The Great Union-Busting Thread

[jimmy olsen]

The Union issue brings out the vote in Wisconsin SC judge race.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-04-06-wisconsin-union-election_N.htm

[grumbler]

1 to 5.  Wait till the GOP shuts down the government, and Berkut blames those damned liberal commie Democrats.  Landfall will be ugly.

Weird coincidence that the person you are talking about has the same name as the poster here.  Did he take it from "our" Berkut, or the reverse?

[jamesww]

I approve of most unions, though have never been a member of any; yeah, Thatcherism. 

[MadImmortalMan]

The Union issue brings out the vote in Wisconsin SC judge race.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-04-06-wisconsin-union-election_N.htm

So it's within the margin of fraud. Kloppenburg will win.

[Hansmeister]

Apparently a whole city was accidentally left off the tally, giving Prosser an insurmountable 7,000 vote lead.

I didn't think Prosser had a chance due to the heavy Union involvemtn in this are, they outspend him 10 to 1.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm surprised Prosser spent anything at all.

[Hansmeister]

I'm surprised Prosser spent anything at all.

He got state funding of $300,000.

[Razgovory]

I'm surprised Prosser spent anything at all.

He got state funding of $300,000.

Ah, so he's a Socialist.

[Habbaku]

I'm surprised Prosser spent anything at all.

He got state funding of $300,000.

Ah, so he's a Socialist.

[KRonn]

I'm shocked, I tell ya! That Massachusetts Dem leaders are actually pushing plans that rile the Public Unions, SEIU, etc.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/2011_0414unions_fuming_over_deleos_wisconsin-esque_budget/

Unions fuming over Robert DeLeo's 'Wisconsin-esque' budget

Bay State union honchos yesterday struck back against House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo's $30.45 billion budget that includes legislation giving cities and towns broad powers to raise health-care co-payments and deductibles for their workers.

"It's almost Wisconsin-esque, I would say, that they would eliminate our right to bargain, sit down and meet with our employer on the issue of health insurance," said Raymond McGrath, legislative director of SEIU-NAGE. "The movement in the great liberal state of Massachusetts is not to the liberal end of things, it's to the conservative end of things."

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker made headlines this year when he tried to eliminate most collective bargaining rights for public employees.

New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang defended the speaker's plan, which would mean $100 million in savings for cities and towns, saying public employees should make the same insurance payments those in the private sector make.

Gov. Deval Patrick, a supporter of collective bargaining, adopted a similar plan in his budget but gave unions some time to bargain before officials can impose the changes. Patrick's plan also would give public employees up to 50 percent of the savings. DeLeo's plan allocates 10 percent of the savings to employees for one year.

The rest of the House budget has deep cuts and reforms to close a $1.9 billion deficit, including $65 million chopped from local aid to cities and towns and $55 million in cuts to adult day health services.

"We had to make some very tough decisions," DeLeo said. "It's a tough budget but a very responsible one."

DeLeo said his budget reduces overall spending by 2.2 percent, or $664 million, from fiscal year 2011.

The Winthrop Democrat rejected at least $30 million in fee hikes in Patrick's budget, including an extra nickel on water and juice drinks and an annual car insurance charge of up to $2.75.

DeLeo also eliminated funding for one of Patrick's priorities — an immigrant health-care assistance program titled the Commonwealth Care Bridge program. The savings totals $50 million.

But DeLeo adopted Patrick's health-care reforms, saying the state will save $789 million by changing how it pays for health care for the poor. The budget seeks to work with health-care providers to bring down costs.

Pro-union state representatives and lobbyists already are pushing back on the health insurance changes.

"I'm hoping to get to an understanding instead of a one-sided proposal," said Martin J. Walsh (D-Dorchester), who said he'd file an amendment to the plan.

Check out the House Ways and Means budget proposal.

[Valmy]

I'm shocked, I tell ya! That Massachusetts Dem leaders are actually pushing plans that rile the Public Unions, SEIU, etc.

Even Demublicans have to accept reality one of these days.

[MadImmortalMan]

Looks like Prosser is going to end up the winner after all, with a big enough margin not to dispute.

[KRonn]

Stunner, for sure.      Massachusetts House voted overwhelmingly for the bill restricting  public union collective bargaining. It goes to the Senate next, where it may have a tougher fight, not sure. This is similar to ideas that Governor Patrick was saying a while ago, so I'm thinking he may approve it. The Unions were putting huge pressure out so I didn't expect this to pass. Some of this stuff looks similar to what had Wisconsin in days of Union rage. 

