Historic Step for Health Care!

I got this message from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka today. What a historic moment! And it’s thanks to you. When I was at the Capitol last night lobbying House members to vote for the health care reform legislation, I took with me your strength and that of millions of union members and health care activists like you. Winning the historic health care vote in the House simply could not have happened without you. The 4 million calls you made to Congress, the rallies you attended, the e-mails you sent, the way you never stopped making your voice heard for health care reform—that’s what made the difference. Thanks to you, we are right on the verge of ending obscene insurance company abuses that have denied and canceled coverage because people had the nerve to get sick. Thanks to you, we’ll start getting health care costs under control, make sure employers meet their responsibilities and get health care to 32 million people whose lives have been at risk without it. And after a lot of hard work, this legislation will not force middle class working people to pick up the tab. (Read more about it all here.) The Senate must approve the final language this week. Please don’t stop now. Keep the pressure on your senators. Keep making your voice heard. I know you can do it. See a message from President Trumka here: watch  Sincerely, Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President

Merit pay sets candidate apart, Teacher group opposes idea.

Photo by Don Shrubshell | Buy this photo

Columbia Missouri National Education Association President Susan McClintic, left, begins the questioning of Columbia Board of Education candidates last night during a forum at Columbia Public Schools’ District Administration Building.

Just one Columbia Board of Education candidate said he supports merit pay last night at a forum sponsored by a teacher organization that opposes the idea of linking teacher pay to student achievement.

SLIDE SHOW

● COLUMBIA BOARD OF EDUCATION CANDIDATE FORUM

Dan Holt, one of three candidates for two open three-year seats on the board, said he would support a merit-pay system that teachers at individual school buildings design for their school. The system would incorporate more than current tests given to students, Holt said, but he did not elaborate. In his plan, the district would implement merit pay building by building, a change from how the district pays teachers now: one salary schedule that lets teachers earn more money for furthering their education and for years worked.

The teacher salary schedule does not take into account how effectively or how well the teacher performs.

“I think it needs to be introduced,” said Holt, whose wife, Lisa, is the chairwoman of the math department at Rock Bridge High School.

Holt was speaking at a school board candidate forum last night at the District Administration Building sponsored by the Columbia Missouri National Education Association, one of two teacher organizations recognized by the school board. CMNEA opposes merit pay.

Five candidates have decided to vie for three open seats on the school board. Holt and board members Jan Mees and Jim Whitt are competing for the two three-year seats available. Jonathan Sessions and Phil Peters are running for a one-year seat available because of board member Rosie Tippin’s resignation in May.

Mees opposes merit pay, saying the model judges the student more than the teacher. “Whose performance are you evaluating, really?” said Mees, who was a media specialist in the district for 21 years and receives campaign support from several Columbia Public Schools employees, who routinely oppose merit pay.

Whitt also was against the idea. “It really doesn’t work,” he said.

Peters said the district should study the effectiveness of merit-pay systems and then make its decision. “Every idea has to be on the table,” he said.

Sessions said merit pay is a good idea on paper but not in reality. He also said if teachers don’t support it, the district shouldn’t install it.

A merit-pay system for Columbia teachers is already being studied. At a January board work session, after a long debate about studying effective teachers and how to reward strong teachers, the school board OK’d the following language for a long-term district objective: “By 2014-15, the district will study, develop and consider implementation of an appropriate supplemental employee compensation system to recognize and reward outstanding performance in which a portion of employee pay will be based on student performance gains and/or other relevant factors.”

Reach Jonathon Braden at 573-815-1711 or e-mail jbraden@columbiatribune.com.

This article was published on page A12 of the Friday, March 19, 2010 edition of The Columbia Daily Tribune. 

REALLY BIG SALES TAX!

Thanks to Otto Fajen, MNEA Legislative Update

The House Ways and Means Committee will also hear HJR 56 (Ed Emery) on March 18.  HJR 56 is a proposed constitutional amendment, which, if approved by a statewide vote, would replace the state personal and corporate income taxes, corporate and bank franchise taxes, existing state sales and use taxes and local earnings taxes with a greatly expanded and increased sales tax on most sales of goods and services. In a masterstroke of Orwellian deception, proponents refer to this massive sales tax increase as the “Fair Tax.”
The state needs a responsible and sustainable tax policy to fund investment in public schools and other vital services. Perversely, the so-called “Fair Tax” proposal  would actually make Missouri's tax code profoundly less fair, less adequate and less sustainable.
This type of impractical, regressive tax change will keep Missouri from maintaining the revenue it needs to invest in public schools, public higher education and other vital public services like transportation and healthcare. 

