Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/O78Je1M5cEo/index.html
Sam Stein reports that President Obama is ready to make the case for transportation funding to continue at current levels, at least, and he'll be joined by representatives of two organizations that are only rarely on the same side of an issue:
A White House official tells the Huffington Post that the president will hold an event Wednesday alongside Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chief Operating Officer David Chavern calling on Congress to pass a "clean extension" of surface transportation funding."The president will discuss the importance of moving forward with this extension to protect nearly a million American jobs and highlight the opportunity we have to work in a bipartisan way to further invest in rebuilding our nation?s infrastructure to strengthen our economy and create new jobs across the country," the aide said.
Senate Democrats have proposed a shorter-term extension at current funding levels; House Republicans want a 34% cut. The likely outcome is a temporary extension that at least won't make things worse, but innovation and real investment will, yet again, be left out.
This is not the first time in recent months that the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have joined together to call for infrastructure investment. It continues to have shock value. Unfortunately, this is an issue where Republicans are more likely to act on their desire to hurt Obama's reelection chances by further tanking the economy than on their desire to make the Chamber happy.
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That means that keeping up the pressure on Verizon is important. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electricians (IBEW) will be doing that at the bargaining table, but supporters of Verizon workers can do that in the streets. Specifically, in the streets in front of Verizon stores.
According to Steve Early at Labor Notes, picketing of Verizon stores during the strike had an impact:
In a CWA phone briefing [...], strikers were told that their picketing at 1,000 [Verizon Wireless] stores had generated a flurry of calls from non-union workers wanting to organize. (According to the company?s numerous injunction requests, protests at the retail stores also sharply reduced sales at a number of stores.)
CWA is asking supporters to adopt a store to stand outside of discussing the strike and handing out flyers with passersby and potential customers. There are flyers available online for downloading and printing after you adopt a store. It's important to understand that this isn't picketing?people who volunteer to flyer at Verizon stores must not form picket lines or carry picket signs. But we can quietly and politely, yet persistently, let people know that just because workers aren't on strike doesn't mean that the fight to protect middle-class jobs is over at Verizon.
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Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/Reuters/PoliticsNews/~3/RM9OqmOye9c/us-wisconsin-idUSTRE77S3GJ20110830
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Members of this community are well aware of the successful effort this spring in Wisconsin, by the GOP-majority state legislature and Gov. Scott Walker, to gut collective bargaining rights.
Now, with no vehicle to combat them, teachers are watching as local school boards, crippled by budget cuts magnified by newly-enacted limits on levying taxes, are going after teacher benefits. Some districts are going so far as to limit the number of days that teachers can call in sick before having to pay out of pocket:
At least some Wisconsin school boards are cutting the amount of sick leave for teachers. With the new limits on collective bargaining, unions no longer have a say over those benefits in districts where contracts expired on June 30th. School officials say they need to cut what they can, to make up for big losses in state aid and new limits on raising property taxes.The Elmbrook School District near Milwaukee plans to save $16,000 a year on substitute teachers by reducing sick leave. Elmbrook staff members saw their annual sick leave cut from 10-to-15 days to just seven ? and only three of those days can be used for personal reasons. At Sussex Hamilton, the 20 sick days given to teachers each year has been cut in half.
Aside from being an assault on teachers, this is also inviting a legitimate public health crisis in the state of Wisconsin. How long will it be before some young teacher, at the lowest end of the wage scale, goes into work with his/her newly diagnosed case of strep throat in order to avoid losing several hundred dollars of income?
School board spokespersons claim this mimics the private sector, which ignores the fact that most folks working in the private sector aren't privileged enough to work with a few dozen kids in a single room, many of whom wind up coming to school sick themselves because their parents can't afford to take one of their few private sector sick days to stay home with them.
Teachers work in a very different environment, and tend to get sick a little more often as a result. Any education budget cuts are a travesty, especially since (in this environment) they are being sacrificed at the altar of keeping the economically comfortable as comfortable as possible. But this particular choice of budget cuts is ill-considered. One hopes this doesn't become a trend in Wisconsin, but given the budgetary realities in a state where the Republican politicos are doing all they can to drown public schools in the bathtub, expect more districts to follow their lead.
Then, you can expect more sick teachers and sick kids as a result. In turn, expect health care costs that will probably exceed the $16,000 districts will save as a result.
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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=b0f7797d9653fffc8e3904741e0d6e09
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