out how to create new rules for cities and towns, new rules intended to limit the decision making authority of the democratically elected local governments on local budgets. (Of course, you won't hear this last part in any of the "we temporarily need permanent contracts" arguments I suspect will be heard today. Also, remember that even if this is pitched as a "temporary" fix, temporary permanent contracts are likely to last "only" as long as the temporary increase in Rhode Island's sales tax passed 20 years ago and still going strong has lasted).

The people need to take a direct message to the legislature: Fix your own fiscal mess first, before you even begin to consider extraordinary measures like stripping locally elected officials of the authority to make meaningful fiscal decisions for their communities. Don't deny local representatives of the people the ability to decide how to spend the people's money on local matters.

AND FINALLY (FOR NOW)...

No matter what trickery the legislature attempts with this bill, today is not the end of this matter. This bill will certainly be vetoed by the Governor, meaning that another session will be necessary for a veto-override. This does not mean that people can afford to wait to express their opposition on this matter beginning right now, but as we head into the 2010 elections, every candidate for General Assembly needs to be asked to explain to what degree they believe that state-authorized unelected arbitrators and permanent contracts should be allowed to override the power of elected officials, when it comes to making the best decisions for their cities and towns.

The Audacity of the Union

If you've paid even moderate attention to union squabbles in this state, you've got to drop your jaw at some of the pro-binding arbitration ads that the National Education Association is putting out. Look at the clippings at the top of the picture highlighting all of the lawyers fees and other bad effects of recent negotiation disputes; all of them originate with the unions. They file the lawsuits. Their intransigence leads to work-to-rule.

I'm also reminded of a comment that local Tiverton unionist and guidance counselor Lynn Nicholas made when the union was pushing for retroactive pay, last year. The audio is available at the end of this post, but the relevant portion is as follows:

Has anybody... tried to figure in what it's going to cost for lawyers fees once we get back into arbitration? Have you begun to think about that?

Two observations: First, lawyers are still needed in arbitration and the steps leading up to it, and negotiations that ultimately land on an arbitrators desk for a binding decision will surely be hard-fought. Second, the cost of lawyers that the union intended to impose on school districts has been a repeated threat during negotiations; are we to believe that the unions are going to give up this weapon — indeed, promote its relinquishment as a salable benefit — for an arbitration regime that won't unduly benefit them?

Let the word go out: No legislator who votes for binding arbitration should be considered worthy of being reelected, no matter what else he or she might do while in office, because not only would that have been a vote to benefit the unions at the expense of the residents, but it would also affirm deceit as a central tool in Rhode Island's political system.

Preemptive Support for Evaluations

Is it too cynical to be suspicious of union enthusiasm to develop evaluation standards for teachers?

The Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals has received a $200,000 national grant to develop a much more demanding method of evaluating and mentoring new teachers. The union will work closely with four urban school districts: Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls and Woonsocket.

"The union is tired of being portrayed as a protector of bad teachers," said union president Marcia Reback. "We have no interest in having incompetent teachers in our classrooms. We want to have good, rigorous, substantial evaluations."...

The peer-evaluation system would work as follows: a consulting teacher would observe, evaluate and mentor between 8 and 10 novice teachers over the course of a year. In the spring, the consulting teacher would recommend whether the new teacher should be awarded an additional contract. A board comprising administrators and union representatives would make its recommendation to the superintendent, who, in turn, would offer advice to the local school committee.

So a group of union reps and administrators (often previous members of the union) translate a union member's review of another union member to the superintendent, who brings it to the elected representatives on the school committee. Sounds like an attempt to derail evaluations that would involve more stakeholders, such as students, parents, and taxpayers, at a more fundamental level.

It always rankles, by the way, to hear union executives talk about "our classrooms." Perhaps public clarification of ownership is in order.

Okay, I'll Bite

Presumably, Pat Crowley — by his strenuous logical standards — would also believe that we needn't listen to pacifists, or even military minimalists, were we to consider dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran:

Look, if the answer is you simply don't believe teachers have the right to collectively bargain, I wish you would stop beating around the bush and just say it. If so...fine, then there is no need to debate the merits of binding arbitration with you. We can simply move on.

Yes, teachers should have a right to bargain as a collective, but individual teachers should have a right to bargain as individuals, and districts should have a right to construct the policies that will best serve their students and their communities. The unionist might object that the collective couldn't function without including every potential employee, that giving management an alternative would decrease the union's leverage, but we're talking rights, here, not the policies that most benefit labor organizations.

Personally, I believe that unions have become a cesspool of stultifying principles, metastasizing humanity's baser motivations and producing an hospitable environment for evil. I'd further decry the extent to which they tend to weigh public discourse down to the level of reasoning that Crowley exhibits in the linked post (and to which his boss, Bob Walsh, disappointingly gave voice in multiple appearances on WPRO, yesterday).

Only within the acrid womb of such a beast as a public-sector labor union could one be so immune to objectivity as to believe that all statements are necessarily cynical ploys that may be dismissed based on the underlying assumptions of the orator. The bottom line is that binding arbitration will have particular effects on contracts and therefore on municipal and state budgets. The National Education Association of Rhode Island desires those effects. Various allied citizen groups do not. Those who are not yet convinced, either way, should observe the debate and seek what makes sense to them in the exchange.

"Modified" Binding Arbitration: A Bad Idea is Still Bad Even if It's Tweaked

Following upon a very well attended hearing yesterday,

Opponents clogged the State House committee room, spilling into the marble hallway and lining the walls. Some held signs of protest above their heads for hours.

It was an unusual display for a workday hearing on a legislative proposal entitled simply, “School Teacher Arbitration.”

the Providence Journal's Steve Peoples reports this morning on the latest status of binding arbitration.

[Spokesman for House Speaker William Murphy Larry] Berman characterized the draft legislation discussed Wednesday as “a touchstone for a larger discussion of the issue itself,” suggesting a modified version may emerge.

Andrew had pointed out that binding arbitration undemocratically (and possibly unconstitutionally?) removes the expenditure of tax dollars from the hands of elected officials and places it in the hands of (usually biased) non-elected ones who do not answer to the taxpayer/voter.

And Justin highlighted the cost of such a system in Connecticut; namely, compensation adjustments that go only one way.

What would a modified version of binding arbitration look like? Compensation adjustments that continue to go one way, just at a slower rate? (As tax revenue on Smith Hill and around the state has been going in the other direction for the third year in a row, this doesn't seem terribly feasible.) Would elected and non-elected officials take turns writing checks on the taxpayers' account so it's non-democratic "only" 50% of the time? (Still sounds undemocratic to me.)

So let's throw it open to suggestions. How would you "modify" binding arbitration - still leaving in place the current precedents and arbitrators which tilt significantly to one side of the table - to make it a fair, equitable and democratic process?

Andrew & Matt Talk Binding Arbitration

Last night's Anchor Rising on the Matt Allen Show was a bit more expansive than usual, as Andrew and Matt discussed binding arbitration's relationship to governing philosophy. Stream by clicking here, or download it.

ProJo Notices the Stacked Arbitration Deck

A couple days ago I noticed that, with the arbitration bill coming up, Sen. John Tassoni had just been approved as a mediator. (The ProJo story reporting this also mentioned a few others). That led me to remark that it looked like the arbitration/mediation deck was being stacked ahead of time. The ProJo editors have also noticed and they also bring up a good point: familiarity won't benefit the taxpayers:

Citizens also have a right to wonder: Just how fair would “unbiased” mediators be under such a system?

There’s good reason to wonder. Under the system, both sides of the table would choose an arbitrator. But here’s the rub: Chiefs of either the National Education Association or the American Federation of Teachers would be dealing with arbitrators over and over, while each city and town would interact with arbitrators only occasionally. This would place a strong financial incentive on an arbitrator to shade his or her calls toward the unions, in hopes of being hired the next time. Ruling against the taxpayers in one community would pose far less of a career risk.

