Act 10

Now that an activist judge has overturned part of act 10 the right is circulating a petition in favor of it.  Goody for you, aside from one of your core beliefs being against petitions what is the point?  Thinking back to my school days I vaguely remember that if a law is ruled unconstitutional the legislative branch could make changes to the law so that it meets the constitutional concerns that the courts had.  In this case all that would have to be done is extend act 10 to cover police and fire, which should have been done in the first place.  Maybe the energy that is being used to circulate meaningless petitions could be better spent educating people on the right how exactly the US system of government works because there seems to be some confusion.

Myths and Lies

soI was listening to liberal radio (92.1 FM the Devil's advocates) when it occurred to me, the whole argument about public schools is based on lies.  Dom's argument was that if collective bargaining is restored the teachers would rob the taxpayers.  This is the same argument used against state employees.  The problem is that the process is that wages and benefits are negotiated with the school board in the case of teachers or the state joint employee relations committee.  Then these proposed contracts are approved by the voters for teachers and the entire legislature and governor in the case of state employees.  If there is no settlement it could go to binding arbitration, which very rarely happens.  So, tell me again how the unions demand and get their way?  If people are angry they need to vote the people making the decisions out of office.  I'm angry that teachers in my district are getting 2.1% which is the rate of inflation as stated in Act 10.  The district got the "tools" and punted.  The state employees are getting 0% as they have for the past 3 years.  In the case of state workers was dissolving collective bargaining necessary when workers were currently operating under furloughs (3% pay cut) and 0% salary increases.  Now they have an effective 12-20% pay reduction depending on salary and they will likely be asked to contribute more to insurance and retirement next year as they have been every year for the last 6 years.  At the state level this was totally unnecessary.  The employees had accepted these cuts, they did not rob the taxpayer.  The media should be reporting in the reality based world.