I have heard alot of union threatening from the old folks I take care of......they were threatened to have their house burned down and family members beat up, if they didn't vote and get their section of members to vote a certain way,,,they were bought with thousands of dollars of money.......
Lord of the Flies
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Re May 22 editorial, “How Cozy Can Unions and Lawmakers Get?”: Your outrage at the revelation of a unionbacked actuary computing “official” estimates to justify legislation written by union-backed lobbyists should not be the end of this affair. Unions and other groups have every right to use the existing laws to benefi t their members. Criticizing the unions is counterproductive and shortsighted. New York needs reforms in its laws, and it needs them badly. It may be an overstatement that we have one of the most dysfunctional state legislatures in the country, but it can’t be too far from the truth. The reform you propose, i.e. the establishment of an independent budget office sounds like creating more bureaucracy on top of what we already have. The state Legislature already has a significantly higher number of employees than any other in the country. We certainly have “fi rst place” in many categories — including per-capita taxes! The only reasonable, and logical fix, to reduce the influence of special interests in our laws is full public funding of electoral campaigns to eliminate the influence of money in lobbying and elections. B. K. KERAMATI Ballston Spa The writer is a candidate for state Senate in District 44.
Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE Legislature’s servitude is laid bare Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.
Was I surprised to learn from The New York Times that our state Legislature was about to pass a bill to the benefit of municipal unions that was written by the unions themselves and that was buttressed by a financial analysis masquerading as official but was actually concocted by a paid union consultant? No, I was not. As regular readers know, I have often guessed out loud that the shameless give-away bills the Legislature rubberstamps come straight from the unions’ legal offices. Was I surprised that the unionpaid consultant who certified that the latest giveaway would cost nothing admitted his numbers were just “a step above voodoo” and that quote, “I got a little bit carried away in my formulation”? Yes, I was surprised at that part of it. I figured if he had hung tough and swore up and down to his professional integrity, there would be no way to shake the story out of him, and I don’t know why he didn’t do that. Maybe he just let his guard down. But there we have it, out in the open: The municipal unions of New York City write their own bills increasing their own benefi ts by tens of millions of dollars, hire a retired actuary to certify that the benefits will cost the taxpayers nothing, and the state Legislature passes those bills, attaching the phony analysis to them as if it were the objective work of the Legislature’s own staff. Not just once, but time after time. They don’t debate these bills and they don’t hold hearings on them. They just pass them, usually unanimously. With the result, not surprisingly, that we have close to 900 retired state employees collecting pensions of $100,000 and up, as revealed last week in the Times Union, and pension costs are a major part of every municipal budget. For these people the state is simply a cow to be milked, and our legislators are the complacent dairymen who allow the milking to take place. The Legislature has a staff of 3,342 people — think of it, 3,342 employees to do everything from sharpen pencils to write legislation and do fiscal analysis — but look what happens. They meekly accept bills written by someone else and without so much as a cursory glance, pass them. And then they make a great show of fighting to keep our taxes down. Oh, they’ll do anything, they say in their glossy mailers to us, to reduce our taxes. They’ll put a cap on them. They’ll fight, fight, fight. It is such a shameless show it makes me sorry to be alive. These legislators of ours are corrupt in all but the strict technical sense of taking money for an explicit quid pro quo. They take money, the quid, millions of it in campaign contributions, and they return favors, the quo, but without an explicit statement of what the deal is. They can posture all they want, but when you look at the bills they pass, the legislators are largely fl unkies of the unions, and especially the public-employee unions, and if you want to know why our taxes are so high, that’s one large reason. So teachers and cops and fi refighters can retire in mid-life with generous pensions. So trade unionists can get $40 an hour to do public construction jobs. So non-union workers can be locked out. So there will be no competition at any level for public work. So the cow can be milked. It doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because our state legislators allow it to happen and even make it happen with their corrupt system.
It’s time to fix industrial development agencies (IDAs). IDAs were meant to stimulate the economy, and for decades they have been granting tax breaks and incentives with promises of new jobs in this area. It’s no coincidence that during this time, our economy has continued to deteriorate and, if anything, we have lost good jobs. IDAs have done nothing to help the economy, and it’s time to stop giving away our tax dollars for low-paying, minimum-wage jobs that would be there anyway. We need to demand that employers who take advantage of IDA programs create permanent, real, family-sustaining jobs. We need new wage standards for those jobs, so that people will move into the Capital Region and stay here, and we need prevailing wage for construction that is done with IDA backing. We need all of this now. We have every reason to ask employers to create better jobs than minimum-wage ones. We need to replenish the local tax money that IDAs give away by creating good jobs. This is the only way to keep property taxes down. Big-business lobbyists have had their way with this program long enough, and it’s time to ignore their false claims that good jobs somehow hurt the economy. They have operated for decades without any job standards and look what that has gotten us. It’s time to try something new. We need IDA reform now! JOE FOX Troy The writer is president of the Capital District Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.
Big-business lobbyists have had their way with this program long enough, and it’s time to ignore their false claims that good jobs somehow hurt the economy.
That's right..Big businesses have had their way long enough. Now the union wants their turn.
But I would like to ask them exactly WHAT businesses they would like to promote? In case these unions haven't noticed, we don't have anymore high paying(industrial), good jobs here. They have ALL left for other countries. And in some cases, it was because OF the unions.
Too bad we couldn't out source our tax paid, public service jobs. That would put more money back in the taxpayers pockets. But unfortunately, those seem to be the only jobs left. Well, in NYS anyways.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
The largest unions in the nation are lobbying as hard as they can to pass a bill that would take away the rights of workers to vote on whether they want to form a union. The bill is misleadingly named the Employee Free Choice Act. It is supported by Democrats in Congress and represents one of their key priorities after the election. Big unions are disappointed in their record at organizing employees at companies across the nation. They are disheartened by the fact that when these workers are given a chance to vote by secret ballot, they often vote not to unionize. So unions want to stop those votes. If the unions truly believe they can offer workers a better deal from their employers, why can’t they stand up to a fair election? --Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal
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