Labor
Bob Walsh, Executive Director of the NEA RI, whom we all wish a speedy recovery from his procedure today, called in to the WPRO Dan Yorke Show yesterday morning. After clarifying that his “medical leave” involved a previously scheduled surgery and not a ploy to distract from the NEA’s travails, he went on to address…
Sure, President Obama’s proposal to freeze the pay of federal employees is an attempt to start the debate in a position much more favorable than a reasonable political compromise would suggest. The bottom line is that the federal government has to do less and, therefore, require many fewer employees. Still, even as that debate plays…
Remember when a raucous School Committee meeting in East Providence gave reason to hope that the game might be up for the National Education Association’s unchallenged control of Rhode Island education? If so, odds are that Anchor Rising plays in that memory. We liveblogged, photographed, recorded, and analyzed. And it made a difference. Two days…
Steven Frias, a Steve Laffey ally of old and author of a book on Cranston’s political history, relates the origin of school committees’ authority to negotiate contracts (even though they can’t tax to pay for them) and binding arbitration for police and fire. Sadly, there are some discouraging parallels to our proximate future: The leader…
Helen makes an interesting suggestion: Would a strike of non union people be illegal? If everyone who is not in a union stopped working, if business owners refused to open, would that be illegal? It would certainly be a show of private-sector weight were the Rhode Island economy simply to stop for a couple of…
Bob Walsh is on Governor-elect Lincoln Chafee’s transition team? National Education Association Rhode Island Executive Director Bob Walsh is preparing the way for Rhode Island’s next governor? Boy, they (you know whom I mean) aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. Two hyperbolic scenarios arise in my imagination. In the first, a simpering Chafee begs,…
The best election-results quotes from Rhode Island conservatives/reformers came out of East Providence: [Soon-to-be-former School Committee Chairman Anthony] Carcieri laughed in the face of defeat and said, “The public has spoken, so get your checkbooks out. We’ll be paying a lot of taxes in the near future.” Soon-to-be-former Mayor Joseph Larisa points to the deeper…
Folks are rioting in France because they feel retirement at 60 to be a birthright. In Rhode Island, public-sector unions promote the birthright of retiring much earlier, collecting pensions, and starting second careers. That’s what was on Mark Patinkin’s mind yesterday: Sarkozy is worried that 60 is a ruinously young age for pensions in France,…
The proper scope of union activities has been a topic of conversation, around here, lately, and I’ve been drawing my line mainly where the union become a broader advocate for its members in the public, specifically political, sphere. Here’s a particularly curious instance: I’m Jade Thompson and my husband, Andy Thompson, is running for the…
It’s pretty clear, from a recent Brown University poll that about one-fifth of the electorate in Rhode Island are in the die-hard public sector camp: On the other hand, a large percentage — 73.3 percent — opposed raising the state sales tax, while 18.9 percent supported the idea. And 74.7 percent opposed raising the state…
