Category: Teacher Unions

A Gaze Back and Looking Forward: Education Funding is Changing Forever

The gravy days are over. The citizens are paying attention to many aspects of education that were never discussed, like teacher salaries being excessively high, and buildings with luxurious amenities. In a recent survey from Braun Research Inc. who conducted phone interviews with more than 3,400 Hoosier registered voters November 12-17, 2010, that firm’s president, Paul Braun, expressed confidence in the accuracy of the study’s results, due to “thorough briefings stressing objectivity, heavy monitoring, sample performance reviews, verifications and post-data-collection checks on each survey by interviewer and phone center.” Of the many conclusions of that survey Indiana voters lacked awareness and information about how much is spent in public schools. Nearly two out of three respondents (64 percent) underestimated per-student spending in the public schools.

As usual, Doc Thompson did some great work on this topic that he covered on the January 12, 2011 broadcast that is worth listening to. It is refreshing to have real discussions about these issues now. The gist of this discussion is that things are going to change, and change rapidly for public education funding.

But know the door has been opened. I know how difficult it was and I felt the wrath of attacks when I first started the enterprise of enlightening the public about education funding. The organized labor behind these tax levies attempted to apply The Delphi Technique on me, like they do everyone who speaks against wasteful spending, so I understand first-hand how the information has been kept quiet all over the nation for such a long time.

I countered that technique by using aspects of my personality that are entertainment oriented, something I’ve developed over the years performing in wild west shows and interviews for other projects, to throw a curve-ball at their strategy and start the ball rolling so others could hold the door open, and then others behind them could start pouring in to get control of the out-of-control spending that has been occurring in schools. It took that initial surprise from the organized unions by my approach to pry the door open. They really believed that by painting me as some hick cowboy running around with a whip that I would be made into something of a fool, which they counted on. What they didn’t know was that I have a business background, and I’m better at understanding difficult concepts than I am with the whip work. So because of their one-dimensional understanding of people, they were unprepared. And much to my surprise, people enjoyed the image I was projecting, of rugged individualism, and standing firm in overwhelming odds.

The truth of the matter was that it felt that way to me, like I was against the world. But I actually had hundreds of people behind me supporting the structure of everything, people who put up the money for the yard signs, people who went to all the meetings and took notes that they’d pass to me. People from inside the school system that was tipping us off to what was going on, and people who were going door to door to pass out literature. There were other people who worked the email campaign, and helped in so many other ways. But since I was the face of it, the wrath came at me, and I deflected it with the cowboy image while the business side worked with some very smart people to crunch numbers and get to the truth.

At the end of the day, that cowboy image says more about me than the business side. My children and grandchildren won’t discuss someday how good I was at working with numbers in a spreadsheet or negotiated a contentious point in a dispute. They’ll talk about the speed and accuracy competitions at cowboy events, and the many times I’ve shocked audiences with my fire whip displays, including professional stuntmen. So that image is far from just some conjured up image for marketing reasons. But it did help in this case, to overcome the opposition in a unique way.

What usually happens in management is that once you show people how to do something, they’ll then take that information and put their own spin on it. And that’s what’s happening by people who are far more passionate about education reform than I am. I have discovered now through correspondence from people who have been fighting this fight for many, many years, that all some of these people needed was a crack in the door. And they understand more about how the game is played than ever, now that we’ve started having really intelligent conversations on WLW.

Darryl Parks has been talking this talk much longer than I have, so it wasn’t difficult for him and me to feel some passion about the shake-down that occurs. But I think everyone was surprised when I went on WLW with our treasurer, Dan Varney and discussed the wage levels back in September, because that information was straight out of the newspaper. But the game that is played is that information is released in March, when the last things people are thinking about are schools or elections. Spring is on their minds, and coming out of a long winter. So most people would wad up the paper and toss it in the trash.

But my good buddy Graham George, who is a senior citizen, and is always organized kept that paper from March of 2010, and we went on the air at WLW and discussed it with Scott Sloan. The reaction from the public was so violent and sudden that I was surprised that nobody had done this kind of thing before.

