Durka-Durka-Muhammed-Jihad!!
Here's something that I posted about before - the increasing whine from the California Teacher's Association.
To me, it appears that the CTA is acting like a gold-digging tramp that got caught in bed with a high school basketball team - they're getting slightly viscious about what they're 'entitled' to in the end. They're still saying that Governor Schwarzenegger is 'robbing the children'.
From the Sac Bee:
Daniel Weintraub: Governor was snared in Prop. 98 trapAnd why is the teacher's union foaming-at-the-mouth and touting that 'children will suffer'?? It's because in reality the union will suffer and they won't admit that they'll have to gouge their union members with higher fees.As anyone who watches television in California must know by now, the public education lobby believes Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger shorted the schools by $2 billion when he proposed his budget for the coming year in January.
The California Teachers Association, one of the state's most powerful public employee unions, has been drumming that message home for weeks in political advertisements bashing the governor and his integrity. The attack has driven Schwarzernegger's approval ratings down and threatened his entire agenda for change in 2005.
Frustrated, the governor last week lashed out, accusing the union and its allies of lying about his record.
"I did not make a promise like they keep saying," Schwarenegger declared.
His outburst was ill-timed and impolitic. But in a way, it was understandable.
[...]
Earlier this month, the governor revised his budget, as the law requires, and gave the schools $126 million more than he proposed in January. Yet now we are told that he is shorting them not by $2.3 billion but by $3.1 billion. By the strict terms of the deal made last year, this is true. But it is also true that Schwarzenegger is proposing $500 million more than the law requires.
No wonder he's frustrated. The faster he runs, it seems, the farther he falls behind.
Puzzled? You have a right to be. Schwarzenegger is giving the schools more than the law requires, more than they got last year, more than they have ever received before, and enough to keep pace with higher enrollments and higher prices next year.
But he's $3.1 billion short of what they say they are entitled to - at a time when the state still faces a huge gap between its projected revenues and expenditures.
I don't normally keep up with unions - they're mostly useless in the 21st century - but watch for indications of this.
These dorks need to STFU and work with what they've got instead of whining about what they don't have.
The unions aren't the only cause of UA's problems. UA made record breaking profits in the late 90
Read more in CTA - STFU!
The Other Mike S said:
I think the biggest problem with unions is their lack of business perspective. Their entire focu
Read more in CTA - STFU!
Yogimus said:
Trouble with unions is that they don't stop existing once all their goals are met.
Read more in CTA - STFU!I agree that unions seem to be less than useful nowadays, but if they weren't in existence, I thi
Read more in CTA - STFU!
Comments on CTA - STFU!
I agree that unions seem to be less than useful nowadays, but if they weren't in existence, I think employers would run over employees with steamrollers. Some of the unions are corrupt, some are greedy, but I still think they are necessary.
|| Posted by Cait, May 24, 2005 11:09 AM ||Trouble with unions is that they don't stop existing once all their goals are met.
|| Posted by Yogimus, May 24, 2005 08:20 PM ||I think the biggest problem with unions is their lack of business perspective. Their entire focus is on the here-and-now and getting as much out of the company as they can.
As we have seen in the textile industry (do we even still have one here in the US?), the automobile industry, the steel industry, etc., unrealistic wage scales can be crippling. And not just to a single business, but to entire industries.
In Nor Cal, we have a battle coming up with our main regional transportation system, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). They have a projected $50 million deficit. What does the union want? Only an 18% pay raise, that's all!
Since this is a public entity, they'll probably just go the The Well (that's you and me) again, and raise taxes and fares. But the idea is the same: I don't give a shit about the long-term health of the company, I just want my money, NOW.
That attitude is biting the United Airlines retirees right in the ass, as they just lost virtually all of their pension funds when UA went into bankruptcy.
You reap what you sow....
|| Posted by The Other Mike S, May 26, 2005 08:09 AM ||The unions aren't the only cause of UA's problems. UA made record breaking profits in the late 90's, but stopped reporting their profits in the last few years. The unions represent the people, fellow Americans, who work for UA. Labor is always the easiest thing to blame and try to cut when a business starts claiming it's going bad. Other causes include the lease of the planes from GE, the cost of fuel, and interest payments on finance capital to Wall Street banks, among others (like, maybe, Glenn Tilton's 1.2 million a year? I wonder what his pension looks like). What's happening is that UA is looking to cut costs by dumping the pensions on the feds (you and me, in a sense). Rather than the other corporations re-negotiating with UA to lower the costs, (which would reduce their profits, but they won't starve), UA is going to trash it's employees (fellow American's) pensions, who won't starve either, but who will be in jeopardy of retirement poverty. Other airlines will see that this is a great way to increase profits, and other industries will follow. Pity the new bankruptcy laws didn't include this kind of thing, but just made it harder for people, fellow Americans, to get out from under.
The only attitude that's biting anybody in the ass is the Wal Mart attitude that says that Americans aren't worth anything when they work, and that if the only job they can get is working at Wal Mart then they deserve to be paid shit... yet (gotta do it) we're willing to dump 300 billion into Iraq.
|| Posted by scroff, May 27, 2005 01:40 PM ||