Crybaby Highhats
Hey Folks -
Below is a recent Columbus Dispatch editorial. The editorial page is supposed to consist of opinion. This editorial is propaganda.
I've responded below the editorial.
- Uke Man
Union dues
Governor seeks to reward labor supporters at expense of taxpayers
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Gov. Ted Strickland's unfortunate inclination to dispense favors to organized labor entered a new and innovative chapter with an out-of-the-blue executive order that amounts to a gift of 7,000 new members to the Service Employees International Union.
It was the latest in a series of actions by Strickland that threaten to drive up costs and put the interests of labor ahead of those of the state and taxpayers.
With a pen stroke, Strickland declared that all the home-health-care workers who work as independent contractors and are paid through state Medicaid-waiver programs have the right to organize for collective bargaining.
The governor's July 17 order doesn't include the word union and doesn't specify what type of entity can be recognized by the workers as their bargaining agent, but established labor unions clearly are the likeliest to take up the opportunity. The SEIU, which seeks to unionize the entire health-care industry, already has announced its intent to do so.
The home-health-care industry helps keep older Ohioans in their homes and reduces nursing-home costs for Medicaid, and the people who do the work might deserve a bump in pay or a change in working terms and conditions.
But those pay rates and other terms are set by the state. Strickland easily can change them through the agencies that administer the programs.
His claim that he prefers a collective-bargaining process to reach the best possible agreement is hard to swallow. More likely, he and the rest of the Democratic Party prefer the prospect of a grateful SEIU, which already donates heavily to Democratic candidates, contributing even more.
Strickland has given ample evidence of his devotion to organized labor. His two-year budget would have placed a moratorium on new charter schools and restrictions on private-school vouchers, two beneficial programs that are despised by teachers unions. Fortunately, lawmakers preserved both programs.
In another move to hamper charter schools, he used a line-item veto to strike from the state's transportation bill a provision that would have allowed charter schools to establish their own bus services, taking the per-student transportation funding that normally goes to traditional school districts. This was a two-fer, benefiting anti-charter teachers unions as well as school-bus drivers unions.
The Ohio School Facilities Commission, with Strickland appointees, reversed previous policy and, henceforth, will allow companies that are building schools with commission-approved funds to pay prevailing wage and use project-labor agreements, both of which drive up the cost of projects by introducing union-influenced wages and other requirements.
Strickland is a longtime supporter of organized labor, and many of his decisions favoring labor probably stem from sincerely held beliefs.
But that doesn't mean they are good policy or good for the state. The excesses of past labor contracts threaten to drive American automakers and other industries to collapse. The state should avoid moving in the same direction.
To the Editor,
In writing the “Union dues / Governor seeks to reward labor supporters at expense of taxpayers” editorial, Sunday, July 29, 2007; did you forget that workers are taxpayers too?
Did you forget that Gov. Taft is responsible for the low level of home health care workers’ income – folks who, even you say, “might deserve a bump in pay or a change in working terms and conditions”?
You say “Strickland easily can change them through the agencies that administer the programs.” Did you forget to ask why Gov. Taft hadn’t already done that, thus making the issue moot?
Did you notice the contradiction in suggesting that the governor administratively give an actual, immediate raise to these workers (a certain cost to the taxpayers) as opposed to allowing the workers to unionize, an act that guarantees self-respect, but no guaranteed raise.
It seems you would rather spend taxpayers’ dollars on an administratively granted raise than allow American workers the right to organize and maybe get a raise later. Hmmmmm . . .
When you said the governor has an “unfortunate inclination to dispense favors to organized labor,” were you cognizant that Gov. Taft and Republican legislators, for their part, show an inclination to dispense favors to management (who donate heavily to Republicans)? And is it your view that helping management squeeze those who labor (the majority of Ohio’s taxpayers) is benevolent while helping them hurts Ohio?
As for your comments about teachers unions, did you ever consider that teachers might have good, altruistic, rationally-based reasons for supporting their union’s position; or are only those on the other side (many of whom are profit-seeking businessmen) the only honorable part of that argument?
Finally, did it bother you at all to compare very low-paid health workers to very well-paid auto workers? Apparently, if those workers who care for our aged relatives are allowed simply to attempt to bargain a living wage, you think that is a bad thing.
Maybe we should send our Grandparents to India or East Timor and save a few bucks - at least, that is, those of us who work for a living and who, otherwise, might stimulate “excesses” and cause “industries to collapse.”
After all, the workers in this state and their aged kin don’t really count as citizens or taxpayers. Worse, if they get unionized, they make a lot of noise claiming otherwise.