Fortunately I had scheduled with the Cincinnati Enquire to have a backyard interview with me because of my YouTube video, A Whip Trick to Save America the very next day, and they wanted to do a feature about that and how it applied to my resistance to the school levy. So when that story came out, the gloves came off. The progressives all over the state that were listening to WLW decided to make me out to be some illiterate cowboy, which of course didn’t fit the facts I was able to put out on the radio broadcasts. People saw how the game was played and when I didn’t turn away and hide, but only increased my activity, it allowed people to see the structure of the game.

Now that the deed is done, the School Board is struggling to figure out what to do next. They are talking about solar panels, which is fine, but still doesn’t address the largest cost to the budget which is wages, and should be explored regardless of a budget crisis. The board is now fighting for the president position arguing over who should lead. Ray Murry is talking the right type of issues, discussing whether or not the district should have spent 90K on an employment search for a new treasure and superintendent. Those are nice discussions and I’m happy to hear the debate on both sides, but in reality, it’s just politics because the numbers are just peanuts compared to the elephant eating them.

However, the problems will only get tougher, so while the School Board is struggling with each other to figure out what the community wants, they would be very “wise” to accept the help of our local business leaders that have offered to assist.

I have placed the offer to the board and was told that “most business people would probably become frustrated by the restrictions.” That was a polite way to say that the situation is too complicated for most businessmen to deal with. Well, that complication has been made complicated for a reason, and it’s to prevent “outsiders” from being able to offer fixes. It’s all part of the organized labor strategy, and the community knows it.

And I can promise that the education of those types of methods will only increase as more and more people send me information hoping that I’ll articulate it on the radio or on this blog.

So it is advisable that the games stop now. Grab the hands that are offering to help and be ready to do things you’d consider unthinkable 6 months ago. If you do it now, you can save the district and yourselves, and many, many jobs. If you don’t we will go off a cliff as a district.

The next levy attempt will not be about Rich Hoffman the cowboy whip cracker. Too many people want to be involved and I will gladly accept their help. I have enough personality and success that I don’t need the attention. I’ll put myself out there if people don’t feel comfortable doing it themselves, but I don’t see that being a problem in 2011. Because I see a wave of volunteerism, and other people who can speak coming boldly forth to push that door open even wider. So the decision doesn’t just sit on the shoulders of Lakota, but every public school everywhere.

So stop the games. Embrace the public, because they are your employers anyway, and be ready to do what’s right. Things are at a point where many things can be fixed and nobody has to be contentious enemies. It’s just business, and there are people who can offer that assistance for free, and once it’s done, Lakota could serve as a bright light of hope for all others to follow. But it takes one school to courageously step forward and be the first to open the door. Everything else will take care of itself.

But cling to the way things have been done, and the world will soon swallow you up.  So make a decision…..quick!

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

School Choice is a New Choice: Education Funding for the Future

Doc Thompson had on Chad from School Choice Ohio on 700WLW. If you don’t know what School Choice is, listen to the conversation with Chad below. Not only do they talk about School Choice, but there is some great discussion of several incidents of gross waste from districts surrounding Cincinnati.

I’m a tremendous supporter of School Choice, because people are thinking and it is working where it’s being used. So why isn’t it being implemented? Well, organized labor is very much against it, because they have to maintain the current structure in order to support the collective bargaining agreements they’ve negotiated for themselves.

School Choice is being tossed around by a new group of several representatives from districts all over Ohio that have been meeting to implement educational changes, called Educate Ohio, which I’m a proud part of.

There are options out there. We don’t have to just do the same old thing time and time again, which are just to put funding issues on a ballot for a school levy against our property taxes.

I spoke recently on WLW about how both my kids took online classes during their senior years and finished their entire senior year before Christmas. Now my kids are smart kids. They had been on the honor roll a number of times all through their education and tested well above average on their SAT tests. They attended Mason for about half their youth, were home schooled by their mother for about a year, and then spent their high school years at Lakota. During their entire education lives they excelled. But once they got past their junior years, they wanted to move on, which they get from their father, not having the patience to just cruise through life held back by the shackles of people happy with a mundane existence. Both my children spent their remaining years of their senior years traveling Europe, camping at Stonehenge and exploring places like the British Museum, and I’m eternally proud of them, while the other kids their age were spending their Friday and Saturday nights drunk and puking at mindless parties and wasting away while they waited for college classes to start in the fall of the following year.

The system we’ve had in my opinion is broken. I’m happy to go along with things as long as all those mediocre enablers called school officials don’t ask for more money than we already pay in property tax.