UPDATE: Allow me to piggyback on this clarification from ProJo:

The Oct. 21 editorial “Sen. Tassoni’s new job?” — about legislation mandating binding arbitration in disputes involving teachers unions — referred to both labor arbitrators and mediators. While the binding-arbitration legislation has not yet been approved, typically state-approved arbitrators are chosen from among a group of different names than state-approved mediators. As the editorial states, Sen. John Tassoni has landed on the state’s list of qualified mediators.

Should Arbitration Rulings Outrank the Law? It's a Feature, not a Bug Say Advocates!

I'm not entirely sure how authoritative this reference is, but the website called Rhode Island Arbitration –dot- com is promoting the fact that the decisions of arbitrators can take precedence over the law…

Did You Know…Courts cannot overturn an arbitration award.

Typically, the courts cannot overturn an arbitration award because the arbitrator made a mistake of law or fact. Even if a court would have decided the case differently under existing law, the court will still enforce an arbitration award that differs from what it would have decided.

The site has a definite astroturf feel to it, so the above "feature" may not be referring specifically to the law in Rhode Island.

But it sure does give a strong hint as to how much power arbitration advocates feel should be given to a few individuals over the lives of others, outside of any regular framework of electoral or legal accountability.

Binding Arbitration, the Board Game

Let's you and I play a game. We'll start out with you giving me a certain sum of money. Then every five minutes, I'll propose how much more money you should give me, and you can propose a slightly lower increase, and if I refuse to accept those terms, we'll take our disagreement to a "neutral" third party who'll give me the increase I demand about 60% of the time and give me the increase you offer the other 40% of the time. Sound good?

Not surprisingly, the Providence Journal's newest regular contributor, Tom Sgouros, union consultant and an intellectual force behind the 2008 Economic Death and Dismemberment Act, thinks that's a nifty way to resolve the hardest fought teacher contract battles. As he writes, with the folksy, personalized calm of an infomercial:

To me, binding arbitration seems as good a way as any to resolve these kinds of conflicts. In binding arbitration, two sides present their "last best" proposals to a neutral panel of three arbitrators (one chosen by each side and one chosen by both) who decide between them. The arbitration statute spells out the permissible grounds for a decision, too, so it's not as if arbitrators can just make up stuff.

Of course, as Andrew put it on Matt Allen's Violent Roundtable, Friday night, we don't take that approach in other public interactions. The General Assembly doesn't take issues that it's having difficulty resolving to a "neutral" third party to set policy on, say, prostitution, gambling, or a school funding formula. The people whom we elect and hire just have to work things out or pay the political consequences. Also of course, as I describe in the current issue of Providence Business News, binding arbitration seems somehow always to result in an increase in teacher remuneration, in Connecticut, even in the most struggling towns. And it's never below a 2% raise. Curious.

The tack that the union backers have decided to use in opposition to such observations is to explain that binding arbitration is not to blame (or credit) for Connecticut's having the highest-paid teachers in the nation, the Education Enhancement Act of 1986 is. That's fine, so far as it goes, but the point isn't that binding arbitration will give Rhode Island that last little kick to the top, from the fourth highest-paid teachers in the nation to the absolutely highest-paid teachers. The point is that binding arbitration would prevent communities from adjusting remuneration downward when the towns run out of money, the parents realize that less and less money is available for the programs that define a well-balanced and opportunity-rich education, or the residents realize that their big bucks are buying pitiful proficiency in math and science.

And union-promoted clichés notwithstanding, teachers are very well paid and are not likely to suffer a change in that reality. Sgouros makes a play for just such an insinuation, with the following:

In 1986, despite seven years of binding arbitration law, Connecticut teachers were only 19th in the country in surveys of teacher pay. The average teacher salary then was around $13,000, and it was not hard to find teachers moonlighting as weekend bartenders, editors, writers, and construction workers, where they were paid more than in their "main" gig.

In the interest of charitable discourse, we'll assume that it was an innocent error that Tom cites the number for the average beginning teacher salary but calls it the average salary overall. Perusing data compiled by the American Federation of Teachers, one finds that the average salary in Connecticut was actually around $27,000 (11th highest in the nation) — and let's not forget that we've seen roughly 96% inflation since 1986, so those salaries are actually twice as valuable as they seem, from our current perspective.

As for beginning teachers — fresh out of college, or in the middle of a career change — having to work additional hours at a second occupation, well, such is not a foreign experience to other young professionals. Stepping back from the pro-union rhetoric, emphasized in the binding arbitration debate, it's clear that what's being requested is not fairness, but continued treatment as some special class removed from the experiences of fellow Rhode Islanders.

RE: Binding Arbitration

As Monique notes, the bill requiring binding arbitration in union/town disputes is slated to be heard this Wednesday. You can also hear NEA/AFT funded radio advertisements touting the bill. I wonder why labor unions--which traditionally take pride in being negotiating pit bulls--are apparently going all warm and fuzzy over the prospect of a supposedly fair and equitable process? What happened to taking pride in all of their victories? Well, in addition to Justin's explanation, could it be they know what the local roster of arbitrators looks like?

State Sen. John Tassoni, a Smithfield Democrat who until last spring was a senior business agent for the largest state employees union, has landed on the state’s list of qualified mediators to call when there is a state or local labor dispute.

Though his newly formed company — The Sentinel Group — has not yet won any state or local mediation contracts, it is now within a small, select group that the state purchasing office has deemed qualified for use. Tassoni has offered his services for $125 an hour, $1,000 a day.

Some on the list are better known than others, including Bernard Singleton, a state pensioner, former top official in the National Education Association of Rhode Island and state labor director in the DiPrete administration; and Gerard P. Cobleigh, who is one of the lead lawyers for the largest of the state employee unions and Tassoni’s former employer: Council 94, American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees.

Deck = stacked? It would seem those "in the know" know that the winds are shifting in a particular direction, regardless of the "hearing" on Wednesday.

UPDATE: NEA's Bob Walsh writes in the comments that I'm "mixing up mediation and arbitration, and mediators and arbitrators." I'm not mixing it up. I understand the difference: Mediators try to help parties come up with a mutual decision; arbitrators are selected by both parties to make a decision for them. As the ProJo report continues, it seems like the qualifications for mediators and arbitrators are similar and that they come from the same pool:

The minimum qualifications to get on the state’s list of potential mediators include “a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university” and five years experience “as an arbitrator and/or mediator for labor management matters, or a lawyer representing parties” in such matters.

Tassoni is a 1976 Smithfield High School graduate, who lists the New Horizon Computer Learning Center in Cranston, the George Meany Labor Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Institute for Labor Studies and Research in Cranston as his higher-education experience.

As for his “relevant skills and experience,” his resume notes that he is chairman of the Senate Committee on Housing and Municipal Government, and a member of the Senate Labor Committee who has over the years, in his union roles, had to “negotiate union contracts and resolve union grievances” and research, prepare and present cases for arbitration.” {emphasis added}

So, is there any chance that cross-pollination between mediators/arbitrators occurs? That's the impression I get. If not, my apologies.

Broke by Binding

I've got an op-ed in the upcoming Providence Business News addressing a topic that's on a great many Rhode Island minds: binding arbitration.

Work of the Hand Is Not Exclusive of the Mind

Marc's post on education and "dirty jobs" — the entire recent discussion about college and the necessity thereof — brings to mind this passage from Walter Rose's wonderful book The Village Carpenter, which reflects on Rose's family business as the era of the automobile and the machine came on strong:

These words are not to the old who, like myself, have passed the years of prime, but to the youth, whose years of promise lie before him. He seeks to acquire a personal knowledge of the craft, the ability to achieve as others have done and still do. Is he prepared to pay the price, in time and study of the principles of the craft, and the details of its execution? In my father's day seven years of apprenticeship was not thought too long to obtain this knowledge. When I was a youth the term had become reduced to four or five years. To-day there is a general disinclination for any apprenticeship at all, and a sad misconception as to the amount that has to be learned. But all the quickening processes of science have failed to train the human mind at a more rapid pace, and those who have studied woodcraft for half a century find themselves still learning and quite unable to pack all their knowledge into a nutshell for the convenience of a beginner. The training is not that of the university; it is, however, quite as exacting in its own way and so merits equal recognition and respect, and it is encouraging to note that this idea is slowly gaining ground.

