On July 25th the SEIU Local 1000 in California alerted their membership to a state ballot proposition that is working its way through the signature qualification process. In the “campaign news” section of their website, they posted a report entitled “Big business launches another attack on us,” where they state “a new initiative has been...

California’s Gov. Brown vetoes union-sponsored legislation By Paresh Dave, July 25, 2011, Sacramento Bee Gov. Jerry Brown today vetoed a union-sponsored measure that would have mandated the make-up of local civil service commissions. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was the source of Assembly Bill 455 by Assemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose, which...

Teachers should think twice before marching in lockstep with this revolting crowd. Americans have always had a warm spot for teachers. We all have memories of those who have taught us, who were there every day for us and felt like part of our family. But over the past 40 years or so, teachers unions...

July 25, 2011 In a previous post “Pension Contributions Aren’t Enough,” the point is made that for every percentage point that an investment fund lowers their projected rate of return, the required annual pension fund contribution as a percent of salary goes up by over 10%. The assumptions underlying that analysis were 30 years working,...

July 25, 2011 While much has been made of the impact of pension “spiking,” it is helpful to quantify just exactly how much pension spiking will cost taxpayers, and how ill-prepared an otherwise adequately funded pension account is for this practice. In the two sets of examples below, the same assumptions and the same analytical...

The states ban union political bid-rigging; Obama demurs Editorial, July 19, 2011, Wall Street Journal One benefit of the squeeze on state and local budgets is that politicians are finally having to confront their sweetheart deals with labor unions. The latest reform movement is moving against project labor agreements, or PLAs, that limit bids on...

NEA and AFT ramp up attacks on non-existent teacher bashers, while vilifying those who are trying to reform a failing system. In her address last week at the American Federation of Teachers TEACH conference, AFT President Randi Weingarten came out swinging. In an emotional speech to the faithful, she said that education reform should come...