The American Spectator

Floyd Looney| 2.19.11 @ 6:33PM

Medical Fraud, malpractice, fire the teachers too.

beebop| 2.19.11 @ 6:54PM

The sad thing is the doctors may be legit. And they cast stones at lawyers? At least we know they twist the facts to suit the situation.

Richard Baker| 2.19.11 @ 9:01PM

Burn them all! What these "union teachers" are doing is validating the poor opinion of unions which exists in the country. Since most of them are probably graduates of the Schools of Education, maybe having them out IS actually better for the kids. Homeschooling, anyone?

Nite| 2.19.11 @ 9:16PM

Yes, the first poster is correct. If the individuals are licensed physicians, then they are committing medical fraud and malpractice. If the teachers brings those excuses in to work, they are also committing fraud and can be fired, as they should be.

ChiefDeputyProsecutor| 2.20.11 @ 1:03AM

Any teacher collecting sick pay on the basis of fraud would be committing felony theft in a conspiracy with the doctor writing the fraudulent notes. It will be interesting to see what happens to these teachers and doctors who have allowed themselves to be filmed defrauding taxpayers. I know what would happen in our county.

ChiefDeputyProsecutor| 2.20.11 @ 1:05AM

Any teacher collecting sick pay on the basis of fraud would be committing felony theft in a conspiracy with the doctor writing the fraudulent notes. It will be interesting to see what happens to these teachers and doctors who have allowed themselves to be filmed defrauding taxpayers. I know what would happen in our county.

PCC| 2.20.11 @ 2:55AM

Yes, everyone knows what will happen to these doctors and teachers: nothing.

