People everywhere have thought about how they define themselves. Often it is through their work or their philanthropic endeavors. Sometimes it is through their areas of expertise or even their hobbies. Whatever it is, many people are passionate about something. Understanding and learning about someone’s passion brings about a natural desire to acknowledge them for their positive impact on others. Even when acknowledgment is in general terms. How many times, for instance, have we noticed “anonymous” donors acknowledged by an organization?
Even as adults, we all appreciate a thank you for our efforts, a tip of the hat or a pat on the back. Often times, our good deeds go unnoticed except by those who are directly touched by our actions or thoughtfulness.
Recently, I have been lucky enough to be informed of particularly thoughtful acts and dedicated efforts that take place in our schools by our East Providence teachers. They are acts of kindness and generosity displayed by teachers who are focused on their students, focused not just from an academic perspective but from a genuine concern for their students’ well-being.
These teachers have not asked to be identified but are content in their own knowledge that their efforts touch one student at a time. From my perspective, they have defined themselves as very special teachers. Special teachers who are doing special things every day in our East Providence schools and on behalf of the entire East Providence School Committee I thank them for that.
We have a student in our East Providence High School who has certainly defined himself in a very distinguished way. Joseph Botelho, III deserves a hearty congratulations and acknowledgment for receiving the prestigious Rensselaer Medal from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York. The Medal is the oldest prize of its kind in the country and is also awarded to students throughout Latin America, Europe and Asia.
As a member of the junior class Joseph received this award for being recognized as our high school’s single most promising science and mathematics student. This is a very prestigious award and provides Joseph with a $60,000 scholarship should he be accepted and subsequently enroll in the four year degree program. Congratulations Joseph!
Great things are happening in our schools every day. We have a lot of work ahead of us but certainly those special teachers and students like Joseph are defining the true meaning of our East Providence School Department’s Culture of Achievement.
okay Tony
So the same teachers you say are on "work to rule" are going over and above for our students.
Are you printing a retraction? Are these teachers living large too?
And how is it when the taxpayers association tells us our schools are failing yet young Joe Botelho has been recognized with a very prestigious award!!!
Dosen't he a product of our FAILING SCHOOL SYSTEM???
Congratulations, Joseph. You must be proud. Your family must be thrilled as well!
Hey, "taxpayer ep": Some people are just morons. Intellectually hopeless. Have you figured out that my comments are directed at you?
Doesn't this award go out every year? What about the 5 or so kids that get accepted every year from Brown University and the others to Ivy League Schools? And Boston College, Providence College, and the list goes on and on. Tony, you could care less. Who wrote this column for you?
Congratulations, Joe. Great job.
Congratulations Joe-You received this award due to your hard work and the excellent East Providence teachers. And your accomplishment is even more impressive when you take into consideration "Fat Tony" Carcieri doing everything in his power to destroy the school department.
There's an old saying "improvEP" that there's always going to be a bad apple here or there in every profession, and this is a perfect example I put this idiot Sand in the same category as "Fat Tony" "Self Serving Joe" in East Providence. While there are many good school committee chairs and mayors all over the country, these two jerks give them all a bad name, just as this jerk Sand. So feel free to continue to cut and paste your useless drivel "improveEP", and the readers will continue to ignore it.
Hey goofball "PlayFair", are you really as stupid as you sound??
Carcieri is talking about a student that won a TOP AWARD in his field (math) from a top engineering school. Sure there are plenty of kids getting into good schools ................... we're not talking about that you GOOFBALL!!!
NONSENSE ALERT * NONSENSE ALERT * NONSENSE ALERT *
Looks like Carcieri, Larisa, and their cronies have their ghost writer, improveEP working awfully early today to spew their anti-union rhetoric. I'm wondering improveEP, when that coward Larisa moves to Barrington to run for attorney general, are you going to follow him like a puppy dog and write his campaign speeches?