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2011/04/27/house_votes_to_limit_bargaining_on_health_care/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed3

House votes to restrict unions
Measure would curb bargaining on health care

House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly last night to strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care, saying the change would save millions of dollars for financially strapped cities and towns.

The 111-to-42 vote followed tougher measures to broadly eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees in Ohio, Wisconsin, and other states. But unlike those efforts, the push in Massachusetts was led by Democrats who have traditionally stood with labor to oppose any reduction in workers' rights.

Unions fought hard to stop the bill, launching a radio ad that assailed the plan and warning legislators that if they voted for the measure, they could lose their union backing in the next election. After the vote, labor leaders accused House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and other Democrats of turning their backs on public employees.

"It's pretty stunning,'' said Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. "These are the same Democrats that all these labor unions elected. The same Democrats who we contributed to in their campaigns. The same Democrats who tell us over and over again that they're with us, that they believe in collective bargaining, that they believe in unions. . . . It's a done deal for our relationship with the people inside that chamber.''

"We are going to fight this thing to the bitter end,'' he added. "Massachusetts is not the place that takes collective bargaining away from public employees.''

The battle now turns to the Senate, where President Therese Murray has indicated that she is reluctant to strip workers of their right to bargain over their health care plans.

DeLeo said the House measure would save $100 million for cities and towns in the upcoming budget year, helping them avoid layoffs and reductions in services. He called his plan one of the most significant reforms the state can adopt to help control escalating health care costs.

"By spending less on the health care costs of municipal employees, our cities and towns will be able to retain jobs and allot more funding to necessary services like education and public safety,'' he said in a statement.

Last night, as union leaders lobbied against the plan, DeLeo offered two concessions intended to shore up support from wavering legislators.

The first concession gives public employees 30 days to discuss changes to their health plans with local officials, instead of allowing the officials to act without any input from union members. But local officials would still, at the end of that period, be able to impose their changes unilaterally.

The second concession gives union members 20 percent of the savings from any health care changes for one year, if the unions object to changes imposed by local officials. The original bill gave the unions 10 percent of the savings for one year.

The modifications bring the House bill closer to a plan introduced by Governor Deval Patrick in January. The governor, like Murray, has said he wants workers to have some say in altering their health plans, but does not want unions to have the power to block changes.

But union leaders said that even with the last-minute concessions, the bill was an assault on workers' rights, unthinkable in a state that has long been a bastion of union support. Some Democrats accused DeLeo of following the lead of Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and other Republicans who have targeted public employee benefits. "In the bigger world out there, this fits into a very bad movement to disempower labor unions,'' said Representative Denise Provost, a Somerville Democrat who opposed the bill.

Under the legislation, mayors and other local officials would be given unfettered authority to set copayments and deductibles for their employees, after the 30-day discussion period with unions. Only the share of premiums paid by employees would remain on the health care bargaining table.

Geoff Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said that, even if the bill becomes law, municipal workers would still have more bargaining power over their health care plans than state employees. "It's a fair, balanced, strong, effective and meaningful reform,'' he said.

Unions lobbied to derail the speaker's plan in favor of a labor-backed proposal that would preserve collective bargaining, and would let an arbitrator decide changes to employee health plans if local officials and unions deadlock after 45 days. Labor leaders initially persuaded 50 lawmakers, including six members of DeLeo's leadership team, to back their plan last week. But DeLeo peeled off some of the labor support in the final vote.

Representative Martin J. Walsh, a Dorchester Democrat who is secretary-treasurer of the Boston Building Trades Council, led the fight against the speaker's plan. In a speech that was more wistful than angry, he recalled growing up in a union household that had health care benefits generous enough to help him overcome cancer in 1974. He said collective bargaining rights helped build the middle class.

"Municipal workers aren't the bad guys here,'' he said. "They're not the ones who caused the financial crisis. Banks and investment companies got a slap on the wrist for their wrongdoing, but public employees are losing their benefits.''

The timing of the vote was significant. Union leaders plan today to unleash a major lobbying blitz with police officers, firefighters, and other workers flooding the State House. Taking the vote last night at 11:30 allowed lawmakers to avoid a potentially tense confrontation with those workers, and vote when the marble halls of the House were all but empty.

[KRonn]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/05/25/mass_unions_soften_approach_on_health_care/?page=1

Unions soften tone on health
Put positive spin on Senate plan; bill aims to cut municipal costs

Massachusetts labor leaders have given up their full-throated battle to protect certain collective bargaining rights amid an increasing likelihood that the Legislature will empower local governments to raise the health insurance costs of teachers, firefighters, and other municipal employees.

