OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

By LARRY McSHANE
Associated Press Writer
Dec 20 5:10 PM US/Eastern

NEW YORK - Commuters trudged through the freezing cold, rode bicycles and
shared cabs Tuesday as New York's bus and subway workers went on strike for
the first time in more than 25 years and stranded millions of riders at the
height of the Christmas rush. A judge slapped the union with a $1
million-a-day fine. State Justice Theodore Jones leveled the sanction
against the Transport Workers Union for violating a state law that bars
public employees from going on strike. The city and state had asked Jones to
hit the union with a "very potent fine."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another reason why the popularity of unions is at an all-time low.

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

NYOB,

My son called me today to tell me he was walking back to his Dorm, gong down
Broadway around 115 St. (way uptown). He said he walked 3 blocks and didn't
see one car move the entire time.

He now has to figure out a way to Manhattan to LaGuardia on Thursday. It
will be interesting to see how he handles this.


"NOYB" wrote in message
k.net...
By LARRY McSHANE
Associated Press Writer
Dec 20 5:10 PM US/Eastern

NEW YORK - Commuters trudged through the freezing cold, rode bicycles and
shared cabs Tuesday as New York's bus and subway workers went on strike
for the first time in more than 25 years and stranded millions of riders
at the height of the Christmas rush. A judge slapped the union with a $1
million-a-day fine. State Justice Theodore Jones leveled the sanction
against the Transport Workers Union for violating a state law that bars
public employees from going on strike. The city and state had asked Jones
to hit the union with a "very potent fine."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another reason why the popularity of unions is at an all-time low.

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

"Smithers one of 1000's" Smithers of a 1000 names wrote in message
...
NYOB,

My son called me today to tell me he was walking back to his Dorm, gong
down Broadway around 115 St. (way uptown). He said he walked 3 blocks and
didn't see one car move the entire time.

He now has to figure out a way to Manhattan to LaGuardia on Thursday. It
will be interesting to see how he handles this.

When the unions approach him (or one of his employees) one day, how do you
think today's actions will affect his response to them?

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

NOYB,
He is siding with the Union. He thinks management is using the "No Strike"
rule not to negotiate in good faith.

College students, what can you do. They know it all. ; )


"NOYB" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Smithers one of 1000's" Smithers of a 1000 names wrote in message
...
NYOB,

My son called me today to tell me he was walking back to his Dorm, gong
down Broadway around 115 St. (way uptown). He said he walked 3 blocks
and didn't see one car move the entire time.

He now has to figure out a way to Manhattan to LaGuardia on Thursday. It
will be interesting to see how he handles this.

When the unions approach him (or one of his employees) one day, how do you
think today's actions will affect his response to them?

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

Smithers wrote:
NOYB,
He is siding with the Union. He thinks management is using the "No Strike"
rule not to negotiate in good faith.

College students, what can you do. They know it all. ; )


It does give you faith in the next generation..eh?

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

Don,
When he comes home I am going to hit him with a baseball bat.

The little ****. ; )


"Don White" wrote in message
...
Smithers wrote:
NOYB,
He is siding with the Union. He thinks management is using the "No
Strike" rule not to negotiate in good faith.

College students, what can you do. They know it all. ; )


It does give you faith in the next generation..eh?

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

Just wait, he'll graduate, get that high income job, then the first
paycheck will arrive, and he will have a near death experience from seeing
the amount withheld for taxes........he'll be a conservative in no time
:-)

"Reggie Smithers" Reggie( is my first name) Smithers wrote in message
...
Don,
When he comes home I am going to hit him with a baseball bat.

The little ****. ; )


"Don White" wrote in message
...
Smithers wrote:
NOYB,
He is siding with the Union. He thinks management is using the "No
Strike" rule not to negotiate in good faith.

College students, what can you do. They know it all. ; )


It does give you faith in the next generation..eh?

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

Reggie Smithers ( is my first name) wrote:
Don,
When he comes home I am going to hit him with a baseball bat.

The little ****. ; )


Exactly. If you hit his head enough times with a bat, you'll cause
enough brain damage to allow him to follow the right wing lemming like
and think unions are terrible things and people should be using
children as slave labor still.

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

On 21 Dec 2005 04:31:58 -0800, wrote:


Reggie Smithers ( is my first name) wrote:
Don,
When he comes home I am going to hit him with a baseball bat.

The little ****. ; )


Exactly. If you hit his head enough times with a bat, you'll cause
enough brain damage to allow him to follow the right wing lemming like
and think unions are terrible things and people should be using
children as slave labor still.