Its obvious that "union-teacher" does not know what he is talking about ........................................ because if he did, he would know just where Joe is moving to, and it is not where "union-teacher" is claiming!
I guess what you really mean is you would like him to move Barrington. Ha Ha Ha
P.S. Have you noticed, telling the truth is always viewed as "anti-union rhetoric"?
THAT IS INTERESTING
For starters improveEP, I don't particulary care where Self Serving Joe moves to, as his political career in Rhode Island is as dead as a 100 year old corpse. The proof is in the pudding with his puppet Brown frantically applying for every city and town manager job he can lay his eyes on. Self Serving Joe realizes the voters of East Providence are fed up with his mismanagement of the city, and he can't move out of the city soon enough. The most hilarious thing is that he actually thinks he can be elected attorney general-what a joke. Other than Fat Tony and Dick Brown, I don't see anyone else ignorant enough to vote for that egomaniac. Anyway, there's always hope for you "improveEP"-when that coward Larisa moves to Barrington to run for AG, you can follow him there and become his speechwriter-we all know he's too stupid to write his own material.
Again numb-nut "union-teacher", your information is totally flawed. Joe is NOT moving to Barrington. As I stated before, "You want him to move to Barrington" If you were as good as you claimed you are, you would know where in East Providence he is moving to. It's already a done deal. Also if you really don't care where he moves to, why do you keep talking about it?
Regarding Joe's re-election to the city council, obviously time will tell, but there are so many people who love the way he looks out for the E.P. taxpayers, I can't see how he wouldn't win. You know, he has a tough job beating back the "little union piggies" that just want more, more, and even more!
You see folks ............................. this is what union people do. They make up a story that they would love to happen, and then spread it around as gospel truth!
Joe is staying put in East Providence and will be running again for city council.
Numb-nut "union-teacher" loves telling everybody that Joe is moving to Barrington and running for AG. so that people will start thinking about someone else the "union piggies" are planning to run in his place.
ONLY PROBLEM IS LITTLE UNION PIGGIES IS ..................... JOE ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE EXCEPT EAST PROVIDENCE !
While it's quite obvious you are the speechwriter for Self Serving Joe, he obviously hasn't clued you in that his house is up for sale, he's moving out of East Providence and running for attorney general (not that he stands a chance). I guess he didn't feel the need to clue you in improveEP, but at least he let that jerk Brown know he was stepping down so he can find some other clueless city or town to latch on to (As you can see, Plymouth Mass didn't want the jerk). Anyway, you can continue to be his speechwriter and head cheerleader when he moves to Barrington to run for attorney general-you may as well start now on writing the blowhard's concession speech.
Pet nicknames and insulting epithets are destroying the utility of this forum for public debate on the issues. I have asked the paper to warn union teacher and the other antagonists whose posts consist of nothing more than personal insults and off-point comments to either clean up their act and engage in honest debate, or ban them.
Meanwhile, I think it would be helpful for all of us who do want to fairly participate in these discussions to ignore these characters completely. There is no better way to frustrate them than to ignore them.
On the topic of this article: There are excellent, principled teachers in our systems and they deserve honor (and merit pay bonuses). It is equally unfair to ascribe to them the greed and cynicism of their union leaders as it would be to ascribe to the union their exceptional personal qualities. Those who can not, or will not see the distinction between individual teachers and union bosses contribute nothing of value to the discussion of reforming our educational system.
I agree with you "Constitutionalist" I vow not to engage that individual again.
Improve EP Good choice, I am joining you.
1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)
2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?
3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS
4) IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.
5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !
I guess when you have Larisa paying his ghost writer (improveEP) slave labor wages, the best they can come up with is cutting and pasting the same statement 10 times on 10 different threads. How original improveEP-keep up the hard work. Maybe Slow Joe will increase your pay from $2.00 per hour to $2.25.