Brother Nitals| 2.20.11 @ 4:19AM

You’re Among Friends
To those who are observing the political scene unfolding in our state of Wisconsin, in light of Gov. Scott Walker’s “budget repair” bill, and its proposal to largely eliminate collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of public employees, in a week no less, we would offer the following examples of the mindsets of those who support the idea. As a state, we once used the bumper sticker “You’re Among Friends” to attract those from other states to what we saw as an extraordinary quality of life: good government, good schools, and good people. Before that, we used “We Like It Here” as a slogan, and we did. We had people in office like former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who did not eliminate his political opponents, but was content to merely outsmart them. As a Republican, his relationships with state union leaders were so abrasive and contentious that his Democratic challengers charged him with being “in bed” with them. We are not likely to hear similar comments for some time. Despite their differences, many of Tommy’s came to call him a friend. Former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle bargained hard with the unions, but enjoyed their political support. To say that we miss these men today would be an incredible understatement.
With events unfolding as they are, things no longer seem as friendly as they once were, and some are coming to like the state less and less. Here’s why:
“It’s That Simple”
In a Feb. 18 press release, State Representative Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) noted that he “has heard the demands of the taxpayers” and will vote for Walker’s budget repair bill. “Enactment of this bill will save approximately 10,000 to 12,000 family sustaining public sector jobs over the next two years, while achieving reasonable cost reductions for the taxpayers. A vote in favor of the Budget Repair Bill is a vote for the people. A vote against this bill is a vote in favor of the public sector union bosses. It’s that simple and there can be no compromise. This is a defining moment for the future of our state and the families that call Wisconsin home.”
Response: It is not that simple. A vote in favor of the bill indeed is a vote for some people (Gov. Walker received 53 percent of the vote), and one against does help the union bosses. Left out of the analysis set forth by Rep. Nass here, however, are the hundreds of thousands of lives of teachers and state employees that would also be dramatically affected. Regardless of how ones views the union bosses, many would feel that the others hundreds of thousands of lives might be worth mentioning. The jobs that Rep. Nass is referring to, by the way, are those that would not become layoffs because of the bill.
“The Will of the People”
On Feb. 18, State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) issued the following statement in reaction to Senate Democrats’ decision to abscond to Illinois and to fail to show up to work for the second consecutive day. “By failing to show up for work for a second day, Democrats have shown a true lack of regard for Wisconsin taxpayers, the institution of state government and their fellow elected officials. Running away to Illinois is not only childish, it's also an affront to the will of the people. “
Response: Admittedly, Republicans regained the governorship and took control of both houses of the Legislature in November 2010. But the notion that “the will of the people” is for a half-century of settled law in the realm of collective bargaining to be swept away in a week, with only a single, 17-hour public hearing is a little hard to swallow. The unions do not want to see this happen, of course, but to the extent that the issue is out there, it needs to be discussed at some length. As some of you may know, we in this state take pride in our educational institutions, particularly the world-renowned University of Wisconsin-Madison. Given that Gov. Walker was insisting that the state budget repair bill be passed in only a few days, there was little or no time for UW-Madison experts, or for that matter virtually any other expert, to study the proposal in detail and come up with a reasonable, rational analysis of its effects. This is why we continue to discover, on an almost daily basis, what the practical consequences of virtually eliminating collective bargaining might be, such as the prospective loss of substantial sums of federal mass transit aids, for example. This is why we have to take our time to think this through. We did not get where we are overnight, and we are not going to understand what the proposal to vastly modify collective bargaining rights for public employees fully means overnight either. “Enact laws and ask questions later” is not the will of the Wisconsin people, but in fact is precisely contrary to Wisconsin’s historical traditions of thoughtful, careful deliberation in public affairs.
No Compromise
As State Sen. Mark Miller (D-Monona) has indicated, in a Feb. 18 letter to Gov. Walker, public employees across the state “made very clear their willingness to cooperatively accept additional pension and health insurance concessions in order to do their part to help Wisconsin close a 2011 budget gap, and to assist in reducing the state's deficit going forward.”
Response: Unfortunately, Gov. Walker refuses.
“Only a Matter of Time”
In a Feb. 18 press release, State Reps. Jeff Fitzgerald, Scott Suder and Robin Vos stated that they recessed the Assembly because of security concerns. “We will reconvene on Tuesday morning and are confident that the security concerns will no longer exist. We are committed as ever to pass Governor Walker’s Budget Repair Bill and will do so next week. Millions of taxpayers spoke in November and we will not let them down. We have a fiscal crisis that can’t be ignored. We have the votes to pass the bill; it is only a matter of time.”
Response: Everyone knows that they have the votes. The point is that millions of taxpayers who spoke in November had not been given the slightest indication, in the gubernatorial or any other campaign, that collective bargaining rights were going to be largely eliminated four months later. If they had, some, and perhaps many, would have voted differently. While some may feel “let down” if the bill should somehow fail to pass, it is safe to say at this point that there are others who will feel the same way if it passes. That is why there are 80,000 people traipsing around the Capitol, many of them talking about recalling Gov. Walker in January 2012. It is not entirely clear that those who supported Walker in his campaign will feel the same level of angst if collective bargaining remains intact. Either way, some will be let down – the difference is that if it does pass, hundreds of thousands of people will find themselves in a completely different work environment, all because of a proposal that came out of the blue, with the expectation that it pass a week later, with little or no genuine or thoughtful discussion in legislative hearings. We spend months in this state reviewing issues like nanotechnology and single-use plastics in order to come up with a bill to make changes in the law regarding these topics. But undermining collective bargaining should only take a week, with a single hearing? Get real.
“False Impressions”
The Tea Party’s Wisconsin Patriot Coalition has weighed in on its reaction to teacher sick-outs and the students who have accompanied them. “Nearly every child with whom WPC members spoke at the Capitol this week wrongly believed that their teachers’ jobs were at risk, that school funding would be cut, or that favorite courses or programs would be eliminated. No such measures are currently on the table. Yet, those are the battles these children think they are helping to fight. Where did they get these false impressions if not directly from their teachers and, indirectly, from the unions that represent those teachers?
Response: The jobs that teachers have are “at risk” in the sense that, in the absence of virtually all of the collective bargaining rights that they currently have, their jobs will change dramatically. Although they would retain other civil service protections, it remains to be seen how effective they will actually be in practice. As for whether school funding will be cut, the administration is expected to be announcing unprecedented reductions in aid to local governments, including schools, in a matter of days.
Sick-Outs “Fully Merit” Job Termination
The Patriot Coalition has also charged that “engaging in “sick-outs” in order to protest at the State Capitol is lying and a breach of contract. Encouraging students to be complicit in such behavior in an effort to get one’s own way is exploitative, particularly when the reasons for that protest are not truthfully communicated. It likewise fully merits termination of employment.”
Response: Calling in sick when one is not is wrong, and should be punished. Losing one’s job over it is, to most Wisconsinites, quite extreme. With or without collective bargaining, such a termination would undoubtedly be overturned by the courts.

