Unions?

[classicman]

Blame the R's start a thread and whine, but when the D's do a similar thing ...
nary a peep.

Pop quiz: What political party, in what state, this week passed a bill in the dead of night stripping public-sector unions of their collective- bargaining powers? Republicans in Wisconsin? The GOP in Ohio or Indiana?

Try Democrats in Massachusetts. Maybe the debate over public-sector benefits isn't all that ideological after all.

That would be the view of Massachusetts Democratic Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, who late Tuesday led an overwhelming majority of his House in passing a bill divesting policemen, firefighters, teachers and other municipal employees of the power to collectively bargain most health-care benefits. The 111-42 vote took place at 11:30 at night, so as to avoid a mass of protesting union workers set to descend on the State House the next day. The cheek.

The unions, in short, have walked Massachusetts so far into a hole that even Democrats can no longer ignore the problem

Link

Where is your outrage?

[Fair&Balanced]

Originally Posted by classicman

Blame the R's start a thread and whine, but when the D's do a similar thing ...
nary a peep.


Link

Where is your outrage?

Just to be clear, as I understand it, the MA law is limited to bargaining rights for health care benefits unlike WI, which limits bargaining rights for health care, pensions, wages and also requires annual recertification as opposed to recertification each time the contract is renewed (3-5 years).

Given that it does it does not gut the unions to the same extent as WI, I'm disappointed but not outraged. I think I said earlier that unions have overreached and needed to reform and accept some benefit reductions.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Fair&Balanced

Just to be clear, as I understand it, the MA law is limited to bargaining rights for health care benefits unlike WI, which limits bargaining rights for health care, pensions, wages and also requires annual recertification as opposed to recertification each time the contract is renewed (3-5 years).

Given that it does it does not gut the unions to the same extent as WI, I'm disappointed but not outraged.

No it isn't EXACTLY like the one in WI, but it is another affront on unions that was perpetrated by a D legislature. If there was an R after their name all hell would have broken loose. They would have bussed people in from out of state much like WI.... and so on.

It was also passed in the middle of the night (11:30pm) to pre-empt the planned protests for the next day. (another thing the R's in WI got attacked for) This got basically buried in the press. A few articles here and there. There was nothing, but a brief mention of it on TV that I saw.

I think I said earlier that unions have overreached and needed to reform and accept some benefit reductions.

I must have missed that post. My apologies, if so.

[Fair&Balanced]

Originally Posted by classicman

No it isn't EXACTLY like the one in WI, but it is another affront on unions that was perpetrated by a D legislature. If there was an R after their name all hell would have broken loose. They would have bussed people in from out of state much like WI.... and so on.
...

Not EXACTLY?

How about SIGNIFICANTLY different in both the terms and the intent.

The intent of the MA law is fiscal. I suspect that if the unions had offered concessions in the manner of the WI unions, this law probably would have been avoided.

By any measure, the intent of major provisions (certification) of the WI law was ideological and political, especially given the fact that the WI unions offered big concessions on health and pension benefits that the governor refused to accept.

Dismantlling or restructing 50+ years of basic rights of workers to organize and to make it more burdensome for union certification has no fiscal implications. The Republican Senator leader made it perfectly clear.

[morethanpretty]

Originally Posted by classicman

Where is your outrage?

I buried it one night when I was REALLY wasted and now I can't find it. I made a map but its just a blank piece of paper with an X.