Ever since the 1972 Democratic convention nominated George McGovern over the objections of the AFL-CIO, the standard wisdom has been that organized labor's power in American politics has declined dramatically. The failure of the current Democrat-dominated Congress to pass labor's highest legislative priority, the Employee Free Choice Act ("card check"), is taken as indicative of unions' political incapacity. But the picture looks very different on the state and local level where public sector employee unions have gone from one victory to another. Indeed, they are the one group, besides Goldman Sachs executives, that's done well during the current Great Recession. Public sector unions have become political powerhouses in New York, New Jersey, Washington, California, and a host of other states. They have become so powerful as to threaten the Madisonian system set up to constrain any one faction from overwhelming the public interest.
Once upon a time public sector workers received less pay than their private sector counterparts in return for better benefits and greater job security. But that bargain has been breached. Public sector wages have more than caught up, while the differential between public and private sector benefits has increased so much that public sector work, particularly for the unskilled, is greatly coveted. To protect such benefits, the unions have tenaciously opposed Senator Max Baucus's plan to tax expensive health insurance plans to finance an extension of coverage. Supporters of public sector union power have developed a rationale for the government employees' gold-plated perks. The argument is that public employees
are the vanguard of the working class. As such, the benefits they achieve will eventually have to be matched by private sector employers. As Carla Katz, the leader of New Jersey's Communications Workers of America, explained to Paul Mulshine of the Newark Star-Ledger, reformers embrace "the progressive theory that unless you create a substantial wage and benefits package that reflects good jobs and the ability to have a middle-class life style, there will be a perpetual race to the bottom."
Katz not only represents thousands of state employees, she is also the richly rewarded former girlfriend of New Jersey governor Jon Corzine. Katz's influence on Corzine became clear in 2006 when the impassioned governor spoke to a Trenton rally of roughly 10,000 public workers and shouted out: "We will fight for a fair contract." Corzine was of course management in that situation, not labor. But with the power of the public sector unions to drive election outcomes, they now sit on both sides of the bargaining table. Unlike private sector unions, the sheer number of workers represented is not the linchpin of their influence. Private sector unions have a natural adversary in the owners of the companies with whom they negotiate. But public sector unions have no such natural counterweight. They are a classic case of "client politics," where an interest group's concentrated efforts to secure rewards impose diffused costs on the mass of unorganized taxpayers. Also unlike private sector unions, those in the public sector can achieve influence on both sides of the bargaining table by making campaign contributions and organizing get-out-the-vote drives to elect politicians who then control the negotiations over their pay, benefits, and work rules. The result is a nefarious cycle: Politicians agree to generous government worker contracts; those workers then pay higher union dues a portion of which are funneled back into those same politicians' campaign war chests. It is a cycle that has driven California and New York to the edge of bankruptcy.
10/30/09, 09:57 PM
Report inappropriate content improveEP says:
Consider what happened in Washington State. After helping Democrats win full control of the legislature in 2002, the state affiliate of the Association of Federal, State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and other unions persuaded lawmakers to lift the collective bargaining restrictions. Within three years the number of union members had doubled. With more state employees paying dues, the amount of union dollars flowing into the coffers of Democrats running in state elections also doubled. A prime beneficiary of such union generosity was Christine Gregoire, who became governor in 2004 after one of the closest elections in the state's history. (AFSCME gave $250,000 to the state Democratic party to help pay for the recount that handed her the election by 129 votes). Once in office, Gregoire negotiated contracts with the unions that resulted in double-digit salary increases, some exceeding 25 percent, for thousands of state employees. In 2007, J. Vander Stoep, an adviser to Republican Dino Rossi, Gregoire's 2004 opponent, prophetically remarked that the unions' arrangement with the Democrats was "a perfect machine to generate millions of dollars for her reelection. .??.??. They are building something that conceivably can never be undone--at taxpayer expense." In their 2008 rematch, Rossi lost again to Gregoire, this time by 194,614 votes.