Slowly,indeed. The Village Carpenter was originally published in 1937.

Is the Gig Up for the RI Education Industry?

It's worth your time, if you haven't already read through the Sunday Providence Journal article about RI Education Commissioner Deborah Gist's elevation of the state's standardized test requirement for prospective education students to the highest in the country. The college and university estimates of how many students would miss the mark are head shakers, but of particular value is revelation of the gig, the game, the scam of educator education:

"Everybody understands what Commissioner Gist wants to do and I think her goals are laudable," [acting higher education commissioner Steven] Maurano said. "We absolutely want to work with her to do whatever we can to improve the quality of teachers in Rhode Island Schools. The concern that the institutions have is that if you raise the score for the Praxis I too high in one fell swoop, we will deny a significant number of students the opportunity to get into teacher prep programs."

Limiting the "opportunity" to enter into teaching programs is kind of the point, isn't it? It gets better:

Teacher training programs argue that there are several other safeguards before a student graduates, including requiring that students pass a series of exit exams in specific subjects toward the end of their program, called Praxis II, and perform student teaching for a semester.

Rhode Island requires high cut scores for these exit exams and they are a better indicator of the kind of educator a new teacher will become, say Byrd and Eldridge.

Reporter Jennifer Jordan doesn't explore how the percentage of students who pass the exit exams correlates with the estimates of how many would fall short of higher entrance scores, but the underlying argument is telling. Those who run training programs want a low bar for the students rushing to give them money, but a high bar for achieving the goal that motivated the exchange. In typical Rhode Island fashion, the objective appears to be to introduce waste (of time, money, and human potential) for the benefit of those who live off of it.

The most suitable names for such behavior might make a good question in the vocabulary portion of the Pre-Professional Skills Test.

An Association of Associates

I've procured a copy of the proposed change in the Ethics Commission's general advisory pertaining to union members' voting, as elected officials, on contracts and such that affect other locals of their unions (PDF). There's nothing in it that will surprise those who've been following along, and frankly, with the exception of replacing "adequate" with "expanding," it's hard to argue with this:

Individual labor union members pay dues to the local bargaining unit of which they are a member, a portion of which is retained by that local unit, with some other portion ordinarily flowing up to the statewide and, when applicable, nationwide, umbrella organizations. While each local bargaining unit and statewide organization is structured and functions somewhat differently, it is generally the case that one of the primary missions of any given union is to secure adequate compensation and benefits for its membership; this being the case, we opine that an individual dues-paying member of any given local bargaining unit is a business associate, as that term is defined by R.I. Gen. Laws section 36-14-2(3), of both the local bargaining unit to which the individual pays dues and the statewide entity to which a portion of those dues flow. What this means in practical terms is that when a duly-authorized representative of a local bargaining unit or its statewide affiliate is representing the local or statewide entity before a person subject to the Code who is also a member of that local or the statewide umbrella entity, the person subject to the Code must recuse from taking official action in accordance with R.I. Gen. Laws sections 36-14-5(f) and 6.

Closing any of these corruption loopholes (not unlike the prostitution loophole) that we're able will only benefit the state. Of course, it's probably too little, too late to prevent the state's financial collapse.

What Governs a Town?

That layoffs of police in East Providence are "the first in years" in Rhode Island is surprising, but not particularly noteworthy. In fact, we should hope that organizations — whether companies or municipalities — will operate in such a way as to ensure consistent, long-term employment. It's difficult, however, not to see some sort of relationship with a story out North Providence:

[Mayor Charles] Lombardi said he held off on filling vacancies in the Police Department in recent months for financial reasons, which triggered several union grievances and set off a legal debate about the extent of his control over police staffing. Lombardi argues that the Town Charter gives the mayor discretion to determine whether a replacement will be appointed when a police officer leaves the department.

The police union argues that the department's organizational chart is governed by the contract, which prohibits "changes resulting in reduction in ranks" or "department strength."

Employment contracts should not be allowed to modify the rules by which a constitution or charter is operated. Elected officials lack the right — and should lack the authority — to negotiate such documents away.

Add this scheme to the list of practices that reformers must end if Rhode Island is ever to recover.

The Williams Story and a Different Caste

The story of former RI Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams's second family is certainly worthy of the adjectives that have thus far been used to describe it — "odd," "creepy," and so on. With or without further details, though, it's essentially a window into another world in which such creatures thrive, and in which such facts as this swill about:

They brought in $198,000 in salaries last year, according to personnel data gathered by state controller Marc Leonetti. Pamela DosReis, 44, earned a $58,000 base salary, plus $9,709 in overtime and bonuses.

Her husband, Frank, 45, had a base salary of $50,455, plus just shy of $80,000 in overtime and bonuses.

On a personal level, one can congratulate the DosReises for their good fortune in acquiring attractive financial circumstances. As the people funding those circumstances, suspicion and recriminations are more in order, whether focusing on a powerful man who could pull such lucrative strings, on a system that makes an elite of public servants in an economically struggling state, or both.

A Little Less Tilt on the Union Playing Field

Perhaps there is hope that the winds are changing (too slowly, of course) in Providence Journal reporter Steve Peoples' story on the RI Ethics Commission's movement toward a decision that would expand the prohibitions against union members' participation, as public officials, in matters pertaining to other locals under the same umbrella organizations. A 2008 advisory opinion from the Commission provides a good example:

The Petitioner, Vice Chairperson of the Narragansett School Committee, a municipal elected position, requests an advisory opinion as to whether she may participate in subcommittee negotiations with the bargaining unit of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Education Association, to negotiate the Narragansett teachers’ union contract, given that she is a member of the Professional Staff Association at the Community College of Rhode Island, which is also represented by the National Education Association.

Heretofore, in the consensus view of 31 opinions since 1995, according to RI Ethics Commission staff lawyer Esme DeVault, the answer has been "go ahead," but would become, under the proposed change, "better not." Hopefully, the guardians of Rhode Island's public trust have caught on that unions are organizational structures, not vague clubs entailing mutual interests. Imagine the outcry from the usual suspects with union affiliations if a local manager of (say) a CVS were to involve himself as a public official in the affairs of a different CVS store in his hometown.

One option for resolving conflicts of interest that ought to be on the table, but isn't, is for those public officials to quit their unions without losing their jobs. Rhode Island is like one of those games in which two knobs tilt a maze through which the player must work a marble, only the knobs only change the degree to which the board tilts toward the union hole — never away.

Re: Solidarity in Kicking the Blind Veteran into the Street

Justin says

Think of the thoroughness of the union mentality (or dementality) necessary for no union members, of several occupations, to see the immorality of preventing disabled veterans from reaching the hospital or to take pains to minimize the effects of their "action."

Indeed, a mentality is at fault here but it is important to focus on the parties with the faulty mentality who bear direct responsibility for these unacceptable incidents. Commenters Joe Bernstein and RIBorn have identified them.

Joe B: On the other hand the misguided action by the transit workers is impacting people who are disabled as a result of serving this country who also have exactly zero involvement in the labor dispute.

RIBorn: While the state may have no control over the picketers, there should be discipline coming to the bus drivers and police officers.

In point of fact, those veterans would have safely arrived at their destination despite the picketing if another group had simply done their job: the bus drivers and, secondarily, those police officers who came to the scene and failed to abate the situation.

It's one thing for a group to picket. It's a completely different, much darker, thing for a second group to make the conscious decision to place the health and well being of disabled or ill veterans behind excessive deference to a particular group's first amendment expression.

Yes, over the course of two days, everyone realized their mistake. In the case of the bus drivers and police officers who have an official capacity and responsibility, one that specifically involves protecting public citizens and especially veterans, that was two days too long.

There's a time and a place for solidarity. This clearly was neither. Shame on those bus drivers and police officers for not immediately recognizing that fact and thereby allowing an allegiance to warp their priorities; i.e., to become a mindless mentality.

Solidarity in Kicking the Blind Veteran into the Street

Somehow I missed the story from last week that Joe Bernstein raises in the comments to the previous post. The Providence Journal story appears to have run on Saturday:

On Monday and Tuesday morning, [blind veteran Michael] Graichen said Friday, the bus driver explained there was a picket line [at the VA Hospital] he wasn’t going to cross, and he let Graichen out at Roger Williams Hospital. ...