But they are asking for more money, and asking for us to pay for their communist leaning tendencies, and yes, they do have a communist leaning. If you don’t know that, or can’t understand that, or don’t want to call it that, go do some reading, then get back to me. I’m not going to waste my time giving you an education that you should already have.

Meanwhile, it’s time to explore other options that bring out the best in our individuality, and we reject the collectivism that has emerged with the current, “expensive” system, because we can’t afford it, financially, or intellectually.

Check out the below article from Indiana.  This is the way things will be done in the future.  The sooner we get started, the better. 

New Poll: Indiana Voters Support Choice in Education, Substantially Underestimate Public Education Spending
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Voters in Indiana decidedly favor school vouchers and charter schools, and desire a balanced variety of options when it comes to educating their children, according to a poll released today by the Indianapolis-based Foundation for Educational Choice.

The poll-“Indiana K-12 & School Choice Survey”-also reveals that Indiana voters are unaware of how much is spent in public schools; most respondents substantially underestimated per-student spending.

“Hoosiers see the tremendous value in giving families options,” said Robert Enlow, President and CEO of The Foundation for Educational Choice. “If a school voucher, charter school, private, or home school can give a child an effective, personalized education, that child has a right to receive it. This poll shows Indiana voters agree.”

Braun Research Inc. conducted phone interviews with more than 3,400 Hoosier registered voters November 12-17, 2010.That firm’s president, Paul Braun, expressed confidence in the accuracy of the study’s results, due to “thorough briefings stressing objectivity, heavy monitoring, sample performance reviews, verifications and post-data-collection checks on each survey by interviewer and phone center.”

The following are the poll’s key findings:

Indiana voters are unsatisfied with the current public education system. On average, registered voters in Indiana are more likely to think K-12 education is on the “wrong track” (51 percent) compared to the “right direction” (31 percent). Indiana voters describe the state’s public school system more often as “fair” or “poor” (55 percent) versus “good” or “excellent” (42 percent).

Indiana voters lack awareness and information about how much is spent in public schools. Nearly two out of three respondents (64 percent) underestimated per-student spending in the public schools.

Hoosiers support charter schools. Indiana voters are far more likely to favor charter schools (66 percent) than to oppose such schools (16 percent). Respondents who said they “strongly favor” charter schools outnumber those who say they “strongly oppose” by a four-to-one ratio.

Hoosiers support school vouchers. Indiana voters are far more likely to favor school vouchers (66 percent) than to oppose them (24 percent).

Indiana voters indicate they should have a variety of schooling options. If they had the option to select any type of school to obtain the best education for their child, 41 percent said they would choose a private school, 10 percent a charter school, and 7 percent a home school.

“This poll shows most Indiana voters do not realize how many of their tax dollars are being spent on an education system they do not even consider effective,” said Enlow. “Giving families the freedom to choose the education that’s best for their children would ensure funds were spent more effectively, and it would give every child access to the education they deserve.”

To see a summary of survey results, a series of PowerPoint slides highlighting key findings, and description of the methodology, visit http://www.EdChoice.org/IN-Survey.
Braun Research callers interviewed 1,017 registered voters in Indiana to produce an initial statewide sample. Braun Research then made additional phone calls to achieve at least 350 total completed interviews in each of eight counties. The margin of sampling error for the statewide survey is ±3.1 percentage points and approximately ± 5.4 percentage points for each of the eight countywide samples.

About The Foundation for Educational Choice

The Foundation for Educational Choice is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, solely dedicated to advancing Milton and Rose Friedman’s vision of school choice for all children. First established as the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in 1996, the Foundation continues to promote school choice as the most effective and equitable way to improve the quality of K-12 education in America. The Foundation is dedicated to research, education, and outreach on the vital issues and implications related to choice and competition in K-12 education.

Please visit our website to read the full study at http://www.EdChoice.org/IN-Survey.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Organized Labor and Why They Fail: My Personal Account

I received an interesting comment from a union supporter over the weekend, it said, “like your weekend. Thank a union.”

Obviously, this person is saying that the reason we have weekends, and 8 hour work days, and basic benefits, and all that kind of thing, it’s because of the union influence.

The sad thing about that argument is because unions stuck their noses into the matter, we can’t say how things might have evolved under the free market. Things may have actually been better as companies developed more and more incentives to attract quality employees.