   
Today, the Senate is to open debate on a state budget that includes a proposal, long sought by mayors and other local officials, to allow them to shift workers into less expensive health plans, even if unions oppose the changes.

A month ago, before the House overwhelmingly approved a similar measure, labor leaders ran dramatic radio ads, held protests at the State House, and threatened to oust lawmakers. The standoff, they said, was a historic effort to ensure Massachusetts did not slide toward the tougher measures imposed in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere.

But now, as the Senate prepares to debate its bill, unions have issued a conciliatory press release, and tried to put a positive spin on the developments.

The changed tactics reflect shifting political ground and a tacit acknowledgement that their earlier hardball tactics did not work in an economy that has hit city and town budgets hard.

Although there are three proposals on the table, the House, the Senate, and Governor Deval Patrick are in broad agreement that local governments should be able either to switch their workers into the state's health care plan or to design their own plan that similarly trims costs for management. Each plan would leave a window to discuss those changes with workers, but ultimately would let city and town governments alter their plans, regardless of whether workers oppose it.

Several union-friendly senators have filed amendments in advance of this week's debate, but appear to be aiming merely to tweak the bill at the margins, rather than kill it. There is little sense they are mounting the kind of sustained fight that characterized the House debate last month, when nearly a third of the chamber's members faced off against Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and signed onto a union-backed effort to rewrite the measure.

Senate Democrats, who hold 36 of 40 seats in the chamber, met behind closed doors yesterday to discuss the measure before today's debate.

"I'm hoping to be able to find a balance,'' Senator Steven A. Tolman, a Brighton Democrat and union ally said yesterday on his way back to the daylong meeting.

Service Employees International Union Local 888 portrayed the Senate plan as a victory in an e-mail to members last Thursday, a day after the measure was released, casting a positive light on a plan that many union members would have railed against only weeks ago.

The union proudly declared that the 700 letters its members sent to state senators had won the day.

"Our efforts paid off!'' union leaders wrote in bright-red boldface. The newsletter said the bill was not perfect, but praised the Senate version for "preserving our fundamental collective bargaining rights.''

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Bruce T. Boccardy, president of the union, said he still believes all three proposals are part of a fundamental attack on health care for working people.

He described his praise for the Senate bill as a practical move.

"Pragmatically, considering the climate, considering the anti-union hysteria that's out there,'' the Senate version does much more than the House to at least preserve the principle of collective bargaining, he said.

Other leaders have been reluctant to talk about the issue of late. The president of the AFL-CIO, Robert J. Haynes, who offered the most impassioned arguments and threats when the House passed its measure last month, has made no public statements about the Senate bill, and his spokesman declined a request to speak for this report.

A coalition including the SEIU, the AFL-CIO, and the two statewide teachers unions put out a joint statement praising the Senate for its "thoughtful approach'' to "this complex issue'' and offering to work with senators.

Business groups and city and town officials, who favor both the House and Senate versions of the plan, applauded them for attempting to curb collective bargaining and help managers control costs.

"You get to the exact same place if you're a municipality; it's just a different process,'' said Andrew C. Bagley, director of research and public affairs for the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed group that has backed the changes.

The differences between the plans are subtle. But Senate President Therese Murray, a Plymouth Democrat, and other members of the Senate have argued that their proposal would give workers a greater say in making the changes and would protect retirees and chronically ill employees by taking more of the savings and putting it into an account for workers.

The Senate bill would also allow a three-member panel to resolve deadlocks if unions and cities cannot agree on a new health plan. And it would give the governor's office the authority to nominate the tie-breaking member of the committee. But that panel would have to rule against the unions if the city wants to put workers under the state's insurance plan.

Last month, after DeLeo released his proposal, labor leaders stood in his office, angrily demanding a meeting. But a day after Murray's plan came out last week, she said she had heard from no one.

In a move that may have helped deflate labor opposition, Murray chose a senator with strong union backing, Katherine Clark of Melrose, to lead the effort to write the Senate bill.

The governor, who has tried to promote his relationship with unions nationally even as he aims to curb health costs for cities and towns, said Monday that he preferred the Senate bill as well, arguing that it gives workers more of a voice than the House version.

"I said at the time I thought some of the rhetoric after the House action was inflated,'' Patrick said. "This is not Wisconsin. That bill is not Wisconsin. The Senate comes a little closer to what we had in mind in our original proposal in terms of the role of labor, having an opportunity to be at the table and negotiate around these issues.''

[HVC]

Postal workers are on rotating strikes here. I wonder how many peopel are really affected? Most of the mail i get no adays are junk mail. i go paperless for alomst everything.