On Feb 23, 2011, at 10:54 AM, Mark Iverson wrote:
Yes, Horace, you have a point, but can't the union 'bees' see that
its not just the managers on the
govt side, but the managers (e.g., the Fire Marshalls) on the Union
side as well, that are screwing
the worker bees royally! It makes no sense to take sides here...
Just eliminate the possibility that
any shenanigans can be perpetrated by everything being openly
debated and recorded for public
(taxpayer) review...
-Mark
I'll have to plead some ignorance on this. I believe there may be
federal laws that personnel information for employees (be they union
or not, public or not), including personal data like address and
phone, as well as discipline and performance reviews and salary
negotiations, are private. I think there may be civil and criminal
penalties involved for disclosures. I just don't know for sure. If
true, then federal legislation would be required to change that. I
know there are exceptions for elected officials, so there could be
exceptions made for public employees. Maybe society as a whole would
be better off with full disclosure regarding *everyone's* salary
information, even though there might result a lot of libel and equal
treatment suits. After all, businesses receive tax breaks, and tax
breaks are paid for from the government treasury. It's everyone's
money at stake.
The above issues being what they may, violating contracts going back
20 or 30 years is just plain wrong. Although that amounts to fraud,
theft of services, I suppose it isn't much more wrong than other
shenanigans going on these days, like the usurping of the the
public's representation by lobbyists, stealing generations old water
rights from ranchers to feed cities like Los Vegas, forcing entry on
personal property to drill and frack for gas, using eminent domain
just to raise the tax value of property, trampling on constitutional
rights like habeas corpus, forbidding people from being informed if
they are eating franken food, failure to provide a public insurance
option because private insurers can't compete with it, shoving money
at some of the richest Americans on Wall street while failing to
regulate the things that caused the recent financial crises in the
first place and will cause another crises, failing to raise taxes
even on the very rich while cutting benefits to the poorest while
simultaneously wiping out the interest income from the hard earned
savings of the old and retired. Perhaps politicians and lobbyists
could never be trusted to do the moral thing, but I think they are
worse now than I've ever seen. Perhaps one simple answer is one
term per office. No re-elections. No beholden to benefactors or
lobbyists. Little or no seniority in congress. No campaign
contributions at all.
And then there is our practically non-existent energy policy, going
back to before the Carter years, other than maybe subsidies for
carbon energy, despite the obvious warning provided by the fuel
shortages of the 1970's. Again, it's shenanigans of the highest order.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