Gene| 2.20.11 @ 6:42AM

While I am not on the "side" of the teacher unions much of this is fair and legitimate. I don't know what the "security concerns" of the legislators were but am a bit doubtful about that and, if found as such, they have abdicated their leadership responsibilities.
As with most union situations, from what I can see the union members are far more concerned with their own personal welfare than the quality of the "product" they produce.
The concessions being discussed as far as contributing to their pensions and pay for their health insurance are certainly not onerous.

Brother Nitals| 2.20.11 @ 5:26AM

Let’s call a spade a spade: this is a willful attempt to abrogate worker rights, with virtually no genuine public discussion, under the patently absurd pretense that somehow we are so “broke” as a state and disillusioned as a society that we cannot take the time to make laws like civilized people. The public knows full well that WMC and WEAC are the two most powerful interest groups in the state, and almost no one voted for Walker because they thought he was going to outlaw the latter a month after taking office. That much is clear. As far as the concessions in the contract are concerned, we must show the public that we are reasonable people. After all, we work in government. Most Wisconsinites see our political system as flawed, but not so flawed that it will somehow be improved by yanking the rug out from under one of the two political parties, and creating an inordinately unlevel playing field over night, which is precisely what Walker and his allies hope to accomplish by this.
Most public employees live comparatively modest lives. They are not the real culprits behind today's economic woes and fiscal problems. The true culprits are in other lands, far away, watching this story unfold in earnest.
Unions help provide stability and consistency in public service. They help preserve a middle class that would otherwise be plunged into the inexorable race to the bottom that now bedevils the private sector.
Under the governor’s plan, most government workers - excluding police, firefighters and state troopers would have to pay half their pension costs and at least 12 percent of their health-care costs and would lose bargaining rights for anything other than pay, and that would be limited to inflation.
The proposal would save $300 million over the next two years to help reduce a $3.6 billion budget deficit. And he wanted it done within a week, with only one, 17-hour public hearing. Like it or not, those are the facts.
Now is not the time to wander blindly in the wilderness of the utopian. Now is not the time to think: "For us the movement is everything—the final aim is nothing" is the way of the fool.
State governments face budget deficits of $175 billion through 2013. Many believe state tax revenue will not fully recover until the U.S. returns to full employment, which is not likely for quite some time, if ever.
Beyond their short-term fiscal problems, many states face pension and retiree health-care costs that some experts contend are unsustainable.
States are curtailing retirement benefits for new employees, although many say it will take much more to bring their long-term obligations in line.
Make no mistake about it. The unions are not simply an arm of the Democratic party. Without them, the party will fall.
We will not regret the judgment that the time has come to get serious.
This is about taking away rights won over decades, in a matter or days, with little or no formal public discussion.
The governor has already called a special session of the legislature and granted business tax breaks and created health-care savings accounts that lower levels of already problematic tax revenues. Public workers are being asked to pick up the tab. But there is more to the story.
The governor is proposing to sharply curtail the right to bargain collectively. An economic downturn that is not the workers’ fault, and a reversal in fiscal fortunes not their doing is being used to permanently end their ability to sit across the table from their employer and negotiate anything but pay, and then only at hold-harmless levels at best. This is what the long and very troubling recession has wrought. Almost everyone can see that capitalism has had better days.
We must never forget this: this is a state where changes of far less magnitude take considerably longer to review and understand. Consider the workings of the Legislative Council, composed of legislators and citizens, who meet literally for months to examine complex issues of public policy.
This is the Wisconsin tradition, or at least it was, for decades. Has anyone reflected on the fact that in a state that happens to have an internationally-recognized public university known, for better or ill, as having a considerable knowledge base in the realm of labor relations, virtually no testimony from an expert on either side has been brought to bear on the question? For that matter, hardly anything of considerable depth was discussed at the Joint Finance Committee public hearing on the bill.
And another thing to keep in mind is that, aside from the procedural problems we keep finding out unpleasant things, such as the issue of the prospective loss of federal transportation funding.
Not everyone is taking the bait, even on the other side. Republican State Senator Luther Olsen has called it a “radical” move that will hurt “a lot of good working people.”
This is about changing the rules of the game. This is about political power, and who will yield it for years to come. Take away the union dues check-off, and you largely take away a political party, leaving the Republicans to conspire with their Tea Party allies over how to divide the spoils. This is their plan. They will not admit it, but this is their plan.
No private employer can do what the governor proposes. For decades, Wisconsin has protected the rights of workers to collectively bargain with their employer on wages, benefits, workplace rules, and many other aspects of their employment.
Public workers are not responsible for the state’s budget woes. The problem lies in China and India and Brazil, where they have learned from America how to beat America at its own capitalist game. We have no one to blame but ourselves and a world made smaller by time.
