Browsed by
Tag: union

Non-Union Power Crews Turned Away

Non-Union Power Crews Turned Away

Comments 3 comments

Pretty pathetic. I don’t care if you are tried and true union blue. But damn, these people need help. And it shows the hypocracy of unions.

Even for the better good for everyone, they turn down help because they don’t want their sacred unions shown up. Sounds a lot like the current administration.

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, NEW JERSEY

The hurricane-ravaged east coast has been receiving north Alabama help, but crews learned they’ll be doing work in Long Island, New York instead of in New Jersey.

Utility crews volunteered with Sandy recovery.

Crews from Decatur Utilities and Joe Wheeler out of Trinity headed up there this week, but Derrick Moore, one of the Decatur workers, said they were told by crews in New Jersey that they can’t do any work there since they’re not union employees.

The crews that are in Roanoke, Virginia say they are just watching and waiting even though they originally received a call asking for help from Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

The crews were told to stand down. In fact, Moore said the crew from Trinity is already headed back home.

Understandably, Moore said they’re frustrated being told “thanks, but no thanks.”

Story here

 

Substance Over Style – The Romney Way

Substance Over Style – The Romney Way

Comments 1 comment

Stolen from the War Planner

ROMNEY:

– Graduated with “University Honors” from BYU (also known as “Highest Honors”, their most prestigious form of recognition, somewhat equivalent to valedictorian) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English; he’s not just a numbers guy

– Master’s degree in Business (Harvard, a Baker’s scholar: top 5% of business students)

– Master’s degree in Law (Harvard, graduated Cum Laude / with Honors, top 1/3 of his class)

– Earned both master’s degrees (business AND law) at Harvard University simultaneously (Could you do that? I couldn’t.)

– Had an incredible 80% success rate in private business and now worth between $200 and $250 million (compare this to Obama and many of Obama’s closest advisers who have never had to turn a profit or go hungry, and, no, don’t whine about workers Romney let go when investing in a company while at Bain Capital because you’d be forgetting to look at:
A) the fact that Bain was INVITED by the companies to have Bain invest in them; there were no “hostile takeovers” by Bain Capital and
B) the workers’ jobs Romney saved by saving a dying company and
C) the jobs he created after those struggling companies were turned around and started to grow again)

http://theweek.com/article/ind…

– Gave away his inheritance in 1998 to start / help fund the “George W. Romney Institute of Public Management” at BYU (his father, George Romney, died in 1995)

– As head of the 2002 Winter Olympics (Salt Lake City) turned a potential loss (-$379M shortfall) into one of the few profit-earning Olympic games (+$100M profit)

– Donated his entire Olympic Games salary and severance package ($1.4M) to charity

– Put aside partisanship prejudices/trash-talk by successfully campaigning/winning the governor’s seat (2003 – 2007) as a Republican in a heavily Democrat-controlled state LONG before Scott Brown

– While governor of Massachusetts, at HIS request, served the people of MA at the salary of $1/year (that’s right, ONE DOLLAR)

– Turned Massachusetts’ budget from red to black while governor (- $3.0B to +$2.16B; that’s “billion” with a “B”)

– Cut taxes 19 times as Massachusetts governor (that’s not a typo, NINETEEN)

– As MA governor, developed a plan that would make deadbeats pay for their own health care (you may not like the MA health care law but that’s what it’s sole purpose was. Still don’t like it because of the mandate? Don’t move to MA.) (BTW, how would YOU have solved the MA healthcare free-loader problem and how would you have done it with an overwhelmingly Democrat-controlled state legislature like Romney had to work with?)

– “Service over self”. Romney endorsed McCain only 2 days after ‘Super Tuesday’ in 2008 when it became obvious McCain was the clear front-runner; America is more important to him than his ego (Can you say “He’s not Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum”?)

– Volunteer service to community as a church head pastor for 13 years all with ZERO pay (that’s right, none); 5 years as a “bishop” and 8 years as a “stake president”

– Would give ALL his Presidential salary ($1.6 Million total) back to the American taxpayers if elected (yes, he’s on record as committing to this)

– Voluntarily turned down enrolling in Medicare when he turned 65 on March 12, 2012
(in other words, he’s NOT sucking up our precious tax dollars because he knows he can, and therefore should, take care of himself)

– He also chose to NOT receive any Social Security payments upon turning 65 because, again, he knows he can take care of himself and therefore should not rely on our tax dollars to help fund his daily living

– Looks, talks and acts “Presidential”

– Released his last 2 years of filed tax records (2010 AND 2011) proving he’s not a tax cheat; paid $1.94 million in federal income taxes in 2011giving him an effective tax rate of 14.1%. AND, the private firm which prepared Romney’s taxes from 1990 through 2009 issued a letter stating that Romney paid 100% of the federal and state income taxes owed during those 20 years. The firm also said Romney’s average annual effective federal tax rate was 20.2% for those 20 years. Satisfied?

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/2…

– Cares about his fellow man: gave $3,000,000 to charity in 2010 and $4,000,000 to charity in 2011; that’s $7 MILLION in just 2 years. Would you have done that? Romney did.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/o…

– He’s pledged (repeatedly) that he’ll repeal Obamacare and REPLACE it with something better.