A VA spokesman said his efforts to speak with protesters on Monday were met with profanities. Bullhorns and shouting disrupted traffic on Chalkstone, said James W. Burrows, director of communications at the VA Hospital. When he called the police, he said Thursday, the responding patrol cars honked in solidarity with the protesting unions.

On Wednesday, a 12-foot banner was added to the display. It said: "VA Medical Center / Construction workers with NO Health Care Insurance. / Shame on the VA."

On Thursday, Burrows said, a Providence police officer responded to the VA Hospital to tell protesters they had to stay on the sidewalk and not use the bullhorn.

By Friday morning, the tone had changed.

Think of the thoroughness of the union mentality (or dementality) necessary for no union members, of several occupations, to see the immorality of preventing disabled veterans from reaching the hospital or to take pains to minimize the effects of their "action.". The kicker? The picket wasn't even over current jobs, but was anticipatory of stimulus dollars potentially flowing out of state.

Yet, we allow the organizations that foster such an atmosphere and mentality to interweave themselves, through metastasis, into such critical public roles as police, fire, and education.

ADDENDUM:

Comments Michael to the previous post:

It happened for a day, the bus drivers realized their mistake, the workers who were picketing apologized, in writing and the story should be over.

It appears to have happened for two days. More importantly, though, this was a "mistake" like mugging an old lady on a street corner is a "mistake." The point is that the perpetrator ought to know in advance that what he's doing is wrong.

And the story will not be over until the principles and practices of unionized groups are diverted from the culture of selfishness and aggression that fosters such "mistakes."

The Never-Ending Union Contract

Marc confessed, on last night's Matt Allen Show, that he's tempted to forsake all and join a union, arguing that they're impervious: as individuals, union members get away with everything, and as bodies, their contracts can't be allowed to expire. Stream by clicking here, or download it.

RE: Warwick Crossing Guards - Contracts are Forever

The Board, therefore, finds that the Employer has engaged in unfair labor practices by refusing to bargain in good faith and by unilateral implementation of terms and conditions of employment, and by failing to participate in statutory dispute resolution procedures.

Thus has the RI State Labor Relations Board rendered its decision to reinstate the prior contract of the Warwick Crossing Guard union (Local 1033). "[T]he Employer [The City of Warwick} has engaged in unfair labor practices by refusing to bargain in good faith..." According to the "majority" of 3 on the Board (I looked at the rules and regs for the Board and could find nothing stating a tie goes to the union...), the City of Warwick didn't bargain in good faith because they "entered into negotiations with a mind 'hermetically sealed against even the thought of entering into an Agreement with the Union'." They support this with the following:

[T]he City Council issued a resolution directing the City's administration to "formally notify the Union representing the Crossing Guards that it [the City] is exercising its option not to renew the Collective Bargaining Agreement in order to explore the possibility of privatizing the Crossing Guards and the potential cost savings associated therewith..." (Union Exhibit 1-1) Despite this directive from the City Council, the Union and the Personnel Director did meet and confer and came up with a Tentative Agreement for submission to the City Council.

Apparently, while the City Council investigated other options, the City Administration (ie; Mayor Avedisian's office) was supposed to do....nothing. But, according to the Labor board, he couldn't "do nothing", because that wouldn't have been in good faith either! That's apparent from their subsequent "logic". Remember, they expressly pointed out that a contract between the City and the Crossing Guards had been in place for 30 years, uninterrupted. Thus, the presumption is that this is the irrevocable norm. Then, after explaining the "disconnect" between Mayor and City Council (which I posted previously), they go on:

The Municipal Employee Arbitration Act, like most public sector statutes, both in Rhode Island and across the nation, requires dispute resolution procedures prior to any declaration if impasse is possible. These procedures include mediation, conciliation, and arbitration. R.I.G.L. 28-9.4-10. These procedures are designed to ensure that the state's public policy for public sector collective bargaining is effective. The dispute resolution process is designed to encourage and indeed strive for a negotiated settlement of labor disputes. This Board has previously had the occasion to review the necessity of exhaustion of the dispute resolution process within the context of unilateral changes made by an Employer to the terms and conditions of employment. In the case of public sector employees, however, this Board has previously ruled that "exhaustive" bargaining necessarily includes any and all statutory dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation, conciliation, and arbitration. ULP 4647, Warwick School Committee, (1992) In addition, the "unilateral departure from the terms of an expired contract, prior to all available statutory dispute resolution procedures violates the obligation to bargain under R.I.G.L. 29-7-13. This requirement to engage in all available dispute mechanism procedures still exists today, despite the seemingly ever-increasing public hostility to public-sector labor relations.

There can be no doubt that what the Board is saying is that, even when a contract expires, it doesn't. Not until all avenues of renegotiation are followed, including arbitration, which, by the way, inevitably results in a brokered agreement, right? (When has arbitration "failed")? Thus, an expired contract is just as valid as a current one. With this logic, given that the City Council stated they were going to privatize, had Mayor Avedisian and his office NOT pursued a "just in case" negotiation, the union could have still taken the City of Warwick to the Board, who would have found in the union's favor because the City hadn't begun negotiations in the first place. And how about that last part of the above excerpt? "This requirement to engage in all available dispute mechanism procedures still exists today, despite the seemingly ever-increasing public hostility to public-sector labor relations." How brave is the Board of Labor Relations!

ADDENDUM: As the Warwick Beacon reported:

When neighboring Cranston chose to fire its crossing guards in 2005, the same union filed a complaint to the Labor Relations Board and won. That decision, however, was appealed to Superior Court, where the city was victorious. The State Supreme Court decided not to take up the issue, and Cranston won the day.

William Felkner, the president of the Ocean State Policy Research Institute, has criticized the Labor Relations Board for continually favoring the unions over management. Felkner said that over the last three years, management has a 7-0 record on all major decisions.

The 7-0 pro union record Felkner cites is supported by OSPRI's research into the RILRB's decisions, which they released earlier this year.

ADDENDUM 2: As to the mystery of why a 3-3 tie went to labor--and I'm just guessing--maybe RILRB Chair Walter Lanni made an "executive" decision and counted his vote twice? Lest we forget, as this ProJo op-ed reminds (concerning the RILRBs decision to allow home daycare providers to unionize...remember that one?), Mr. Lanni, a "representative of management" on the Board, "served on the executive board of his firefighters' union from 1973 to 1996; even as chief, he was a member of that union. Moreover, he and Mr. [Frank] Montanaro [now former AFL-CIO President] served together as Cranston firefighters for 10 years and are close friends."

RI Labor Relations Board: Tie goes to the Warwick Crossing Guard Union

As the ProJo is reporting the State Labor Relations Board has found in favor of the Warwick Crossing Guard union, 1 1/2 years after it appealed the City's decision to make the position non-union (and non-benefit). Labor won with a 3-3 tie, with Chairman Walter J. Lanni (Representing Management), Frank Montanaro and John Copabianco (both representing Labor) finding for the union while the Gerald Goldstein and Elizabeth Dolan (representing management) and Ellen Jordan (representing the public) found against it. (The third labor seat is not filled--maybe Montanaro and Copabianco effectively have 1.5 votes? Hey, just sayin', it's Rhode Island after all!). Basically, the Board takes the City to task for having the temerity to impose management rights:

The Union has proven, by a fair preponderance of the credible evidence, that the Employer committed a violation of R.I.G.L. 28-7-13 (6) and (10) by failing to engage on statutory dispute mechanism procedures and by unilaterally repudiating the employment relationship and unilaterally implementing new terms and conditions of employment for Crossing Guards.