Think it cannot happen here, but it can. If they can take away these rights, they can take away others. And the worst is yet to come. Billions in local aid will be slashed, which is why Walker is handing out the “tools” to his allies in fact and to be now.
Wisconsin state government doles out much more to its local partners than almost any other state. And that is coming to an end, soon.
The stick is the taking back the money. The carrot is breaking the unions.
You are wrong in thinking that the situation is hopeless. That is what they want you to think.
Most Wisconsinites see our political system as flawed, but not so flawed that it will somehow be improved by yanking the rug out from under one of the political parties, and creating an inordinately unlevel playing field over night, which is precisely what Walker and his allies hope to accomplish by this.
If you do nothing, don’t complain if you don’t happen to see genuine two-party competition in Wisconsin next time around, or for some time to come. Like it or not, that is what is at stake here.
If Walker succeeds in undermining WEAC, AFT-Wisconsin, and the rest, forget about things like the public interest and free and fair elections. Hope as you will, you won’t have them anymore, and if it comes to pass, don’t blame us.
We will be reasonable, and make clear to the public that we will sacrifice, by paying more toward pensions and health care, to help the state along with its budget woes, but the public must also do its part by recognizing the obvious: this is not about money. It is not about government efficiency.
It is about raw political power. More precisely, it is about how you take away effective political power from people without formally denying them such things as votes. If you need to know anything about Walker’s plan, know this: left to its own devices, shorn of the support of organized public sector labor, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin will simply be a shadow of its former self. If you don’t believe it, jump on board with Walker and help save the state some money. But don’t complain if you don’t happen to see genuine two-party competition in Wisconsin next time around, or for some time to come. Like it or not, that is what is at stake here.
If Walker succeeds in undermining WEAC, AFT-Wisconsin, and the rest, forget about things like the public interest and free and fair elections. Hope as you will, you won’t have them anymore, and if it comes to pass, don’t blame us. We told you so, right here and now. Like it or not, my dear fellow electors of Wisconsin, if this goes through as planned, WMC will be laughing all the way to the ballot box, because they will rule, like corporatist oligarchs in South America, and you will not have the Wisconsin you once knew. Trust me. I know them all too well to think that they would let the opposition survive this. Most have had privileges that you have not 0 think they’re going to pass this one up?
Still think that this is not what is at stake? Guess again. ¬o one will stop them. The Republicans will walk all over them in elections for years, and they know it. The unions are the only thing keeping things reasonably competitive now, and they will be gone my friends, and no group of investment bankers or other union-friendly CEO’s is going to step up to bat in their place.
Barack didn’t move here when he left Harvard, he moved to Illinois. It’s a different state. And we’re not ¬ew York or California either. We’re Wisconsin. We don’t have enough of those kind of people to build a newly reinvigorated Democratic party. It won’t happen. The unions are the only thing keeping things reasonably competitive now, and they will be gone my friend. And you will see changes you thought you would never see. And remember, you won’t be able to take your case to state agency administrators, because they will all be political appointees as well. It will be the same state seal, but now it will be privately owned, rather than part of a public trust. Think of it as Mississippi with snow, with Packer players as the paradigmatic example of modern unionists. The Walker gambit is about allowing one political party to establish long-term dominance in the electoral realm by undermining the other. That is why Ellis and Olson and Schultz and Harsdotf are so torn over this. They are loyal Wisconsinites all, and good people, but they are loyal party members as well. It cannot be easy for them. Luther is probably the most publicly conflicted, and to his credit, he seems willing to acknowledge that maybe people who work for unions are lacking horns and tails. But the pressure being brought to bear is incredible. Part with us on this, and you may never be invited back. It is that serious. That is why we must be strong and fight.
And to do this, one needs to use a pretext. Believe what you may from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (once a great newspaper) or Fox, but the truth is plain to see: if the closest political allies of one political party are thoroughly undermined by act of law, the other will gain immensely. What that means for Wisconsin is entirely unclear, and we should not presume to really be able to prophesy the full ramifications. ¬o one really can. But to the extent that Wisconsinites believe in fair play and at least some semblance of competition in the electoral arena, they should be gravely concerned about Gov. Walker’s approach here. For the simple reason that as far as state and local government is concerned, you will not have any of this anymore. WMC will decide who runs for office, and gets to make the laws, not the voters.