Republican Senators Crusade Against a FedEx Union

Here's a good reason to ship UPS, rather than the union-busting Fed Ex.  

From Working In These Times

By Lindsay Beyerstein

Two Republican senators from Tennesse are doing a big favor for a big company from their home state by fighting unionization rights for drivers at the Memphis-based courier FedEx.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has pledged to use "every right and privilege I have" to prevent FedEx drivers from organizing. The only reason FedEx can't organize now is because of a legal double stanard.

Other shipping companies like UPS are governed by the National Labor Relations Act, like the vast majority of employers in the United States. Whereas FedEx is subject to the Railway Labor Act, which denies them the basic organizing rights most employees take for granted.

The Railway Labor Act (RLA) is an old piece of union-busting legislation designed to curb the power of railroad unions by taking away their right to strike during an era when the rails were the backbone of the economy. As the airline industry became more important to the U.S., the RLA was extended to cover airlines.

FedEx is covered by the RLA because the courier started out as an airline and branched out into trucking. UPS started as a trucking company and branched out into shipping by air, so it falls under the NLRA. The two companies perform the same service, but their employees have different rights because of an accident of history.

Last week, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) placed a hold on the reauthorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration. The Senate version of the bill wouldn't give FedEx unionization rights, but Corker is launching a preemptive strike against any attempt by the House to insert that language in conference committee. The version of the $53.5 billion FAA reauthorization measure that passed the House last year includes unionization rights for FedEx.

Corker was forced to back down slightly yesterday after being widely ridiculed for putting a hold on a bill that didn't even contain the provision he objected to. He finally lifted the hold after meeting with the distraught families of plane crash victims who want the FAA reauthorization to pass as quickly as possible because it contains tougher aviation safety measures.

FedEx is dead set against a union and the company is prepared to spend big to wield influence in Washington. The company spent a whopping $16,370,000on lobbying in 2009, mostly to sway the FAA reauthorization.

FedEx is Corker's third largest corporate donor. The company's employees and PACs have enriched Corker's campaign and leadership PAC coffers by$57,800 over the past 5 years. FedEx is Alexander's 14th largest corporate donor. His campaign committee and leadership PAC have accepted $34,500FedEx dollars since 2005.

The Obama administration's poor relationship with Labor

From the Washington Post

by Ezra Klein

I don't know why administration officials even say things like this:

Vice President Joe Biden told the AFL-CIO that the Obama administration will still be able to push through a controversial union organizing bill that has been stalled for the past year and looked all but dead once Democrats lost their 60-seat super-majority in the Senate.

At the Buena Vista Palace Hotel in Orlando, Fla., where the labor federation is holding its annual winter meeting, Biden asked for continued support from union leaders despite the administration’s inability to push through two big items on labor’s wish list: the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize new members, and a pro-union nominee to the National Labor Relations Board.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we’ve come a long way in 12 months,” Biden told several hundred union officials. “In terms of the NLRB, we’re going to get it done. In the fight for EFCA, we’ve got to sit down and figure out where we go from here. … I think we’re going to get it done.”

This just isn't credible. They're not going to get card check done. They don't have the votes, and they'll be even further from having the votes come January. For Biden to say otherwise insults the intelligence of his audience.

In terms of NLRB, the White House decided against a recess appointment for Craig Becker, who got 52 votes but was blocked by a filibuster. Compare that to George W. Bush, whose first NLRB appointment was an anti-labor industry type who'd been held up by a filibuster and was seated through a recess appointment.

The White House has demanded a lot of compromise from organized labor (most notably on the excise tax) and offered very little in return, save for the occasional speech assuring unions that the administration would eventually fight for some element of their agenda. Not only is that not enough, but it's not smart in the long run: Democrats need a strong labor movement, yes, but so too do American workers. Without Labor, workers have no organized lobby advocating (however imperfectly) for their political interests and no countervailing force against the corporate sector. It's not a total accident that the decline of Labor tracked stagnation in the median wage (nor, to be sure, is it a full explanation).

The White House obviously can't pick all its fights at once, but as of yet, it hasn't picked any fights on Labor's behalf, or even shown a bare interest in doing so in the future. Some probably take that as Obama being usefully dismissive of a special interest, but in the long-run, letting Labor continue to decline is bad politics for Democrats and bad policy for workers.

By Ezra Klein  |  March 2, 2010; 3:33 PM ET