My experience on both sides of the management argument is that if you are a good or a very good employee, it is not difficult to sit down in front of your employer and ask for a day off, or adjust your work hours, or get the compensation that you need. I’ve been down the whole gambit on the organized employee issue, and my opinions are rooted in experience.

When I was the tender age of 19 a union rep was trying to get into the manufacturing facility I worked for, and I was identified as a person that could articulate an argument. So many of my co-workers probed me to head up the union attempt.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a part of a union. My grandfather and several of my uncles were involved in the auto unions, I had listened to their stories over the years while growing up, and to be honest, I didn’t know if I wanted to grow up with their world outlook, so a union was something I was skeptical of. Never-the-less, I did take the challenge from my co-workers to approach the company president about bringing a union into our facility.

Basically, what happened was I arranged to have a meeting with the company president, and during the meeting I asked him squarely what his reaction would be if the employees brought a union into the shop. He smiled trying to cover a bit of panic, and replied, “We would shut down this facility.”

“Really,” I asked. “Just like that?”

“Yes” he said. “I couldn’t afford to operate under organized conditions.”

I stared him down and assessed whether or not he was lying to me, and I concluded that he wasn’t. The man wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but he had married into money and that was the basic path he had taken to become president of the company. He didn’t earn it by being the best executive. In fact, he often excelled at getting into trouble running around with other women, wrecking boats on the Ohio River, and all that kind of non-sense. That man was not motivated to keep the doors open to that manufacturing company because he really wasn’t interested in the challenge of management. He was only in the deal for a pay check and his father-in-law knew that. So I concluded that the fear in the man’s eyes was that he knew that about himself, that if he had to deal with a union, and shop stewards, and a lot more regulation and strikes, that the job would simply become too hard, and he’d be prone to just get drunk somewhere and collect his pay check in some other manner.

I told the employees all this after my meeting with the president, and they elected to not vote for the union.

Now, twenty years later, that company is one of the few companies around that is still in manufacturing and owned by the same people. Many of the guys that still work there and decided not to vote for a union that day are approaching retirement age and have made a decent living for a number of years because they still have a job. If they had voted, it’s highly likely that the company would have shut it’s doors and left taking those jobs with it, which is what happened to countless manufacturing jobs during the 80’s and 90’s.

To say over the years that I’ve worked in and around organized labor is an understatement. I decided long ago that if I needed representation, I’d do it on my own, so I never joined a union, even though I worked in shops that were a part of unions.

I was able to do that because all those shops had suffered difficult labor disputes that had weakened both sides. The union labor force had engaged in strikes that cost the companies a lot of money but they hurt themselves in the process. And the companies responded by hiring temps as part of a screening process. What these companies were really after was employees that were motivated, and not a part of the union. That’s where I came in.

Once I had my foot in the door, and could easily out-work my co-workers that were often “milking” the clock and holding back their production numbers, on purpose, I would become a management favorite, and this caused tension with the other employees.

So there would be fights in the parking lots, and in bathrooms, and on the shop floors. Not just once, or twice, but many, many times. What I didn’t tell many people was that I had a martial art background. I also rode my bicycle to work each day and have always been in fantastic shape. Many of those people that challenged me to fights smoked and within 15 seconds of a high adrenaline fight, were out of breath. So it really wasn’t difficult to prevail in these conflicts. Fights don’t occur in real life like they do in movies. Most people don’t get in too many fights, so their only experience is what they see on TV, and once they feel bones break in their faces, or in their hands when they punch incorrectly, and their lungs start burning for oxygen when the fight is just beginning they often panic when things don’t go their way within the opening seconds of a man to man conflict.

What I did that is probably different from other people is that I didn’t report these fights to upper management or try and get the perpetrators fired. I figured the embarrassment in front of their co-workers was enough, so I had the respect of many of my co-workers even though I wasn’t in the unions. This allowed us to co-exist to some extent. And what happened in every one of those companies, and I’m talking about at least three major companies in the area over the years, is the companies were sold to foreign investment. Because I wasn’t in the unions, members of management would speak to me, and would express their frustration at the inefficiencies of these companies, and ultimately all of them were sold to foreign companies, primarily in Europe. And the workers on the floor would stand around the coffee machine and complain to each other in a futile attempt to hold everything together. They’d complain to me as I rushed back to my job as soon as the break bell would ring and tell me how the company was “using me.”