That, my dear fellow citizens, whether you like it or not, is what this battle is about. Know thine enemy, but remember that you must also serve him as well. The Tea Partiers detest government, in part, for a reason deeply rooted in human nature – there is a natural, and immutable, human tendency to fear that which one only sees from the outside. They think government is to blame for a declining economy, and to some extent it is. But the true culprit is not the world of American government – federal, state and local – but governments in the world around America. Scott Walker can’t ramrod a bill through the Legislature outlawing China and Brazil from developing economies that lift millions out of poverty, and into the middle class, as America had done for our parents and grandparents. So he must look elsewhere to place the blame, and it has unfortunately fallen upon us. Will we be strong enough to show our fellow Wisconsinites that this blame is largely misplaced, and do so in a fashion that allows us to maintain their respect? That is the question we face, and I know that we have it within us to rise above the pettiness and the ignorance, and show the people of Wisconsin that the election last ¬ovember was about rebuilding an economy, not rebuilding an electoral process.
We have been around government too long to believe unions can be thrown upside down, and out, in a week and the effects on Wisconsin society and culture will be minimal. That’s what Walker wants you to believe. That’s why it’s so modest. Remember the last time we tossed 48 years of accumulated case law defining the rights and responsibilities of public workers out the window overnight? What happened then? That’s Walker’s biggest PR problem.
And one other thing: did Walker miss the political science course that covered the part about Wisconsin being a model of representative government for decades (along with Iowa and ¬ew Hamshire, which would never dream of doing what he is doing now? Try as he might, he cannot rewrite history, and the notion that the Wisconsin Idea was a superior way to go about making laws and governing is not some left-wing contrivance – it is a matter of historical fact. And it is this more than anything else that we are losing in this, at times, truly bizarre battle over whether we can muster enough troopers to bring a half-century of public unionism to its knees in a week.
And yet one other thing to keep in mind. There is a difference between heading a government and operating one. We’ve been doing the latter for quite a long time, and he started his new job last month. On January 3, 2011, to be precise, or a year before January 3, 2012, a date you may want to highlight now for the sake of convenience.
Clearly, one of the main problems with the Walker proposal to end collective bargaining in Wisconsin is simply procedural. The public knows this. We know are neighbors and friends. They are simply not going to believe that it is fair or proper for a half-century of worker rights to be stolen away, like some thief in the night. We must believe, more than anything else, in the common wisdom here. They know a serious deliberative body when they see one, and they know that we they are seeing now is anything but. And it matters little which brother you ask.
Only the foolish are being fooled (just watch the thoughtful analysis spew forth from the Tea Partiers on Saturday), and Corporate Wisconsin and the Koch brothers are doing the fooling. We must never forget this: this is a state where changes of far less magnitude take considerably longer to review and understand. Consider the workings of the Legislative Council, composed of legislators and citizens, who meet literally for months to examine complex issues of public policy. This is the Wisconsin tradition, or at least it was, for decades. To say that we have abandoned this in February 2011 is an understatement. Has anyone reflected on the fact that in a state that happens to have an internationally-recognized public university known, for better or ill, as having a considerable knowledge base in the realm of labor relations, virtually no testimony from an expert on either side has been brought to bear on the question? For that matter, hardly anything of considerable depth was discussed at the Joint Finance Committee public hearing on the bill. And another thing to keep in mind is that, aside from the procedural problems we keep finding out unpleasant things, such as the issue of the prospective loss of federal transportation funding. On the surface, going ahead without further substantive public debate on the possibility of losing considerable sums of federal funding for services that ultimately, could affect job creation, does not appear to be the wisest course of public policy. If it does, then it means that we have become a state government that hauls people in from all around the state to spend hours and hours going over nanotechnology and single-use plastics, generating hundreds of documents, but if we’re talking about negating a half-century of accumulated case law in state labor relations, and affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of middle-class people, let’s rely on what a large group of frustrated state workers and students tell us over a period of 17 hours. From the standpoint of wisely governing a society, that would not appear to be the most meritorious approach. Some might think the latter topic of greater importance than the former topics, and therefore worthy of more detailed study. In fact, it is safe to say that most Wisconsinites would agree.
With events unfolding as they are, things no longer seem as friendly as they once were, and some are coming to like the state less and less. Here’s why:
Response: The jobs that teachers have are “at risk” in the sense that, in the absence of virtually all of the collective bargaining rights that they currently have, their jobs will change dramatically. Although they would retain other civil service protections, it remains to be seen how effective they will actually be in practice. As for whether school funding will be cut, the administration is expected to be announcing unprecedented reductions in aid to local governments, including schools, in a matter of days.
Sick-Outs “Fully Merit” Job Termination
The Patriot Coalition has also charged that “engaging in “sick-outs” in order to protest at the State Capitol is lying and a breach of contract. Encouraging students to be complicit in such behavior in an effort to get one’s own way is exploitative, particularly when the reasons for that protest are not truthfully communicated. It likewise fully merits termination of employment.”
Response: Calling in sick when one is not is wrong, and should be punished. Losing one’s job over it is, to most Wisconsinites, quite extreme. With or without collective bargaining, such a termination would undoubtedly be overturned by the courts.