So, atlman. what do you think of Chuck's challenge? I'll quote it below, in case you
missed it.

Our NG has become a chatroom.
No other way to define what has happened, when 90% or more of the
content is OT and 50% or more of the OT posts devolve into political
name calling and flame fests. Boats are probably mentioned more often
in a general chatroom, by accident, than they are here on rec.boats on
purpose.

I propose a 5 day challenge to the entire chatroom.

For five days, let's pretend we're a boating newsgroup.

That would be the remainder of today, the 20th, through Saturday the
24th.

During this period of time, I propose that the group of worst
offenders, self included, take the lead in this challenge by doing the
following things.

1. Refrain from launching any sort of political or religious thread.
2. Resist name calling and put personal feuds aside.
3. Resist the temptation to respond to any political threads trolled
through the NG
4. Launch a minimum of two boating-related threads (not required of
non-boaters)
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of this 5 day challenge on December 25


For this to work at all, I believe we need Harry, Basskisser, JimH,
John H, Doug Kanter, Skipper, NOYB, P.Fritz, and Smithers (under all of
his 1000 names), to sign on. The occasional offenders, not mentioned
above, would need to participate as well. For this to work, anybody who
elects to participate would have to be adult enough to ignore
violations by others rather than use those violations as a
justification or an excuse to resume OT trolling, flaming and chatting.
Participants would need to assume responsibility for their own
behavior, and not allow it to be dictated by the bad actions of others.

So the gauntlet is thrown. I'm in for the five days. Anybody else
willing to experiment to see whether the overall tone of the
chatroom/NG would change if a group of the worst offenders
modified their behavior here? If not, things will be at least slightly
better for five days while I personally follow the 5 guidelines.

It's solstice. The world is taking a new slant and the sun is coming
back (to the north).
Wouldn't this be an appropriate time to stop the decline of the NG and
bring a bit of boating sunshine back? It would be a holiday or
Christmas gift to the group, from the group, and for the group. :-)

Are you in?
--
John H

**** May your Christmas be Spectacular!****
*****...and your New Year even Better!*****

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

"JohnH" wrote in message
...
On 21 Dec 2005 04:31:58 -0800, wrote:


Reggie Smithers ( is my first name) wrote:
Don,
When he comes home I am going to hit him with a baseball bat.

The little ****. ; )


Exactly. If you hit his head enough times with a bat, you'll cause
enough brain damage to allow him to follow the right wing lemming like
and think unions are terrible things and people should be using
children as slave labor still.

So, atlman. what do you think of Chuck's challenge? I'll quote it below,
in case you
missed it.

You are asking Keivn to THINK? ;-)


Our NG has become a chatroom.
No other way to define what has happened, when 90% or more of the
content is OT and 50% or more of the OT posts devolve into political
name calling and flame fests. Boats are probably mentioned more often
in a general chatroom, by accident, than they are here on rec.boats on
purpose.

I propose a 5 day challenge to the entire chatroom.

For five days, let's pretend we're a boating newsgroup.

That would be the remainder of today, the 20th, through Saturday the
24th.

During this period of time, I propose that the group of worst
offenders, self included, take the lead in this challenge by doing the
following things.

1. Refrain from launching any sort of political or religious thread.
2. Resist name calling and put personal feuds aside.
3. Resist the temptation to respond to any political threads trolled
through the NG
4. Launch a minimum of two boating-related threads (not required of
non-boaters)
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of this 5 day challenge on December 25


For this to work at all, I believe we need Harry, Basskisser, JimH,
John H, Doug Kanter, Skipper, NOYB, P.Fritz, and Smithers (under all of
his 1000 names), to sign on. The occasional offenders, not mentioned
above, would need to participate as well. For this to work, anybody who
elects to participate would have to be adult enough to ignore
violations by others rather than use those violations as a
justification or an excuse to resume OT trolling, flaming and chatting.
Participants would need to assume responsibility for their own
behavior, and not allow it to be dictated by the bad actions of others.

So the gauntlet is thrown. I'm in for the five days. Anybody else
willing to experiment to see whether the overall tone of the
chatroom/NG would change if a group of the worst offenders
modified their behavior here? If not, things will be at least slightly
better for five days while I personally follow the 5 guidelines.