Whatever, I was using the companies to make money for my family. Because the union people weren’t interested the productivity of the company, and believed that if they held back the production of these companies that the work would always be there. Instead, what often happened is once contracts went delinquent, other companies picked up the work because the people that bought from us weren’t going to hold up their operations because the supplier union labor couldn’t provide product on time. So our sales people lost as many contracts as they secured. And when they got the contracts I was always standing there with my hand up to work weekends and other overtime to make sure the company could deliver its customer requirements.

And the union guys would stand around the coffee machine and tell me, “Son, this company is using you. You just don’t see that.”

My common reaction is, “You aren’t my dad, but thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.”

I was happy with these labor arrangements, until the companies would ultimately sell off to the foreign buyers. That’s where I’d get into trouble, because under many union contracts, work reductions had to be done by seniority, and as a temp, or new guy on the totem poll, I was always at the bottom. And that was the first reaction of all the companies that were purchased, is they’d seek a work reduction to send a message, and get finances under control.

So I’d be out of a job while the union guys would still be standing around that coffee machine complaining. “We told you, son. They were just using you.”

I’d shake my head at how stupid they were, and how they failed to see how their actions had caused the sale of the companies to begin with, because of their lack of efficiency. In essence, the heads of these companies were reacting just like the president of the first company I mentioned. If things were too much of a pain in the ass, their reaction is to take the money and run. Secure a contract that is lucrative to investment, and get out while the getting is good. Move to Florida and play golf. Let the new buyers deal with the union.

At one of these last companies mentioned tensions had gotten really out of control, because it was well known that the company that was seeking to take over was very anti-union from England. They were hiring a head-hunter to come in and smash the union. So of course I was an instant favorite of the head-hunter. I could walk into his office the way I did with the President many years before and ask, “Are you going to have a lay-off. Everyone on the floor is tense and wants to know.”

“Young man,” he’d say to me, “If I have my way, you’ll be running this place. You are the hardest working son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a lot. You routinely have an efficiency rating of 150% and that’s outstanding, but, your buddies out there that are operating at 50% efficiency and 60% are killing this company, and I’m going to weed them out.”

So I’d go back out on the floor and tell everyone what was going on. This made the shop stewards extremely angry, because I was affecting their power base. And they didn’t want their union members coming to me for information instead of using them.

Of course the head-hunter knew what he was doing. He was using me to break up the unity on the floor, because I had the guts to come directly to him and open dialogue, while the union chose to play silly games. This led to a stand-off between me and four of the shop stewards.

These were sappy guys who thought that because they were over 230 pounds that it somehow made them tough. Most of the weight was in their stomachs. One day while I was using the restroom, all four shop stewards came in and gathered around me while I was doing my business, and was in a vulnerable spot.

“Better shut your God damn mouth, son.”

I finished my business and once I had my zipper up and my vulnerably nicely tucked away, I could reply. “You ain’t my dad, punk.”

Shocked the four guys looked at each other, and then the 1st shift steward stepped in front of me. “You want your ass kicked! We’re sick of your Fu**ing act around here. We’re sick of you undermining us. We’re sick of you exceeding rate, even though we’ve told you to stop, and we’re sick of you’re god-damn-bicycle-riding-symphony-orchestra-listening ass!”

“Too bad, punk.” I never broke eye contact with any of them, and I made sure to meet each one during the exchange.

One of the third shift stewards, I have no idea why there were two because there were fewer people on third than any shift, chimed in, seeing that this conversation was going south fast, “if we fight in here we’ll all be fired.”

The man in front of me looked at me. “You’d like that wouldn’t you? That’s probably you’re plan…..to get us fired. You’ve planned this out with your buddy. We all get fired, and then he rehires you when he gets the union out of here.”

“You’re just trying to cover up the fact that you’re all a bunch of pussies.” I meant it when I said it. Such a conversation had never occurred with the Head-Hunter, but these guys knew I was ready to fight all four of them right there, and they were looking for a way out of the conflict and a way to explain their reluctance to fight me to the rest of the shop. And I wasn’t going to let them off the hook.

“You can’t call us that!”

“I just did……punks!”

“Fine, you want your ass kicked, let’s meet after work.”