Public sector unions with political influence can negotiate detailed work rules in which they largely exempt themselves from accountability in return for providing political support for their nominal managers. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) have
created a cartel to advance their own interests at the expense of the citizens and students. The teacher's contract is over 200 pages of small print. Reminiscent of the 12,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) who were paid not to work in the heyday of the UAW, nearly 800 Gotham "rubber room" teachers who have problems on the job are being paid not to work. The UFT has also negotiated with Bloomberg, mistakenly called an education reformer, a reduction in the number of days they must work to prepare for classes before school begins in September at the same time as their salary increases have been running at better than twice the rate of inflation.
But the teachers are not the only politically powerful labor force in New York, the nation's most-unionized state where 69 percent of public sector workers belong to collective bargaining units. In the nominally private health care sector, employees depend heavily on government programs, principally Medicare and Medicaid, for their livelihood. In the 1970s and 1980s, the local 1199 Drug, Hospital and Health Care Employees Union fought a running battle with New York's largely state and federally funded voluntary hospitals. Under the brilliant leadership of Dennis Rivera, 1199 built a top-notch political operation, and with the hospitals, which were barred from political activity, formed a partnership to maximize the flow of government revenue. The union-hospital alliance has been so successful in aligning itself with politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, that not only has 1199 been largely untouched by the downturn, but New York spends as much on Medicaid as California and Texas combined. And come boom or bust, hospital and health care employment in the state keeps growing. Rivera, who merged his local with the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), has now brought his political acumen to Washington as the SEIU's point-man on health care reform.
The combined power of the teachers and health care workers has made the New York state legislature a wholly owned subsidiary of the public sector unions. The law mandates that all new legislation be evaluated for its fiscal impact. In recent years those calculations were performed by an actuary named Jonathan Schwartz. In 2008, when Schwartz found that a piece of bipartisan legislation allowing city workers to retire early with full pension benefits would impose no new costs, the New York Times blew the whistle. Schwartz, who had been fired from a city job, worked not only for the state assembly but also, it turned out, for District Council 37 of the SEIU. When asked which other unions he had worked for, he replied, "How many unions are there?" His client list included the teachers, firefighters, detectives, correction officers, and bridge and tunnel officers. Not surprisingly New York State has the highest per-employee pension costs in the country.
Prior to World War II, a New York State Supreme Court justice neatly summarized the prevailing attitude toward public sector unions: "To tolerate or recognize any combination of Civil Service employees of the government as a labor organization or union is not only incompatible with the spirit of democracy but inconsistent with the spirit of democracy and inconsistent with every principle upon which our Government is founded." Laws permitting collective bargaining for public employees were virtually nonexistent. Even labor-friendly economists thought organizing most public sector employees was illegitimate. AFL-CIO president George Meany believed it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government."
What produced the enormous expansion of public sector unions? In a case of unintended consequences, government unionism ironically developed from actions taken by those hostile to it. Many of the icons of the labor-left like New York's great mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and President Franklin Roosevelt were adamantly opposed to public sector unions. LaGuardia, who pledged to make New York a "one hundred percent [private sector] union" town, had a civic vision of public employees as the people's workers, exemplars of the common good. Famed for dropping in unexpectedly on city offices and dressing down slackers, LaGuardia explained that he did "not want any of the pinochle club atmosphere to take hold" in his city government. "The right to strike against the government," he insisted, "is not and cannot be recognized."
In 1935, Roosevelt signed the Wagner Act, the first peacetime effort to support the growth of private sector unions. Its aim in the words of its sponsor, New York senator Robert Wagner, was "encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining." But like his close ally LaGuardia, Roosevelt drew a definite line when it came to government workers. "Meticulous attention," the president insisted, "should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government. .??.??. The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service." Both men feared that liberalism would be compromised by the unavoidably self-serving nature of public sector unionism.