It's solstice. The world is taking a new slant and the sun is coming
back (to the north).
Wouldn't this be an appropriate time to stop the decline of the NG and
bring a bit of boating sunshine back? It would be a holiday or
Christmas gift to the group, from the group, and for the group. :-)

Are you in?
--
John H

**** May your Christmas be Spectacular!****
*****...and your New Year even Better!*****

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:26:11 -0500, "P Fritz"
wrote:


You are asking Keivn to THINK? ;-)


Our NG has become a chatroom.
No other way to define what has happened, when 90% or more of the
content is OT and 50% or more of the OT posts devolve into political
name calling and flame fests. Boats are probably mentioned more often
in a general chatroom, by accident, than they are here on rec.boats on
purpose.

I propose a 5 day challenge to the entire chatroom.

For five days, let's pretend we're a boating newsgroup.

That would be the remainder of today, the 20th, through Saturday the
24th.

During this period of time, I propose that the group of worst
offenders, self included, take the lead in this challenge by doing the
following things.

1. Refrain from launching any sort of political or religious thread.
2. Resist name calling and put personal feuds aside.
3. Resist the temptation to respond to any political threads trolled
through the NG
4. Launch a minimum of two boating-related threads (not required of
non-boaters)
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of this 5 day challenge on December 25


For this to work at all, I believe we need Harry, Basskisser, JimH,
John H, Doug Kanter, Skipper, NOYB, P.Fritz, and Smithers (under all of
his 1000 names), to sign on. The occasional offenders, not mentioned
above, would need to participate as well. For this to work, anybody who
elects to participate would have to be adult enough to ignore
violations by others rather than use those violations as a
justification or an excuse to resume OT trolling, flaming and chatting.
Participants would need to assume responsibility for their own
behavior, and not allow it to be dictated by the bad actions of others.

So the gauntlet is thrown. I'm in for the five days. Anybody else
willing to experiment to see whether the overall tone of the
chatroom/NG would change if a group of the worst offenders
modified their behavior here? If not, things will be at least slightly
better for five days while I personally follow the 5 guidelines.

It's solstice. The world is taking a new slant and the sun is coming
back (to the north).
Wouldn't this be an appropriate time to stop the decline of the NG and
bring a bit of boating sunshine back? It would be a holiday or
Christmas gift to the group, from the group, and for the group. :-)


Well, what do *you* think of Chuck's Challenge?
--
John H

**** May your Christmas be Spectacular!****
*****...and your New Year even Better!*****

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

"JohnH" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:26:11 -0500, "P Fritz"

wrote:


You are asking Keivn to THINK? ;-)


Our NG has become a chatroom.
No other way to define what has happened, when 90% or more of the
content is OT and 50% or more of the OT posts devolve into political
name calling and flame fests. Boats are probably mentioned more often
in a general chatroom, by accident, than they are here on rec.boats on
purpose.

I propose a 5 day challenge to the entire chatroom.

For five days, let's pretend we're a boating newsgroup.

That would be the remainder of today, the 20th, through Saturday the
24th.

During this period of time, I propose that the group of worst
offenders, self included, take the lead in this challenge by doing the
following things.

1. Refrain from launching any sort of political or religious thread.
2. Resist name calling and put personal feuds aside.
3. Resist the temptation to respond to any political threads trolled
through the NG
4. Launch a minimum of two boating-related threads (not required of
non-boaters)
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of this 5 day challenge on December 25


For this to work at all, I believe we need Harry, Basskisser, JimH,
John H, Doug Kanter, Skipper, NOYB, P.Fritz, and Smithers (under all
of
his 1000 names), to sign on. The occasional offenders, not mentioned
above, would need to participate as well. For this to work, anybody
who
elects to participate would have to be adult enough to ignore
violations by others rather than use those violations as a
justification or an excuse to resume OT trolling, flaming and
chatting.
Participants would need to assume responsibility for their own
behavior, and not allow it to be dictated by the bad actions of
others.

So the gauntlet is thrown. I'm in for the five days. Anybody else
willing to experiment to see whether the overall tone of the
chatroom/NG would change if a group of the worst offenders
modified their behavior here? If not, things will be at least slightly
better for five days while I personally follow the 5 guidelines.

It's solstice. The world is taking a new slant and the sun is coming
back (to the north).
Wouldn't this be an appropriate time to stop the decline of the NG and
bring a bit of boating sunshine back? It would be a holiday or
Christmas gift to the group, from the group, and for the group. :-)


Well, what do *you* think of Chuck's Challenge?

