Schizoid policies

Massachusetts House Seeks to Limit Collective Bargaining - who'd expect that, in the liberal bastion?
The bill, passed late Tuesday night in advance of planned labor protests, would let local officials unilaterally set health insurance co-payments and deductibles for their employees after a monthlong discussion period with unions. Leaders of the House said it would save cities and towns $100 million in the budget year that starts in July. While Republican-controlled legislatures in Wisconsin and Ohio this year have weakened the ability of public-sector unions to bargain collectively, and Republicans in other states have pushed for a variety of curbs on unions, Massachusetts is the first state where a Democratic-led chamber has voted to limit bargaining rights. 

In Florida, G.O.P. Help for Unions - in Florida? Republicans? Unions representing teachers, firefighters, the police and other public employees say they have persuaded nearly half of the Senate’s Republicans to oppose the bill by reminding them that in Florida, far more than in most states, organized labor has supported Republicans. Still; who wouldn't assume it'd be the opposite?

Union busting

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, convening a two-day labor-management conference here on Tuesday, argued that teachers’ unions can help solve many of the challenges facing public schools. But as the conference opened, that view was under challenge in a number of state capitals.

Republicans in several states have proposed legislation in recent weeks that would bar teachers’ unions from all policy discussions, except when the time comes to negotiate compensation. In Tennessee and Wisconsin, Republicans have proposed stripping teachers’ unions of collective bargaining rights altogether.

The Fox right wing is intent on busting all unions. Their determination and anger at unions is surprising; unions are so limited in their power, but they must represent something that gets under their skin.

Education historians said the unions were facing the harshest political climate since states began extending legal bargaining rights to schoolteachers decades ago.