But the mayor and the president opened the door to just what they opposed. In the bad old days of Tammany Hall, which had fought both LaGuardia and Roosevelt, the average tenure of a cop or teacher or garbage collector was five years. But with the rise of civil service reform backed by both men in the 1930s, public employees both in New York and the federal government began to gain lifetime security. Civil service reform, it turned out, was the precondition for unionization because it gave workers a long-term interest in their jobs and facilitated their capacity to express collective concerns. In 1958, New York mayor Robert Wagner, son of the senator behind the 1935 federal act, issued an executive order generally known as "the little Wagner Act." It gave city employees bargaining rights and provided their unions with exclusive representation. The city was soon turning over the dues from its workers to the union. Those dues soon provided political action funds to support union-backed candidates.
Running for reelection in 1961, Wagner faced a Democratic party revolt. The party's five borough chiefs were supporting his opponent, and Wagner made the unions the basis of his winning campaign. It was a turning point. Looking back in the wake of New York's mid-1970s fiscal crisis, Alex Rose, the head of the once powerful (and now defunct) New York Liberal party and a former labor leader, concluded that "the little Wagner Act" had proven a dreadful "mistake." Rose, who had also led the private sector clothing workers, explained that public sector "workers are not extracting a share of the profits but rather a share of taxes." Ultimately, he noted, his workers would be among those "footing the bill."
Ten weeks after Wagner's victory, President John F. Kennedy, who had been elected by the narrowest of margins in 1960, decided to mobilize public sector workers as a new source of political support. In mid-January 1962, he issued Executive Order 10988 giving federal workers the right to organize, though not to collectively bargain. Kennedy's action and Wagner's victory set off a wave of local union activity across the nation's major cities.
In states with laws favorable to unionism, public sector organizing has flourished; in states without such laws, it has not. If there is a specific point from which to mark the beginning of the current looming fiscal crisis in many blue states, it would be the wave of local strikes by public employees that were set in motion by Kennedy's executive order. His strategy succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. Like entitlement programs, the expansion of public sector unionism produced a self-generating dynamic for continual expansion. Public sector unions would occasionally experience temporary setbacks--as in the New York fiscal crisis of 1975--but they had the political clout to claw back any concessions made under duress.
During the Reagan years, the growth in local and state jobs was double the rate of population growth. In the downturn of the early 1990s, the New York Times warned that the states faced a "fiscal calamity." In 2002, during the next serious downturn, the National Governors Association insisted that the "states face the most dire fiscal situation since World War II." But in each case the growth of government and public sector pay packages merely stalled. It resumed as soon as the economy recovered.
There is broad agreement among economists that public sector unions' political power increases government spending. As reported in the New York Times, public-sector wages and benefits over the past decade have grown twice as fast as those in the average private-sector. An Empire Center for New York State Policy study found that in 2006 state and local government employees in New York were paid higher average salaries in eight out of ten regions of the state. If one excludes jobs in finance in New York City and the Southern Tier, private sector employees earned slightly less than government ones statewide.
The downturn has been very tough on private sector workers. But the public sector, particularly when it comes to pensions for uniformed workers, has been a different matter. In New York City, where public sector union benefits have grown twice as fast as those in the private sector since 2000, firefighters may retire after 20 years at half pay. Pension benefits for a new retiree averaged just under $73,000 (all exempt from state and local taxes). Many also collect an annual $12,000 "Christmas bonus." To top it off, they receive a health insurance policy that is worth about $10,000 annually. New York City is also paying benefits to 10,000 retired police officers under 50 years of age.
Such cases abound. According to the Boston Globe, 225 of the 2,338 Massachusetts state police officers made more than Governor Deval Patrick's $140,535 annual salary in 2006. Four state troopers received more than $200,000, and 123 others were paid more than $150,000. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that in suburban Chicago, there are school administrators--a unionized profession--who are making over $400,000. California teachers are represented by one of the country's most powerful teachers' unions and earn 25 percent more than the national average. Forbes has reported that there are California prison guards making $300,000 a year.