The Board seems to have justified their decision by citing the 30 year history of collective bargaining for the position and the fact that the City Council apparently took too long to reject a tentative proposal negotiated by the union and Mayor Avedisian's office and, perhaps most importantly, of short-circuiting the aforementioned bargaining process by putting the work up for bid by a private contractor. The city is appealing the decision. The finding also calls attention to the divided management that goes on in Warwick, which seems to have been the chink in the armor that the union successfully exploited:

The record indicates, however, that no members of the City Council were members of the Employer's negotiating team. This Board is very concerned about the apparent disconnect between the City's "Administration" and the City's Political Leaders relative to the negotiation of this Contract. Forcing the Union to negotiate with representatives that have no real authority to negotiate is not indicative of good faith. In his email of November 14, 2007 to Union representative Donald lannazzi, Mr. Shelton states: "I don't pretend to have any idea whether or not this proposal will satisfy the Council and I know that it would be difficult for you to accept a deal without that assurance, but, given the circumstances, it's the best we can do." With all due respect to Mr. Shelton, whom this Board recognizes to be between the proverbial "rock and hard place", it is not acceptable for the City to conduct collective bargaining negotiations with its Unions through such a disjointed and ill-informed process. The reasonable inference here is that the true power to settle the Contract lies with the City Council, which has political differences with the Mayor's administration. This is an issue beyond the Union's control.

How many other cities and towns have the same situation? Sheesh. If you're going to negotiate with a union, you can bet they're gonna offer a united front. Wouldn't it behoove city management (Administration and City Councils) to do the same from the get go? Apparently so.

ADDENDUM: As commenters point out (and I should have!), the City of Warwick Charter includes a separation of powers such that the Mayor and his office negotiates contracts while the City Council ratifies. No cross-polination allowed.

ADDENDUM 2: I have been reminded that this situation was predicted by former Warwick City Councilman Robert Cushman.

In announcing the firings in a press release late Friday afternoon, Avedisian attempted to portray his action as an improvement over the privatization plan championed by Cushman and modeled on the actions taken by the City of Cranston, which replaced their crossing guards with employees of a private company, NESCTC Security Agency. But Cushman said Avedisian’s scheme raises more questions than it answers and may be nothing more than a phony effort by the Mayor to make it look like he is trying to save money when in fact he is seeking to preserve the status quo.

“By embarking on this plan, the Mayor faces two choices—he can hire new, inexperienced crossing guards which will put the safety of children at risk or he can hire the same crossing guards back to their old jobs without the benefits,” said Cushman. “I believe the Mayor’s game plan is hire the same people back without benefits, which will undoubtedly lead to an unfair labor practice and a court order which restores union status and benefits to the crossing guards.”

Is Walsh Pumping up Supporters or Simply Stating Fact?

Hopefully, Bob Walsh is merely trying to manufacture a self-fulfilling prophecy, here:

"We are preparing, if there is a session in October, to be present and strongly advocating for binding arbitration," says Walsh, executive director of the National Education Association of Rhode Island. And, "we are fairly comfortable we have the commitments we need to get this passed."

Legislators shouldn't underestimate the extent or the staying power of objection should they so clearly prove themselves to be doing the bidding of the unions.

Problem Teacher Had Won Arbitration

Setting aside the question of why on earth is this woman teaching 7 year olds....

[Kathleen] Borgia arrested shortly after 9 a.m., after a police officer working a construction detail Monday morning noticed a white Mustang swerving in traffic and a witness called the police to report a white Mustang traveling erratically on Hope Street, Contente said. A patrol unit that saw the vehicle on Hope Street stopped the Mustang at State and High streets, Contente said.

Borgia has been back teaching second grade since the beginning of this school year, according to Andrew Henneous, a lawyer for the Bristol Warren School Committee. Her case is in the midst of an appeal, he said.

The School Committee fired Borgia in September 2008 for alcohol-related issues, and she appealed that decision to the American Arbitration Association, which reinstated her job in June, according to Henneous. The School Committee has appealed that decision, and the case is pending in Superior Court, he said.

Borgia has violated her probation on an earlier charge, Contente said. Borgia pleaded no contest in the fall of 2008 to a charge of violating a restraining order, according to Contente and court records. That case was filed for one year on Oct. 8, 2008. She was ordered to undergo batterers intervention and to have no contact with the victim, according to court records.

Borgia also pleaded no contest in August 2004 to a charge of felony domestic assault that was reduced to a charge of domestic simple assault, according to Contente and court records. She received a deferred sentence of five years and was ordered to undergo domestic-abuse counseling and alcohol counseling, according to court records.

Is this the sort of sound decision making we can expect from arbitrated teacher contracts? If neutral arbitrators will go to this length to give the "benefit of the doubt" to a teacher with an apparent history of alcohol-dependency and violence, what the heck will they do if they're allowed to decide on potential contract disputes between teacher unions and school committees? Methinks the ballyhooed "arbitration process" ain't quite as cut and dried as proponents would have us think.

The Public Sector Can't Have It All

Comment-section conversation to the previous post, and to the prior post on the same op-ed, brings to mind the basic philosophical problem with public-sector labor, these days. It was once cliché to think of government jobs as akin to government bonds. The work (or the investment) isn't going to make one rich, but it is characterized by reliability.

Over the past few decades, especially in Rhode Island, the reliability of raises and other remunerative increases has made the public sector lucrative as well as secure. That's simply not a sustainable model, and it can't do otherwise than spark backlashes.

Council 94 Leadership Rediscovers Democracy - Membership of Largest State Union to Vote on Gov's Proposal

After huddling up in North Providence for a couple of hours this afternoon and listening to an explanation by a couple of HR people from the state of certain nuances of the proposal, the ProJo reports that

The leaders of the largest state employees union reversed course Friday afternoon and agreed to let their members vote on Governor Carcieri's $36-million pay-deferral plan.

And in reporting this development at the bottom of the hour, WPRO's Carolyn Cronin used the term "ballot vote", presumably meaning a secret vote; if so, this, too, is a good thing.

"Random Job Reassignment"

Council 94 now says they'll accept the Governor's proposal if he agrees to remove the "random job reassignment" provisions.

"We will move this proposal to an immediate vote of our full membership as soon as the Governor removes the one provision that has nothing to do with the state's budget."

"Council 94 is willing to make the financial sacrifices outlined in the most recent proposal in exchange for job security. But the threat of random job reassignment does not give our members job security.''

Read the section after the jump. Basically, it maintains bumping, gives employees two months heads up before a move and lays out other assurances. All so the administration can have the ability to move a qualified union employee from one department to another while also allowing them to maintain membership in their "home" union shop. Real "random." Read on....

Continue reading ""Random Job Reassignment""

Anti-Democratic Council 94 Rejects Governor's Offer

The ProJo reports on the decision by Council 94 to reject Governor Carcieri's cost-saving deal, while other unions approved it. The Journal quotes Council 94’s acting executive director Joseph Peckham as saying the 11 to 7 (or 6?) vote as “not even close.” Ooookay.

Peckham said he, Downey and Council 94 vice president Jonathan Braddock recommended a membership vote because “we believe[d] that it was the best that we could do under the circumstances.”

But the proposal went down 11 to 7, according to Ronald Bonsante, president of Local 2876, who was among the minority seeking a union-wide membership vote. “I think the members had a right to approve or reject it,” Bonsante said. “Now, [Carcieri is] definitely going to lay off.” (Another participant recalled only six yea votes.)

When asked what led to the defeat by the Council 94 leadership board, which represents about one-third of the state’s unionized workers, Peckham said: “The strong sense in the room was that state employees have given, and given, and given for the past two or three years, and they’ve given enough.”

“They have gone without pay. They have had pay cuts, because of the health-insurance increases in premiums. They have had their pensions reduced. We are in this like everyone else,” he said. “Most of our people are average working-class people who are trying to eke out a living.”

Ah, but the benevolent leaders didn't allow their average working-class members the chance to vote for themselves. As an anonymous commenter ("vito") to the ProJo story wrote:

[T]he definition of solidarity is we are willing to let the junior man go.

Ahh, brotherhood. The Council 94 leaders are all for democracy and leveling....except when they aren't. Instead, they're willing to play games with their own members livelihood for the sake of the greater union good.

But a number of Council 94 presidents, including the outspoken Salvatore Lombardi, said they would have voted for the deferred paydays this year and next had Carcieri not tried to attach what they considered a deal-breaker: a provision allowing him to move workers from agency to agency, union to union.