Hank| 2.20.11 @ 9:49AM

You just cut and paste those longnposts into various websites don't you?

Thom| 2.20.11 @ 2:03PM

“Calling in sick when one is not is wrong, and should be punished. Losing one’s job over it is, to most Wisconsinites, quite extreme. With or without collective bargaining, such a termination would undoubtedly be overturned by the courts.”

You don’t know much about contract law do you? Teachers, through their contracts with School Administrations and ultimately the tax payers sign on to perform their duties for a set number of days over a set period of time. What one teacher does in this regard is of little importance normally since there is some slack built into the system and substitute teachers to handle normal absences. What has taken place here is a collective action that results in the closing of schools which impacts far more than just the people in one teacher’s class. The economic impact of this is far and wide and is a gross breach of contract. It won’t be hard to show it was an organized act which brings the Union leadership into the suite also.

The non involved people shut out of work, the children and parents of the children that now have to make up these days and change their plans will have a different point of view than you think. Holding other’s hostage for economic gain normally gets one jail time. Unions are exempt making it legal for them to use extortion where the rest of us would get jail time. That needs to change and not the least of which for government employees who by definition are supposed to be a necessary function of government. If teachers or any other government employee can voluntarily decide when his or her function is necessary to suit their whims then it is clearly not necessary in the true sense of the word. Government workers that strike is clearly an oxymoron to the necessary function of government. Collective bargaining is just legalized extortion under the false banner of egalitarianism. Why can’t the military “government employee” collectively bargain and go on strike? Simple, because their function is necessary, something that can’t be said for government teachers it seems.

Let those harmed by these kinds of extortions sue the Unions and their members in court for damages and then see how popular this kind of extortions is over such trivial matters will be.

beebop| 2.20.11 @ 4:04PM

under the patently absurd pretense that somehow we are so “broke” ...

After reading your lengthy and non productive post I am not sure that the biggest pretense is the budget ... I am stumped that you can suggest that there is something absurd about the deficit?!

Wayne | 2.20.11 @ 6:48PM

Well this is how it works. The Unions are no indistinguishable from the Democratic Party. The Democrats lost big time in Wisconsin last November. That mean the Unions lost also. Just as the Democrats use taxpayer money to pay off their friends in the unions, the Republicans cut off the taxpayer funds (and power) from the unions. Get use to it. We live in a Democracy and it means that people win in the end. We are out to end all government unions and this is just a beginning. We have had enough.

beebop| 2.20.11 @ 7:02AM

I worked for a fortune 50 company for 22 years. Nearing the end I was called into a meeting and it was explained that my position (as well as another in my group) had been eliminated. I was treated with respect but it was a business reality. I received my severance and as a result of time with the company and my age at the time, full retirement benefits.

We are in the same situation. We can either eliminate jobs or trim costs. It is not an "assualt" on organized labor until they begin to dig their heels in. We are not dealing with adults mindful of the big picture. We are dealing with ORGANIZED opposotion to seeing the facts as they are at this moment.

The Resident should immediately resign and resume his real job -- union steward. I can't imagine anyone LESS qualified to lead this country at this time. I knew he was inexperienced, ill equipped vis a vis life experiences and an idealogue. I simply had no idea how dangerous he would be.

glenny| 2.20.11 @ 12:01PM

Dude, "Brevity is the soul of wit". William S.

Alan Levesque| 2.21.11 @ 1:58PM

Seems like this would allow these teachers to be fired for cause. They are presenting falsified documents in an effort to collect pay from the state. I know there's a word for this.