While the wage parity between public and private sector workers is largely unchanged since 2002, public sector benefits are a different matter. For every $1-an-hour pay increase, noted Dennis Cauchon in USA Today, public employees have gotten $1.17 in new benefits. Private workers have gotten just .58 cents in benefits for every $1 raise. This gap worries left-liberal labor economist Barry Bluestone. The price of state and local public services increased by 41 percent nationally between 2000 and 2008. Private services only increased by 27 percent. The benefit growth has continued unabated into the Great Recession, and Bluestone says the gap will inevitably produce a backlash.
Like banks, but with even less self-control, state governments make long-term promises in boom times while depending on the short-term flow of revenues. But when the boom ends, the benefits that have been ratcheted up have to be paid for out of a declining private sector economy. Barring a sharp recovery, state and local government tax-funded pension contributions in New York are likely to triple over the next five years in order to pay out the pension benefits guaranteed by the state constitution. (This is equally true in Illinois.) California's public pension fund liability has already topped $200 billion, and in cities such as Oakland, Vallejo, and Rio Vista bankruptcy looms.
In the states and cities where government workers' unions are strong, they have formed alliances with nonprofit advocacy groups such as ACORN and foundations committed to greater government involvement in the economy and society. The Manhattan Institute's Steven Malanga argues that this constellation of forces is in effect a new Tammany Hall. It is, says Seymour Lachman, a former New York state senator who now heads a center for government reform at Wagner College, "the ward heeler system of Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall wrapped in some kind of progressive disguise." The old Tammany, however, was subject to electoral defeats. The new Tammanies have proved self-perpetuating. In California, Governor Schwarzenegger's ill-organized effort to roll back public sector union power in 2005 led to the muscleman's first defeat, then his political evisceration, and now the Golden State's fiscal humiliation. New York City and State are on a similar course. Across the country the new political machine has mostly been aligned with the Democratic party. Some individual unions, however, such as California's prison guards and New York's hospital workers, have been protected and advanced by Republicans. Still others play a pragmatic balance-of-power game, forging short-lived marriages of convenience with either political party.
Public sector unions are beginning to strike out on their own, too. If the recent primary elections in New York are any indication, it is only a matter of time before, using the vehicle of the Working Families party (WFP), they take control of New York City government. New York allows third parties on the ballot, and the Working Families party--organized in 1998 as an alliance between labor unions and ACORN--cross-endorses allies in the Democratic party. Yet the WFP is thriving while New York's Democrats atrophy. In last week's New York City primaries, WFP candidates for city council won easily, as did the party's candidates for the city's second and third highest offices: comptroller and public advocate. Those are the best platforms from which to make a run for mayor of New York City when Bloomberg finally gives up his throne.
Public sector unions bring to the fore what James Madison called "the violence of faction" and its threat to the "permanent and aggregate interests of the community." This can't be blamed on the unions; they're advancing their members' interests. The fault lies with politicians, particularly those governors and mayors who have been willing to sabotage the public interest to smooth the path to their own reelections.
In the absence of tough-minded reform leaders who will take on the public sector unions, the fiscal future of states and localities is bleak.
Fred Siegel is a visiting professor at St. Francis College and a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute's City Journal. Dan DiSalvo is a professor at City College of New York.
10/30/09, 10:00 PM
Just more useless cutting and pasting by "Fat Tony's" #1 cheerleader, "improveEP". I'm wondering if it was "improveEP" who provided Fat Tony and his cronies the booze in the paper bags at the East Provdence High School graduation ceremonies-real class act Fat Tony.
1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)
2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?
3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS
4) IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.
5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !
Very impressive "improveEP"-looks like you've learned how to cut and paste. I'm sure that will really help when you start running Slow Joe Larisa's soon to be unsuccessful run for attorney general.
IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.
Union leadership defines itself with a simple mantra: "Mo' Money"
UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)
2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?