“This was supposed to be about saving money and furlough days. But they managed to slide in language about bargaining-unit rights and shifting people around which is more of a union-busting technique,” echoed Paul Levesque, an officer in Local 2876 representing a block of workers in the Department of Children, Youth & Families. “That’s how they bust unions, by splitting them up like that.”

Like there's a chance in hell of anyone "busting" a union in Rhode Island. Gimme a break. And how did they manage to "slide in" language while you were right there at the table? Look, I understand the paranoia that must be going on in the minds of the poor, besieged union bosses, but the idea of shifting people around to similar jobs in different departments--even if that means they'd be moving to different unions(UPDATE: According to Governor's rejected proposal, they would stay with their original unions)--would allow more people to stay employed in jobs for which they are already trained. Such flexibility would facilitate "bumping" by making it easier to place experienced employees where they're truly needed. But that would make too much sense.

Did the Governor Just Set a Time Bomb?

Just out from the governor's office:

Today, Governor Donald L. Carcieri and several state employee labor unions, including the RI Alliance of Social Service Employees (Local 580), RI Laborers' District Council Locals 808 and 1033 (LIUNA), the RI Parole and Probation Associates (RIPPA), and the RI Employment Security Alliance (Local 401 SEIU), announced that a tentative agreement has been reached.

Under this tentative agreement, the respective labor unions have agreed to eight one-day pay reductions in FY 2010. In return, employees will earn 10 leave days, four of which can be cashed out at retirement or voluntary termination from state employment.

In FY2011, the unions have tentatively agreed to delay the implementation of the three percent COLA for six months to January 2, 2011, as well as four one-day pay reductions, in exchange for five leave days, four of which may be cashed out at retirement or voluntary termination from state employment.

The tentative agreements have been approved by the leadership of the respective unions, but must still be ratified by the members. These union leaders are recommending ratification of the agreement by the unions' members. The State is reaching out to the remainder of the State employee labor unions to offer the same agreement.

"The agreement by these labor unions demonstrates that they recognize the seriousness of our state's fiscal crisis, and they are willing to address the issues we are faced with today," said Governor Donald L. Carcieri. "I commend them for their leadership and cooperation in helping the state through this difficult time."

"For the remaining state employee unions, I extend an offer to participate in this agreement, and receive the same benefits, including deferred compensation, additional leave time, and job security, as those unions who have already agreed," continued Carcieri. "We have no objection to Council 94, or any other union, sending this agreement to its full membership for consideration. For those unions who reject the offer, we will continue with our layoff plans. To continue to ignore the fiscal crisis of our state and refuse to be part of the solution is short sighted, and only hurts hard working rank and file state employees."

"The most equitable method is for all state employees to participate in a plan of pay reduction days. Ratification of this agreement will keep people working, eliminate additional layoffs through FY 2011, and keep government services operating without interruption," continued Carcieri. "While as a state and a nation we don't know when our economy will recover and we don't know when our revenues will improve, this agreement will help us to manage through this difficult time without raising broad-based taxes."

"Both sides worked diligently, honestly, and cooperatively to come to terms on an agreement that responds to the State's fiscal problems and provides a mechanism to respond to budgetary needs while managing our existing workforce in a way that delivers services more efficiently while protecting the jobs of our employees," said Gary Sasse, Director of Administration.

Phil Keefe, president of the Rhode Island Alliance of Social Service Employees (RIASSE Local 580) stated, "We believe this agreement is good for our members because it will provide job security."

"This memorandum of agreement has resulted from intensive negotiations over the past several weeks in which all parties have dealt fairly and responsibly with the pressing issues of existing collective bargaining obligations, job security and fiscal reality. The outcome not only validates the process of collective bargaining, but also demonstrates that by working together, the State and its employees are capable of addressing and mutually resolving issues with which the problematic economic situation has presented them," said representatives of Local Unions 808 and 1033 of the Rhode Island Laborers' District Council.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it looks to me like the governor essentially relied on a line of credit that the unions are extending to the state: Savings now for future paid days off and retirement/layoff/quit bonuses. Plus, it looks like the no-layoffs-through-2011 promise holds.

Abandon hope.

Performance Pay Doesn't Mean Cut-Throat Workplace

Dan Yorke has been talking about the East Providence school administration's push for a pay-for-performance system for teachers, and one teacher from the district called in from her house in Barrington to explain that that sort of pay schedule doesn't work in her profession. Teaching is cooperative, you see, meaning that unlike other professions (apparently) the teachers have to work together, and if some know that others make more, they'll refuse to help.

If that's the case, then the people with whom we currently entrust our children's educations must be replaced immediately, because they lack the requisite maturity.

Now, I know all other fields of work pale in comparison with the divine calling that is public-school teaching, but in every job that I've ever had, whether carpentry, editing, graphic design, office help, retail seafood, or even private-school grade school, differing pay has had absolutely no effect on employees' ability to work as a team. (Boy, wouldn't professional sports be in trouble!) For one thing, pay-for-performance is not zero sum; high-performing employees do not take their additional money away from those who perform less well.

Indeed, it behooves those who earn less to help those who earn more so the latter will provide them assistance in return — both as a matter of course and explicitly to aid in advancement. The carpenters on my jobsite are always quick to help each other, regardless of pay, and they are also quick to seek the input of those whom they know to have more experience and knowledge. Heck, the carpenters are quick to help the electricians and plumbers, who make more money than us even if they're terrible! As long as the structure is perceived as fair and is available to everybody, nobody has cause for grievance against their fellow workers.

If the current crop of teachers in East Providence can't even match the cooperation of lowly construction workers... like I said, they've gotta go.

A Different (and Less Effective) Way of Doing Business

I share Julia Steiny's aversion to teacher "bumping," of course, but her weekend column brings out the downright philosophical difference that exists in public education, as distinct from private-sector work:

A single regulation from the state, effective the moment each contract expires, would allow schools to get the best teachers they can, when vacancies occur.

But that leaves the problem of displaced, or "excessed" teachers.

Cohen believes that "If teachers don't find a position after a year, they should be cut. Chicago and Austin have negotiated contracts that say that after a year, you're dismissed from the system."

Hmmm. That's a bit harsh. I might give them two or three years, so the time is limited, but enough to burnish their credentials or skills if need be. In the meantime, they could have a permanent substitute position at one school, two at the most, where they can be a member of a school community, instead of floating among schools where they can't integrate into a school culture, or be properly evaluated.

For folks who live their professional lives out from under the government wing, the entire discussion seems other worldly. A professional is hired to do a particular job, not to be a part of a system. It changes the relationship between employer and employee entirely. The public education system is having enough trouble teaching students what they need to know to be successful in life without undertaking the additional mission of coddling adults.

If teachers are "excessed," it means one of two things. Either the specific district of which they were a part had no opening for their talents, in which case, their experience should help them to find another job. (And shouldn't job placement be their union's role, not the the system's?) Or they weren't up to the task that they were hired to perform, in which case, both they and the students are best served by the application of maximum incentive to improve or to find a more suitable area of focus or even a more suitable career.

It is, of course, in any organization's interest to foster among its employees a sense of belonging, and that cannot be accomplished if it is unwilling to expend reasonable effort to find mutually beneficial positions for those who've already been hired. Such decisions can only be made on a case-by-case basis, and any systemic effort to influence the outcome beyond the motivation for success is counterproductive.

Union and Democrat Party, Speaking with One Voice

This past weekend's episode of Newsmakers, with AFL-CIO RI President George Nee, is worth a watch:

Nee is among the more reasonable-sounding of the labor representatives, but that presentation only emphasizes the absence of space between how he responds to questions and how any given Democrat partisan would answer them. Sure, he's the guy who said that the state needs more political competition between the parties, but some Democrats have said the same thing, and there's an underlying insinuation that the Republicans should become more like Democrats and, for one thing, court labor more enthusiastically.

His take on a "public option" in healthcare, for example, comes directly from a conversation with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: He cites public universities as an example thereof. Perhaps to the extent that "public" means "union jobs," the comparison has some validity, but in practice the two structures are substantially different. Notably, public universities are state-level operations, not federal.