- Uke Man
Below is a recent Columbus Dispatch editorial. The editorial page is supposed to consist of opinion. This editorial is propaganda.
I've responded below the editorial.
- Uke Man
Union dues
Governor seeks to reward labor supporters at expense of taxpayers
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Gov. Ted Strickland's unfortunate inclination to dispense favors to organized labor entered a new and innovative chapter with an out-of-the-blue executive order that amounts to a gift of 7,000 new members to the Service Employees International Union.
It was the latest in a series of actions by Strickland that threaten to drive up costs and put the interests of labor ahead of those of the state and taxpayers.
With a pen stroke, Strickland declared that all the home-health-care workers who work as independent contractors and are paid through state Medicaid-waiver programs have the right to organize for collective bargaining.
The governor's July 17 order doesn't include the word union and doesn't specify what type of entity can be recognized by the workers as their bargaining agent, but established labor unions clearly are the likeliest to take up the opportunity. The SEIU, which seeks to unionize the entire health-care industry, already has announced its intent to do so.
The home-health-care industry helps keep older Ohioans in their homes and reduces nursing-home costs for Medicaid, and the people who do the work might deserve a bump in pay or a change in working terms and conditions.
But those pay rates and other terms are set by the state. Strickland easily can change them through the agencies that administer the programs.
His claim that he prefers a collective-bargaining process to reach the best possible agreement is hard to swallow. More likely, he and the rest of the Democratic Party prefer the prospect of a grateful SEIU, which already donates heavily to Democratic candidates, contributing even more.
Strickland has given ample evidence of his devotion to organized labor. His two-year budget would have placed a moratorium on new charter schools and restrictions on private-school vouchers, two beneficial programs that are despised by teachers unions. Fortunately, lawmakers preserved both programs.
In another move to hamper charter schools, he used a line-item veto to strike from the state's transportation bill a provision that would have allowed charter schools to establish their own bus services, taking the per-student transportation funding that normally goes to traditional school districts. This was a two-fer, benefiting anti-charter teachers unions as well as school-bus drivers unions.
The Ohio School Facilities Commission, with Strickland appointees, reversed previous policy and, henceforth, will allow companies that are building schools with commission-approved funds to pay prevailing wage and use project-labor agreements, both of which drive up the cost of projects by introducing union-influenced wages and other requirements.
Strickland is a longtime supporter of organized labor, and many of his decisions favoring labor probably stem from sincerely held beliefs.
But that doesn't mean they are good policy or good for the state. The excesses of past labor contracts threaten to drive American automakers and other industries to collapse. The state should avoid moving in the same direction.
To the Editor,
In writing the “Union dues / Governor seeks to reward labor supporters at expense of taxpayers” editorial, Sunday, July 29, 2007; did you forget that workers are taxpayers too?
Did you forget that Gov. Taft is responsible for the low level of home health care workers’ income – folks who, even you say, “might deserve a bump in pay or a change in working terms and conditions”?
You say “Strickland easily can change them through the agencies that administer the programs.” Did you forget to ask why Gov. Taft hadn’t already done that, thus making the issue moot?
Did you notice the contradiction in suggesting that the governor administratively give an actual, immediate raise to these workers (a certain cost to the taxpayers) as opposed to allowing the workers to unionize, an act that guarantees self-respect, but no guaranteed raise.
It seems you would rather spend taxpayers’ dollars on an administratively granted raise than allow American workers the right to organize and maybe get a raise later. Hmmmmm . . .
When you said the governor has an “unfortunate inclination to dispense favors to organized labor,” were you cognizant that Gov. Taft and Republican legislators, for their part, show an inclination to dispense favors to management (who donate heavily to Republicans)? And is it your view that helping management squeeze those who labor (the majority of Ohio’s taxpayers) is benevolent while helping them hurts Ohio?
As for your comments about teachers unions, did you ever consider that teachers might have good, altruistic, rationally-based reasons for supporting their union’s position; or are only those on the other side (many of whom are profit-seeking businessmen) the only honorable part of that argument?
Finally, did it bother you at all to compare very low-paid health workers to very well-paid auto workers? Apparently, if those workers who care for our aged relatives are allowed simply to attempt to bargain a living wage, you think that is a bad thing.
Maybe we should send our Grandparents to India or East Timor and save a few bucks - at least, that is, those of us who work for a living and who, otherwise, might stimulate “excesses” and cause “industries to collapse.”
After all, the workers in this state and their aged kin don’t really count as citizens or taxpayers. Worse, if they get unionized, they make a lot of noise claiming otherwise.
- Uke Man
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