Labor
The reaction of RI Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals lobbyist James Parisi to news that Governor Carcieri’s 2010 budget includes a provision liberating charter schools from some personnel requirements suggests that the teachers’ unions are frightened that charters might become even more successful: “It’s wrong, it’s unfair, it’s unconscionable, it’s absolutely unnecessary and it…
There’s something very Rhode Island about a financial town meeting that admits non-resident outside guests and then adds half a million dollars to the school budget: The non-resident ban the Lincoln Town Council approved 4-1 last week stems in part from controversy over last May’s rollicking Town Meeting that increased this year’s school budget by…
One can’t help but see France as an example of the future several steps down a path toward which Rhode Island (and to some degree the United States) seems sometimes to threaten to take. This sentence captures the total absurdity of the mindset: More than 1 million people marched in France yesterday to demand that…
Amanda Pereira, a sophomore at Classical High School, and her fellow students in Young Voices confirm that students also see what many of us believe to be obvious, that allowing teachers to be bumped from their jobs based on seniority alone is wrong: [Bumping] has a terrible effect on students. In 2008, we conducted groundbreaking…
AFSCME Council 94 President J. Michael Downey has an op-ed on yesterday’s opinion pages in which he makes a couple of flawed analogies in trying to convey his point (emphasis added): State workers pay a lot of money for their pensions. We put 8.75 percent of each paycheck into the pension fund — higher than…
Third on the schedule at the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition’s Winter Meeting was RI General Treasurer Frank Caprio (stream entire speech): RISC Chairman Harry Staley’s introduction: stream, download Caprio’s opening remarks (and shout-outs): stream, download Mock description of U.S. and RI governments as investment opportunities: stream, download Why are these entities able to find investors…
The other day, a coworker and I had a discussion — while we worked, of course — about the many ways the law seems intended to lash us to our employers, in turn providing them with a measure of protection from competition. If they go out on their own, carpenters in Rhode Island must register…
There isn’t much advantage to pointing these things out, at the local level. Those who get it will see, and those who choose not to see won’t get it. But I do wonder what the keepers of the Providence Journal’s credibility think of reporter Alisha Pina’s assessment that the following comment had sufficient content to…
The dispute between the East Providence School Committee and the East Providence Teachers’ Union has focused attention of the Rhode Island State Labor Relations Board (SLRB), a largely obscure administrative body that referees disputes between management and labor. What little public information is available regarding the Board and its operations has caused taxpayers to be…
So the Ocean State Policy Research Institute has learned that the State Labor Relations Board is a very quick-thinking group (emphasis added): By law, such proceedings must be open unless a recorded vote is taken to close the meeting and an explicit exemption under 42-46-5(a) is cited. Any votes taken in closed session must be…