– And finally…..he’s N-O-T Obama

P.S. – If all one can say about a candidate is that they are a member of “X” church and ignore the talents and character of the person, that person does not deserve the privilege of voting.

Pink Romney/Ryan Shirt Compared to KKK By Philly Teacher…Gets 16 Year Old Kicked Out Of Class

Pink Romney/Ryan Shirt Compared to KKK By Philly Teacher…Gets 16 Year Old Kicked Out Of Class

Comments 2 comments

And these people are in charge of the young minds of our children. The teacher said it was a joke, I wonder how she would feel if she were told her teachers union shirt was like Hitlers SS uniform? Not so funny now huh teacher lady!

A Philadelphia high schooler says she was humiliated after her teacher told her to remove a Mitt Romney T-shirt she was wearing, comparing it to “wearing a KKK shirt.”

Samantha Pawlucy, a 16-year-old sophomore at Charles Carroll High School in the Port Richmond section of the city, says she wore a pink Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan T-shirt last Friday during the school’s dress-down day.

No one made an issue of Samantha’s political T-shirt until she got to geometry class.

“The teacher told me to get out of the classroom, I said no,” Samantha said.

“She told me to take off my shirt and said that she has another one if I need one. And then the teacher asked me… ‘Are your parents Republican?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ She said that’s like her wearing a KKK shirt.”

Samantha was so embarrassed by the public criticism in front of her classmates that she told her parents she didn’t want to return to school.

“I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t think it was right at all.” They requested a meeting with the principal and the teacher. The teacher apologized to Samantha and her parents saying that the statement was meant as a joke.

“It was funny to her, but I was really embarrassed,” Samantha said.

“If it was a joke between two adults, I can take a joke like that but (my daughter) didn’t know how to take it. She doesn’t understand, she actually thinks she did something wrong,” her father, Richard Pawlucy, said.

“I can just picture her sitting there, feeling ashamed for just wearing a T-shirt,” said her mother, Christine Pawlucy. “That someone could spin that and throw it back on a 16-year-old child and make her feel so terrible.”

A spokesperson for the Philadelphia School District told NBCPhiladelphia.com that the teacher was transferred to another classroom as the district investigates the incident.

In Recognition Of The Chicago Teachers Union Strike

In Recognition Of The Chicago Teachers Union Strike

Comments 0 Comment

Chicago teachers have the highest average salary of any city at $76,000 a year before benefits. The average family in the city only earns $47,000 a year. Yet the teachers rejected a 16 percent salary increase over four years at a time when most families are not getting any raises or are looking for work.

Chicago Public School already teachers enjoy the highest average pay of any district in the nation—$76,000 a year, plus benefits. (The CTU argues it is only $71,000 after taking out contributions for their pensions and health care.) The union wanted a 30 percent raise but has indicated it could settle for the 16 percent the city is now offering (raising average annual pay to $88,000).
Teachers pay only 3 percent of their health-care costs and out of every new dollar set aside for public education in Illinois in the last five years, a full 71 cents has gone to teacher retirement costs.
Monday morning, teachers showed up in force on picket lines as parents dropped their children off at 144 contingency elementary and high schools across the city, as well as at parks, libraries and YMCAs. (Daycare paid for by taxpayers anyone?)
Even as a chemistry teacher in Chicago Public Schools, Karen Lewis made her students work hard to find answers, according to one of her former principals. In 2010, Lewis defeated Marilyn Stewart, vaulting from the rank and file to union president. Teachers union officials declined to provide information on Lewis’ salary. But Stewart made $211,119 in 2009, her final full year in office. Lewis took over as president for part of 2010, and was paid $71,330 by the teachers union that year, records indicate. Lewis also is eligible for compensation from the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and in 2011 she was paid $64,157 by that group, records indicate.

The union has a great deal of leverage in its strike. It can prevent more than 350,000 children from receiving an education. It has forced parents to find other ways of caring for their kids while they work. Many children will wander the streets—police are beefing up patrols to forestall trouble.

The union prefers having children pay this price to letting the district fire bad teachers. This is not exactly surprising. Unions serve their members’ interests first. No union would sacrifice its members’ job security to spare parents from a strike.

This is why collective bargaining does not belong in government—and why more states should emulate Governor Scott Walker’s (R–WI) reforms. No competitors exist to pick up the government’s slack. Unlike in the private sector, a government strike shuts down vital services entirely. The government exists to serve the common good, but unions exist to serve themselves. They should not have the power to shut down the government to get their way.

FDR agreed:

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.

The Great American Tragedy

The Great American Tragedy

Comments 0 Comment

New migration tendencies in California:

The state’s progressive tax-and-spend experiment is broken, threatening basic services, from courts and parks to education and health care for its most vulnerable citizens. Mr. Brown’s tax initiative only exposes the state to an ever more dangerous roller-coaster ride.