Not much, but then again I have not responded to any of the liebrals for
as long as I can remember......since they have long ago taken up residence
in my killfile.....I just don't find the need to "announce" it every other
day like harry. :-)


--
John H

**** May your Christmas be Spectacular!****
*****...and your New Year even Better!*****

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

JohnH wrote:
On 21 Dec 2005 04:31:58 -0800, wrote:


Reggie Smithers ( is my first name) wrote:
Don,
When he comes home I am going to hit him with a baseball bat.

The little ****. ; )


Exactly. If you hit his head enough times with a bat, you'll cause
enough brain damage to allow him to follow the right wing lemming like
and think unions are terrible things and people should be using
children as slave labor still.

So, atlman. what do you think of Chuck's challenge? I'll quote it below, in case you
missed it.

Our NG has become a chatroom.
No other way to define what has happened, when 90% or more of the
content is OT and 50% or more of the OT posts devolve into political
name calling and flame fests. Boats are probably mentioned more often
in a general chatroom, by accident, than they are here on rec.boats on
purpose.

I propose a 5 day challenge to the entire chatroom.

For five days, let's pretend we're a boating newsgroup.

That would be the remainder of today, the 20th, through Saturday the
24th.

During this period of time, I propose that the group of worst
offenders, self included, take the lead in this challenge by doing the
following things.

1. Refrain from launching any sort of political or religious thread.
2. Resist name calling and put personal feuds aside.
3. Resist the temptation to respond to any political threads trolled
through the NG
4. Launch a minimum of two boating-related threads (not required of
non-boaters)
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of this 5 day challenge on December 25


For this to work at all, I believe we need Harry, Basskisser, JimH,
John H, Doug Kanter, Skipper, NOYB, P.Fritz, and Smithers (under all of
his 1000 names), to sign on. The occasional offenders, not mentioned
above, would need to participate as well. For this to work, anybody who
elects to participate would have to be adult enough to ignore
violations by others rather than use those violations as a
justification or an excuse to resume OT trolling, flaming and chatting.
Participants would need to assume responsibility for their own
behavior, and not allow it to be dictated by the bad actions of others.

So the gauntlet is thrown. I'm in for the five days. Anybody else
willing to experiment to see whether the overall tone of the
chatroom/NG would change if a group of the worst offenders
modified their behavior here? If not, things will be at least slightly
better for five days while I personally follow the 5 guidelines.

It's solstice. The world is taking a new slant and the sun is coming
back (to the north).
Wouldn't this be an appropriate time to stop the decline of the NG and
bring a bit of boating sunshine back? It would be a holiday or
Christmas gift to the group, from the group, and for the group. :-)

Are you in?
--
John H

**** May your Christmas be Spectacular!****
*****...and your New Year even Better!*****

When your buddies quit, so will I. Just take a look at Fritz's crap
below for an example.

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

JohnH,
No one expected everyone to refrain from insults or political trolls. The
key is not to respond to them.


wrote in message
ups.com...

JohnH wrote:
On 21 Dec 2005 04:31:58 -0800, wrote:


Reggie Smithers ( is my first name) wrote:
Don,
When he comes home I am going to hit him with a baseball bat.

The little ****. ; )


Exactly. If you hit his head enough times with a bat, you'll cause
enough brain damage to allow him to follow the right wing lemming like
and think unions are terrible things and people should be using
children as slave labor still.

So, atlman. what do you think of Chuck's challenge? I'll quote it below,
in case you
missed it.

Our NG has become a chatroom.
No other way to define what has happened, when 90% or more of the
content is OT and 50% or more of the OT posts devolve into political
name calling and flame fests. Boats are probably mentioned more often
in a general chatroom, by accident, than they are here on rec.boats on
purpose.

I propose a 5 day challenge to the entire chatroom.

For five days, let's pretend we're a boating newsgroup.

That would be the remainder of today, the 20th, through Saturday the
24th.

During this period of time, I propose that the group of worst
offenders, self included, take the lead in this challenge by doing the
following things.

1. Refrain from launching any sort of political or religious thread.
2. Resist name calling and put personal feuds aside.
3. Resist the temptation to respond to any political threads trolled
through the NG
4. Launch a minimum of two boating-related threads (not required of
non-boaters)
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of this 5 day challenge on December 25


For this to work at all, I believe we need Harry, Basskisser, JimH,
John H, Doug Kanter, Skipper, NOYB, P.Fritz, and Smithers (under all of
his 1000 names), to sign on. The occasional offenders, not mentioned
above, would need to participate as well. For this to work, anybody who
elects to participate would have to be adult enough to ignore
violations by others rather than use those violations as a
justification or an excuse to resume OT trolling, flaming and chatting.
Participants would need to assume responsibility for their own
behavior, and not allow it to be dictated by the bad actions of others.