If it were up to "improveEP", there would be no police or fire department in the city, and all the children would be home schooled. Let's see how you feel "improveEP" when someone in your family gets raped by a gang banger, or dies from a medical emergency because there were no firefighters to take them to provide pre-hospital care. Sounds to me like you would be getting your just rewards.
UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)
I hope Larisa and Carcieri aren't paying you more than minimum wage "improveEP"-cutting and pasting the same statement 50 times over is getting kind of stale.
UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)
You know what the difference between you and I is "improveEP"?-you're frantically trying to keep up with me on YOUR TIME, and I'm ridiculing you on YOUR DIME. Thanks for paying my salary "improveEP"-much appreciated.
State Rep. Doug Gablinske is quoted as asking union officials representing more than 9,000 teachers: “Do you not think that the pigs at the public trough have gone too far?”
THAT QUOTE IS FROM A DEMOCRAT, WHO WOULD KNOW BETTER?
Check it out "improveEP"-I can come up with original quotes faster than you can cut and paste-shows your mentality.
State Rep. Doug Gablinske is quoted as asking union officials representing more than 9,000 teachers: “Do you not think that the pigs at the public trough have gone too far?”
THAT QUOTE IS FROM A DEMOCRAT, WHO WOULD KNOW BETTER?
Hey "improveEP"-I just spoke to Gablinske-he's on his way to Larisa Park to get his boots licked-told me to have "improveEP" there by 11:00 a.m. to report for duty.
State Rep. Doug Gablinske is quoted as asking union officials representing more than 9,000 teachers: “Do you not think that the pigs at the public trough have gone too far?”
THAT QUOTE IS FROM A DEMOCRAT, WHO WOULD KNOW BETTER?
Paul Doughty
How can union leadership blatantly continue to blow-off RI students?!
Students are on the Yorke show talking about the negative effects of bumping. They are talking about the shame of how great teachers are treated exactly the same as mediocre teachers. They are talking about their rights to a quality education. They are talking about individual teachers intimidated by unions.
1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS - POLICE - FIREMEN)
2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?
3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE TAXPAYERS
4) IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT IN. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.
5) IT'S JUST THAT SIMPLE !
Did you know?
Our overall taxes rank fourth in the country and are the highest in New England. Our school costs are the largest on a per capita basis in New England, yet our educational achievements are in the bottom 25% of U.S. performance. School budgets comprise about 60% to more than 70% of all municipal budgets in Rhode Island. Rhode Island teacher salaries are the 9th highest in the United States.
IF YOU WANT HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES (HACKS) THEY SUPPORT AND WANT ELECTED. YOU WILL THEN GET HIGHER TAXES.
FOR HIGHER TAXES, VOTE UNION !
"I have no problem whatsoever paying a little more in taxes. It's a small price to pay for the quality of life we enjoy."
THIS RECENT QUOTE SHOWN ABOVE IS FROM A RABID UNION BLOGGER NAMED "union-teacher"
HE OBVIOUSLY THINKS ITS OKAY TO PAY MORE TAXES IN THE MOST "TAXED OUT" STATE IN THE COUNTRY.
THEREFORE PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING:
1) UNIONS FIGHT AND SQUEEZE FOR MORE MONEY FOR THEIR MEMBERS (TEACHERS UNION - POLICE UNION - FIREMENS UNION)
2) WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM WHICH GOES TO THESE GREEDY UNIONS?
3) IT COMES FROM THE ANNUAL TAXES PAID BY THE HARDWORKING TAXPAYERS
4) IF YOU WANT TO PAY HIGHER ANNUAL TAXES, THEN SUPPORT THE UNIONS AND THE POLITICAL CANDIDATES THAT THEY SUPPORT AND WANT ELECTED. YOU WILL THEN PAY HIGHER TAXES.
I GUARANTEE YOU THAT!
5) IT'S REALLY JUST THAT SIMPLE !