No wonder many Silicon Valley CEOs say they won’t expand in California because of high taxes and burdensome regulation. And no wonder net migration has recently reversed, with hundreds of thousands of workers and their families leaving the state in search of better opportunities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

California’s economy, which used to outperform the rest of the country, now substantially underperforms. The unemployment rate, at 10.9%, is higher than every other state except Nevada and Rhode Island. With 12% of America’s population, California has one third of the nation’s welfare recipients.

Partly due to generous union wages and benefits, inflexible work rules and lobbying for more spending, many state programs and institutions spend too much and achieve too little. For example, annual spending on each California prison inmate is equal to an entire middle-income family’s after-tax income. Many of California’s K-12 public schools rank poorly on standardized tests. The unfunded pension and retiree health-care liabilities of workers in the state-run Calpers system, which includes teachers and university personnel, totals around $250 billion.

Many Americans fear the federal fiscal train wreck will turn us into Greece. But, barring major change, they need look no further than California to see what this future portends. Relying on ever-higher taxes to fund payments to an outsized population of benefit recipients is a recipe for exporting prosperity. That is one California trend that other states emulate at their peril.

Auto Bailouts One of Obamas Most Important Initiatives Clinton Says…..

Auto Bailouts One of Obamas Most Important Initiatives Clinton Says…..

Comments 0 Comment

I saw this on Drudge and I still can’t believe that the left is still speaking about this. The bailout was a deal for the UAW Union period. Romney stated he wanted the industry to go through a normal bankruptcy so the union deals could be shredded and a more workable deal brokered without using taxpayer money.  I know it is a long post but is really worth the read.

“I happened to think this auto industry package is the most important thing that was initiated by President Obama and the administration,” Clinton also said
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73542.html#ixzz1nzI4o7dl
 
Obama saw an opportunity to lock in union voters with a sweet deal for them and make him look like a hero that he can boast about during his re-election campaign. Everytime he pats himself on the back we need to remember what really happened.
Read Here: http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/07/10/car-czar-statement-bailouts-says-it-all-obama-did-it-all-unions

 

 

By Michael Whipple, Editor usACTIONnews.com

Obama’s agenda is the union agenda. He said it, I believe it, the GM and Chrysler deals prove it.

Few are mentioning the theft of assets from the original creditors, the union pension bailout at taxpayer expense or the billions in funds Treasury Secretary Geithner now admits will never get repaid. Obama unconstitutionally took over a private company, overturned decades of surety laws, and paid campaign supporters with confiscated stock.

The Wall Street Journal points out that this is not near as good as was anticipated;

“So, today, amid the bally and the hoo, many have lost track of that fact. The offering valued GM at $50 billion, the low end of the hoped-for range. You would never know it, based on everything you read and hear. Once underwriters saw where demand was (not as great as desired), they shifted from talking about implied valuation to emphasizing shares issued, the per-share price and total money raised. The different storyline painted a picture of boffo box office even though the facts, as laid out just a few weeks ago, indicate that this deal really didn’t meet the hopes and expectations of GM or its biggest shareholder, the U.S. Government.”

So even though all the media hype is pushing Obama’s mantra of what a great thing it was to destroy the constitution in taking over the auto industry, the US is still short $14 billion. Obama says “it helped save jobs, rescue an industry at the heart of America’s manufacturing sector and position it to be more competitive in the future.” according to the Washington Post. Geithner said “”We cannot guarantee their success, and at some point they may stumble. But we’ve given them a better shot,”.

An earlier IBD Editorial pointed out the sweetheart deal Obama gave the UAW:

“Given that the wasteful work rules that UAW bosses — wielding government-granted monopoly-bargaining power over employees — insisted on for decades were largely what drove GM into bankruptcy, they certainly didn’t deserve kid-gloves treatment. Yet that’s what they got.

A UAW-controlled auto retiree health care fund was owed $20 billion by GM before the bailout.

Under the White House-dictated terms, UAW-appointed fund managers got back half of what they were owed in cash, whereas taxpayers who were owed $19.4 billion didn’t get a dime back in cash.

Instead, the Obama administration “forgave” this entire loan on taxpayers’ behalf and earmarked an additional $23.5 billion for the company’s trip through bankruptcy. In exchange for the nearly $43 billion funneled to GM, taxpayers acquired a “60.8% equity stake” in GM.”

It should be noted that the UAW is one of the most politically active of all unions. The union gave $2,119.937 to the 2008 campaigns 99% of which went to Obama and the Democrats. They gave another $1,106,500 in this past 2010 election cycle 100% of which went to Democrats. That is a total of $3,226,437 in just the last two election cycles. That does not include the phone banks, neighborhood canvassing and get out the vote efforts. Since 1990 the UAW has donated $26,510,252 of which 99% went to Democrats.

Not a bad return on investment when you consider they received billions back in ownership and benefit funding.

The government is subsidizing purchases of the GM Volt to the tune of $7,500 each. By the way that $7,500 is being supplied by you the taxpayer and is not being considered in the overall loss figures on the GM union payoff scam.

The UAW also spends about a million and a half a year lobbying for important issues like card check, pension bailouts and the Buy America Act. So in reality taxpayer money was used to pay off unions so that they could then campaign for Democrats and lobby for special favors from those same Democrats. This is change alright. An increase in arrogant corruption that is off the Richter scale.