So the gauntlet is thrown. I'm in for the five days. Anybody else
willing to experiment to see whether the overall tone of the
chatroom/NG would change if a group of the worst offenders
modified their behavior here? If not, things will be at least slightly
better for five days while I personally follow the 5 guidelines.

It's solstice. The world is taking a new slant and the sun is coming
back (to the north).
Wouldn't this be an appropriate time to stop the decline of the NG and
bring a bit of boating sunshine back? It would be a holiday or
Christmas gift to the group, from the group, and for the group. :-)

Are you in?
--
John H

**** May your Christmas be Spectacular!****
*****...and your New Year even Better!*****

When your buddies quit, so will I. Just take a look at Fritz's crap
below for an example.

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 22:42:03 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

New York public employers have been hiding behind the Taylor Law for
generations, using it as an excuse to avoid negotiating in good faith.

========================================

And New York public employee union members have some of the best
retirement and medical benefits that you have ever seen. These jobs
are so popular that there are something like 100 applicants for every
position that opens up. It is costing the state and local government
a fortune, to the point that people and businesses are leaving because
of the high taxes. Businesses are also tired of being held hostage
every time one of these contracts comes up for negotiation.

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Wayne.B wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 22:42:03 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

New York public employers have been hiding behind the Taylor Law for
generations, using it as an excuse to avoid negotiating in good faith.

========================================

And New York public employee union members have some of the best
retirement and medical benefits that you have ever seen. These jobs
are so popular that there are something like 100 applicants for every
position that opens up. It is costing the state and local government
a fortune, to the point that people and businesses are leaving because
of the high taxes. Businesses are also tired of being held hostage
every time one of these contracts comes up for negotiation.


I'm familiar with the fringe package of some New York municipal and state
employees. It's decent, but no more than any worker should have for
offering up his or her labors over a lifetime of employment.

I had a delightful time with the Taylor Law in NYS some 30+ years ago,
since it was part of my job at the time to provide technical assistance
(not legal assistance) to local teachers' unions during labor
negotiations. One summer we had more than 50 local strikes set to go right
after Labor Day, all based on the refusal, despite the provisions of the
Taylor Law, of school boards to negotiate in good faith. I forgot how many
of the strikes actually happened, but the number was large enough to teach
the school boards that classroom teachers outside of New York City finally
found their cojones.

Yours truly got fined $50,000 for criminal contempt of court as a result
of activities connected with a teachers' strike. The union bailed me out
later that day, and in the end the judge rescinded his order and returned
the fine money.

The problems of that era remain. The law requires good-faith bargaining,
but there is no penalty if the employer refuses to negotiate in good
faith. There's a 2-for-1 penalty if the workers strike. Thus, there is no
balance.

At that time, some of us were recommending manadatory binding arbitration
as a peaceful way to settle negotiating deadlocks.

Here's an interesting tidbit of info:

As you were typing this, I was treating a patient who I just found out is
one of the current Executive Council Members of the AFL-CIO. In fact, he's
the current President of a national union that has more than a million
members.

I recognized his face and name, but couldn't quite place it. A quick google
search made me realize who he was.

He has a home in Naples, but lists his primary home in one of the "blue
states" not far from you.

If I had recognized him when he was in here, we could have had a very
interesting discussion on the current NYC transit strike, since I had a 30
minute gap in my schedule at the end of his appointment. Oh well. A missed
opportunity. :-(

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

"NOYB" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Wayne.B wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 22:42:03 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

New York public employers have been hiding behind the Taylor Law for
generations, using it as an excuse to avoid negotiating in good faith.

========================================

And New York public employee union members have some of the best
retirement and medical benefits that you have ever seen. These jobs
are so popular that there are something like 100 applicants for every
position that opens up. It is costing the state and local government
a fortune, to the point that people and businesses are leaving because
of the high taxes. Businesses are also tired of being held hostage
every time one of these contracts comes up for negotiation.


I'm familiar with the fringe package of some New York municipal and
state
employees. It's decent, but no more than any worker should have for
offering up his or her labors over a lifetime of employment.