More importantly, though, universities hire professors and not only put course offerings together, but fulfill them, as well. Health insurance is almost purely a matter of paper processing and funding. "Public option" doctors would not be competing with private-sector doctors to offer a more attractive healthcare regimen. Moreover, given the location-specific nature of higher education, translating such a thing into healthcare would represent a dramatic restructuring — with clients having to travel to a central healthcare campus, or the government seeking to place its doctors in every community.

Federal and state governments also have not built a web of regulations and mandates for higher education. Apart from accreditation and general business laws, colleges and universities operate under their own directives, which allows actual competition. In healthcare, so many offerings are explicitly required, and the incentives guiding the means of payment are so heavily manipulated, that the entire system is effectively becoming a "public option."

Somehow, I suspect that Nee, like any partisan Democrat, would not extend the principle of competition — which the left is happy to extol under the currently restrictive circumstances — if it meant permitting citizens to purchase plans more freely and companies to offer a greater variety.

The Importance of Putting Food on the Table Feelings

As I prepare for the first of a bunch of working Saturdays undertaken out of dire financial need, I bring the words of RI School for the Deaf Occupational Therapist Meg Denton with me to ponder:

Today I was determined to be a "nonessential" state employee. I was told that I am required to accept 12 working days throughout the year without pay. It's not clear to me whether I am supposed to show up to work or not, but either way I will not be paid and I am labeled as nonessential. When I look up the opposite word, essential, in the dictionary, it uses words such as "indispensable," "elemental," "necessary." This word "nonessential" implies that an employee is dispensable, not necessary, not really needed. This is a really awful feeling.

Yes, I'd be upset about losing quite a bit of money during these furlough days, but what really bothers me is the use of language to describe essential and nonessential employees. In these economic times, I think that the governor of Rhode Island could have been more thoughtful in his use of language. Everyone is essential and we all really need to feel that now. Could he not have used a less disrespectful way of putting it, such as "state employees required to take furlough days"?

Her fellow Rhode Islanders are unemployed, underemployed, losing their homes; they're selling valuables, foregoing vacations, and trimming all disposable expenditures from their budgets; and Ms. Denton apparently has the emotional space to be offended by the governor's use of a widely known and well understood personnel term.

Referring to budget documents online (PDF), it appears that Ms. Denton's salary, this year, is $76,014, and the original request for 12 furlough days would bring her about $1,500 below her salary last year, of $74,160. (Let's not forget, also, that the average benefits package in her school is worth $33,504.) Little wonder she has the liberty to whine about a word. How would she feel about "coddled."

Why There's No Agreement Yet

Steve Peoples of the Projo identifies the main issue that, so far, has prevented the Carcieri administration and state employees labor unions from finalizing an agreement on a pay reduction with some deferred compensation for state employees, in order to avoid either shutdown days of layoffs...

The potential deal-breaker appears to be Carcieri’s bid for more flexibility than current union contracts allow to move state workers from job to job, agency to agency, and union to union.

For the first time, Carcieri said Thursday his no-layoff promise to the unions, for the next two years, was specifically tied to the unions’ willingness to give him more flexibility than he has now to move workers around....

Carcieri provided his own perspective, as he was leaving a business-sponsored health-care summit in Warwick: “They want a no-layoff [promise]. I said I could agree with that for this year, because we’re well into the year and effectively getting any layoffs done for this year, it would be problematic anyway to get significant savings. But they want a two-year deal. And all I’ve said [is], I’m happy to consider that, but if we’re going to have no layoffs for two years, we need flexibility, because even without layoffs there’s going to be changes going on and you need to move people around.”

Vlogging About Open Negotiations

My latest video blog is about open negotiations, drawing on material from Tiverton, but applicable elsewhere.

I'd be especially interested in feedback on this one, inasmuch as I tried some new tricks (in an effort to throw myself at the learning curve) and am still trying to get a sense of appropriate content for the medium. Let me know your thoughts on any aspect of video that might inspire comment. In advance, I'll say that this is probably about as long as my vlogs will ever be, and yes, next time, I'll take a few minutes to shave beforehand. (Hey, it was a busy weekend.)

What Rhode Islanders Should Fear

Here's a Dilbert cartoon from July that certain segments of Rhode Island society should consider:

Open Negotiations in Tiverton

Yes, this is a local instance, but I've no doubt whatsoever that similar opinions exist — and the same arguments would be made — in towns across Rhode Island, were school committees to begin considering a demand for open negotiations.

I've posted video of the discussion about the topic at the last school committee meeting in the extended entry.

Continue reading "Open Negotiations in Tiverton"

Reckless Promises, Yes or No?

Brian Hull summarizes the approaching resolution between the governor and the state's public sector unions thus:

Under the agreement, state workers would take eight unpaid days in this fiscal year and four unpaid days in the next fiscal year. State workers will wait an additional six months for their next pay raise. There will be no additional threats of furloughs, shutdown days or layoffs until June 30, 2011 (the next Governor's problem). And the workers will have the opportunity to recoup some lost pay or take bonus vacation days upon leaving state service.

The part about "no additional threats" strikes me as a surpassing reckless promise for the governor to make, in this economic and political climate, so I followed Brian's links. The source in all cases is Council 94 President Michael Downey, and at this point, an explicit promise appears to be more of a hope than a description.

One needn't be an anti-union zealot to see the danger of taking further reductions in labor costs off the table, and I suspect that when the details shake out, there will at least be escape clauses.

East Providence Moves Forward in Another Way

From a press release just out from the East Providence School Committee:

The proposal calls for a collaboration among "stakeholders" in developing the system of evaluating teachers that will be the basis for paying them beginning in 2011. The "stakeholders" would include parents, teachers, administrators, the teachers' union and educational experts from Rhode Island and beyond.

The proposal would pay a top step "Master" teacher a base salary of over $80,000, higher than any other school department in the state.

"We're not just willing to pay for excellence, we want to pay for it," said Carcieri. "We have many, many teachers who are worth their weight in gold. It's time to stop pretending that all teachers are the same, and to reward those who go the extra mile, who really bring the best out in their students."

The details are the difficulty, of course, and the trick is getting the union to agree, inasmuch as folks will tend not to abandon a really good deal (as the teachers currently have) if there's any risk at all that obtaining a better deal will require work and will not be a sure thing. But this is a direction that the United States must pursue if it is eventually to cease its dereliction when it comes to educating younger generations.

My guess, though, is that it's yet another obvious and necessary change that is going to have to be implemented unilaterally.

Continue reading "East Providence Moves Forward in Another Way"

Mixed Messages from School Districts, and Final Decisions from the Judiciary

Doesn't it seem that school districts somehow always just happen to find money? I mean, sometimes a car's brake lines just happen to go the day after it's been in the shop for a tuneup, but it's difficult to know what to make of the Woonsocket superintendent's claim that the district can now hire a few new teachers, as the state insists, without increasing the budget deficit:

Gerardi said those positions could be paid for with money that the district was receiving from the Northern Rhode Island Collaborative and by consolidating classes elsewhere in the system because of lower-than-expected enrollments that became apparent after the start of school.

For two other positions — an administrator for part of the literacy program and a librarian at the high school — Gerardi said the district believes it can show that more qualified people already on staff will be capable of fulfilling the responsibilities of those positions.

So was that collaborative money just going to be used for red balloons? Were those "qualified people" just going to be employed blowing them up? One begins to sympathize (just a little) with unions' feeling that school committees and the administrations that they direct preserve plenty of fat in their budgets that they can trim when required.

That impression adds a little bite to Education Commissioner Deborah Gist's reference, in this context, to state law requiring "maintenance of effort." It would be disconcerting to think that Ms. Gist sees the maintenance of effort clause as license to force districts to adhere to her demands.

Meanwhile, in East Providence, the embattled school committee is seeking a 3.5% increase in the municipality's contribution to its funding, even as the state demands that the city revise its plan for balancing its budget. Look, I'm thrilled about the list of items slated for increases:

The proposal calls for a 210-percent increase, from $250,000 to $776,962, in what was allocated for textbooks and instructional supplies this year. It also has more money for building and classroom maintenance (from $289,500 to $820,500); technology (from $214,682 to $489,682); and athletics and extracurricular activities (from $46,453 to $146,453).