I had a delightful time with the Taylor Law in NYS some 30+ years ago,
since it was part of my job at the time to provide technical assistance
(not legal assistance) to local teachers' unions during labor
negotiations. One summer we had more than 50 local strikes set to go
right
after Labor Day, all based on the refusal, despite the provisions of the
Taylor Law, of school boards to negotiate in good faith. I forgot how
many
of the strikes actually happened, but the number was large enough to
teach
the school boards that classroom teachers outside of New York City
finally
found their cojones.

Yours truly got fined $50,000 for criminal contempt of court as a result
of activities connected with a teachers' strike. The union bailed me out
later that day, and in the end the judge rescinded his order and
returned
the fine money.

The problems of that era remain. The law requires good-faith bargaining,
but there is no penalty if the employer refuses to negotiate in good
faith. There's a 2-for-1 penalty if the workers strike. Thus, there is
no
balance.

At that time, some of us were recommending manadatory binding
arbitration
as a peaceful way to settle negotiating deadlocks.

Here's an interesting tidbit of info:

As you were typing this, I was treating a patient who I just found out is
one of the current Executive Council Members of the AFL-CIO. In fact,
he's
the current President of a national union that has more than a million
members.

I recognized his face and name, but couldn't quite place it. A quick
google
search made me realize who he was.

He has a home in Naples, but lists his primary home in one of the "blue
states" not far from you.

If I had recognized him when he was in here, we could have had a very
interesting discussion on the current NYC transit strike, since I had a 30
minute gap in my schedule at the end of his appointment. Oh well. A
missed
opportunity. :-(

I see Harry's narcissim is still in full bloom.

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Wayne.B wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 22:42:03 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

New York public employers have been hiding behind the Taylor Law for
generations, using it as an excuse to avoid negotiating in good faith.
========================================

And New York public employee union members have some of the best
retirement and medical benefits that you have ever seen. These jobs
are so popular that there are something like 100 applicants for every
position that opens up. It is costing the state and local government
a fortune, to the point that people and businesses are leaving because
of the high taxes. Businesses are also tired of being held hostage
every time one of these contracts comes up for negotiation.

I'm familiar with the fringe package of some New York municipal and
state employees. It's decent, but no more than any worker should have
for offering up his or her labors over a lifetime of employment.

I had a delightful time with the Taylor Law in NYS some 30+ years ago,
since it was part of my job at the time to provide technical assistance
(not legal assistance) to local teachers' unions during labor
negotiations. One summer we had more than 50 local strikes set to go
right after Labor Day, all based on the refusal, despite the provisions
of the Taylor Law, of school boards to negotiate in good faith. I forgot
how many of the strikes actually happened, but the number was large
enough to teach the school boards that classroom teachers outside of New
York City finally found their cojones.

Yours truly got fined $50,000 for criminal contempt of court as a result
of activities connected with a teachers' strike. The union bailed me out
later that day, and in the end the judge rescinded his order and
returned the fine money.

The problems of that era remain. The law requires good-faith bargaining,
but there is no penalty if the employer refuses to negotiate in good
faith. There's a 2-for-1 penalty if the workers strike. Thus, there is
no balance.

At that time, some of us were recommending manadatory binding
arbitration as a peaceful way to settle negotiating deadlocks.

Here's an interesting tidbit of info:

As you were typing this, I was treating a patient who I just found out is
one of the current Executive Council Members of the AFL-CIO. In fact,
he's the current President of a national union that has more than a
million members.

I recognized his face and name, but couldn't quite place it. A quick
google search made me realize who he was.

He has a home in Naples, but lists his primary home in one of the "blue
states" not far from you.

If I had recognized him when he was in here, we could have had a very
interesting discussion on the current NYC transit strike, since I had a
30 minute gap in my schedule at the end of his appointment. Oh well. A
missed opportunity. :-(





I wonder if he realized how much danger he was in...


grin
He was just a google away from it. As they say...timing is everything.

OT--Merry friggin' Christmas
 

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 11:26:51 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

I'm familiar with the fringe package of some New York municipal and
state employees. It's decent, but no more than any worker should have
for offering up his or her labors over a lifetime of employment.

==================================

The benefit packages far exceed anything available in private
industry, and so does the job security. Fringe benefits were popular
settlement options politically because they ended debilitating strikes
immediately but pushed the costs way out into the future, same sort of
financial issue that GM and others are now facing, and for much the
same reasons. I have no problem with fair pay and fair benefits, but
it should be commensurate with skills, education, supply and demand.
When workers in sensitive occupations get the whip hand in crowded
metropolitan areas it leads to a very unhealthy collective bargaining
environment, and the general public ends up as the loser.