But not only are these things that Rhode Island's townspeople should be considered as already paying for, but it can't do otherwise than leave it to judges to decide between this spending and increases in adult compensation packages. Maybe they'll rule the right way, maybe they won't. But it's way too easy to envision their joining with Gist in affirming the principle that budgets may always be balanced with an increase in taxes.

East Providence Plan Not Good Enough

General Assembly Auditor General Ernest Almonte has rejected East Providence's budget balancing plan (PDF):

The City of East Providence and the School Department have a well established history of deficits. Unfortunately, the City has failed to adequately resolve its financial dilemma. The current Plan is similar to prior deficit reduction plans which proposed the sale of school buildings and dedicating meals tax revenue. I find this Plan does not provide sufficient detail. It includes speculative and uncertain elements, and does not provide calculations in support of the savings you assert will be realized. A serious deficiency in your Plan involves the teachers' union complaint pending before the Rhode Island Superior court and the State Labor Relations Board. The Plan's failure to provide for a contingency in the event the union prevails in this litigation is unacceptable. Clearly, a ruling adverse to the City would undermine your Plan. I expect the city to address its course of action if the union prevails in this litigation. The Plan also fails to eliminate the accumulated deficit by annual appropriation, over no more than five (5) years, in equal or diminshing amounts as required by law. ...

The school deficit has been accumulating for too many years and must be immediately addressed in a financially responsible fashion.

So, the school deficit must be addressed, but the city can't count on its being done via the single greatest expense in that budget.

Shutdowns, Furloughs, Deferred Compensation and the Price of Doin' Business

In the ongoing dispute over state-government shutdown days, as frequently occurs in public-sector union negotiations in Rhode Island, labor representatives are claiming they have a plan that will save just as much money as the plan put forth by government officials. Scott MacKay from WRNI's On Politics blog reports…

Union representatives now say publicly that they have offered Carcieri a way to save money -- using furlough days rather than a state shutdown. This was the path followed by then-Gov. Bruce Sundlun during the 1991 banking crisis, the last time the state had such a deep deficit. Under the furlough option, state employees could count the unpaid furlough days toward retirement benefits or as unpaid vacation days. Michael Downey, head of Council 94 of AFSCME, said the unions offered those terms to Carcieri but that he rejected them.

The Sundlun plan was actually a deferred compensation plan, where state employees worked unpaid days and chose amongst various options for getting paid for them later. The New York Times provided a brief summary of the details…

Eight more one-day furloughs had been planned, but on Friday the unions agreed to Mr. Sundlun's pay-deferral proposal, similar to an idea whose rejection by labor in February led to the shutdowns.

Under the agreement, the workers will forgo pay for eight days from now through June 30, the end of the fiscal year, and will give up pay for 19 days in the fiscal year beginning July 1. They will be able to regain the days as vacation time, in a lump-sum payment or as extra paid personal days off when they retire or quit.

The Times story isn't clear if this was a straight one-to-one trade of hours worked for deferred compensation collected -- that would seem to be the reasonable thing, but we don't always find our way to reasonableness here in Rhode Island. Still, it is possible that such a plan could be structured in a way that truly saved money in a current budget year, allowing state government to cut somewhere else in future years, in order to pay for the deferred compensation.

However, a Tom Mooney story from the Providence Journal on the same subject made it clear that Governor Sundlun didn't get his deferred compensation deal without having to pay a little vig to the unions, in the form of some additional compensation for two shutdown days that occurred, before an agreement was reached…

In the two shutdowns that were held - March 8 and 18 - employees did not get paid. But Sundlun, who's pay will also be deferred, suspended further shutdowns and started new negotiations with union presidents....

The unions also agreed not to seek compensation for the two previous shutdowns, and in exchange the state granted one additional day of paid leave.

With all of the possibilities that are available, in order to evaluate the reasonableness of a union alternative to the government shutdown plan, the public needs to know if the unions are asking for something extra in return for agreeing to some sort of deferred but more flexible compensation option and if so, how much. If the answer is truly "none", maybe something can be worked out.

Finally, another question worth asking based on the Mooney article, is whether this attiude expressed by a 1991 state union leader...

"I'm disappointed," said Joann Orsi, president of a Council 94 affiliate, Local 2870 in the Department of Health. "There are no benefits for state employees in that plan."

Orsi said she would have rather seen Sundlun lay off more of the state's 16,300 unionized workers "in the proper order" of seniority, rather than have her members have their pay deferred.

...is still at-all present amongst Rhode Island's current state-employee union leadership.

Public Business in the Open

Arriving at tonight's Tiverton School Committee meeting even a few minutes before the usual time wasn't sufficient for me to catch most of the meeting. According to the current agenda, an executive session began at 5:30, with the public meeting scheduled thereafter, and the committee is almost all the way through the scheduled topics. Luckily, I didn't miss the planned discussion of holding NEA negotiations in the open.

To be honest, I thought there'd be more people here, for that item, but perhaps the prospect of waiting out a closed session of indeterminate duration dissuaded some folks.

7:15 p.m.

I brought the video camera, although I don't plan to tape these sorts of meetings from start to finish. The particular discussion, though, is one to which I'd like to be able to make reference later.

But it does raise an interesting new problem: Contrasted with a small audio recording device, a camcorder (plus tripod) cut a figure in the room, and while it isn't my intent to be a hidden-camera guy, I also don't wish to become a focal point in the room.

Consequently, I'll have to figure out how to choose seating. The current arrangement in the high school library pretty much forces me to capture any speakers in the audience from behind.

7:38 p.m.

This isn't a complaint, but there's an extended conversation going on about AP classes and exams. The conversation began because the trends in Tiverton aren't the best, but the conversation has become general about the essential concept of AP. It's more like something from a social gathering than a meeting of an elected body. Just an observation; I wouldn't have expected the interest to be so high.

9:44 p.m. (from home)

What an astonishing conversation about open contract negotiations. Some familiar faces — none of them direct NEA union members, as far as I know — came forward to argue that the school committee shouldn't even bring up open negotiations with the union because it would start things off on the wrong foot. Put the degree of assumption aside; the committee is already in court over something about union claims that Chairman Jan Bergandy is openly declaring to be lies. The notion of good faith in these negotiations is a fantasy, a sham.

But the same people went on to argue that giving the public more information is intrinsically bad, in part because of the possibility of differing interpretations. In other words, it's better to allow participants in closed-door discussions to tell the public what their interpretation is than to let we dolts in the electorate decide for ourselves.

The kicker was when school committee member Carol Herrmann argued that if Mr. Bergandy feels that he cannot trust the union negotiators, then perhaps he shouldn't be participating in the negotiations! Think about that. The union lied about something that he said (in his view), and he is now openly and fairly raising ways in which trust can be regained and ensured, and the response — from an ostensible representative of the public! — is that he's been tainted and ought to take himself out of the picture.

It was like watching the lunchtime supervisors in middle school argue that a beaten and bloody student should proceed into a dark corner with the bully in good faith, because, honestly, really, truly, this time the bully is interested in calmly resolving differences.

Some folks expressed concern that requesting open negotiations would create costly delays in the contract creation process, but let's be honest: As I warned the committee before it made the ridiculously poor decision to approve the last contract, the union is simply not going to negotiate until the economy recovers. Precedent has proven that they'll receive retroactive pay from the economic perspective of the date that the contract is approved (i.e., in good times), and as long as they're able to hold out, they will.

A Telling Exchange with the Unionist

Yesterday, I related an anecdote in which I used my vehicle as a means of forcing traffic etiquette. The part of the tale on which National Education Association of Rhode Island Assistant Executive Director Patrick Crowley honed in was that I'd used my work van to get to a political event:

You are allowed to use your work van for political and blog work?

My response, of course, was that I own my work van and require nobody to grant me permission to use it however I like. It's a freedom thing, and I can't help but feel that these few sentences of banter trace back to fundamental differences in opinion about reality and the rights of man.