“Ok,” I said, “Let’s meet at the vacant lot across from the apartments.” There was an empty lot near our facility that we all knew about.

The four of them started back slapping and getting themselves all psyched up for the fight that would occur after work.

The whole building knew this fight was going to go on between me, and those four guys. So at the end of first shift, everyone rushed over to watch. I was the first one there and stood in the center of the empty lot waiting for the fight to begin.

The four guys drove up and down the road leading to the lot revving up their engines and screeching their tires like some silly peacocks fluffing their feathers. But they never pulled into the lot. After about 15 minutes they drove off in frustration, and the whole company knew what had happened. They failed to meet the challenge.

The next day, and there-after, things got quiet. The union fell to disarray and nobody believed in those four guys any longer.

I ended up leaving that company on my own and went to work for a company that wasn’t run by an English parent company.

Now for a number of years I’ve been on the other end of things and have had to hire employees myself. The employees you hire are the sum of their previous experience. In some cases, the best employees are the ones that are fresh even if they don’t have physical experience, because they haven’t been corrupted by those meetings around the coffee machine yet.

I’ve hired many people that have worked for major unions, particularly from the steel industry, and all of them have had problems of some kind. They have skills that are desirable, but culturally, they have problems. They are the employees that cause the most trouble with other employees, and it appears they learned those tactics from the radicalized union behavior they experienced in their previous employment. Several of these employees have sat in front of me during reviews and demanded money comparable to what they made as union employees, and you have to be tactful how you explain to them that if they hadn’t made so much money in those positions, they would probably still be working there. These are the first employees to try and create legal trouble for you if you hire them and then find they are trouble, because they believe in the radical notion of it’s “us against them” “them” being management and ownership.

I have tried to help these types of employees under my leadership, and I have been burnt every way possible by them. My belief are that if you show them honesty, trust, empowerment, and those kinds of traits, they take it as a sign of weakness and seek to manipulate events behind your back.

I can only compare these former union employees to dogs that my wife and I have adopted from the pound. Now I am all for adopting pets, so don’t let my next comments discourage you from adopting an animal. Love can go a long way to helping those animals, and they need it. But, every dog I’ve ever risen that I got from a pound, which was an adult, I’ve had trouble with, because raising an animal from a puppy allows you to establish good patterns with the animal. Once they are adult dogs, those old habits are hard to break. Not impossible, but difficult.

My soft spots for abandoned animals sometimes moves over into people, and I have tried to help many lost people that have stumbled through life and had what seems like hard luck. But what you often find is just like those stray dogs, people are sometimes broken beyond repair, at least from a boss’s good intentions, and they will turn on you in a second no matter how kind you are to them.

Because at heart, they are broken, those union employees have been radicalized and truly believe that they are “owed” something and they seek to manipulate the world around them and will use your good will as empowerment to do mischief.

So in the future, I will be cautious of hiring union employees. I will if they are qualified, but I will look hard at their resumes and ask them extremely probing questions, because now I’ve seen union behavior at many levels, including how it works out in Hollywood, which is something outside my normal experience.

I did a thing for a friend of mine that involved fire whips, so they flew me out to work on a promo piece for some of the major studios to help develop a Real D 3D camera system. It was supposed to be an informal deal. During the shoot, I had a bit of an argument with the set “grip” because he insisted on handling my fire whip equipment, which was the fuel I used, the fire extinguishers and the whips themselves. Since there were only a handful of people in the country that handle fire whips, it was impossible for the guy to safely do anything with them, so I had to swat him back to the camera track and out of my way while I set up the shot, which he did an excessive amount of complaining to the director. But during that experience, I sat and listened to the make-up people complain just like the fabricators standing around the coffee machine, the camera people making tremendous demands on the producers, people complaining about the food that the catering truck brought, and actors complaining about having to share trailer time. After that experience, I can see clearly films that have been ruined because the people behind the films stayed to strict union rules. California’s labor unions have pushed films into other countries. I now understand why George Lucas makes his films in Australia, and England. He doesn’t want to deal with all that mess, and it shows in the films he’s made. You can actually tell if you know what you’re looking for.

Organized labor is a nice idea. But what ends up happening is that the worst in human nature is allowed to exist protected by the lack of competition. I can name numerous incidents where people like the Lakota Teacher that was busted for child pornography became corrupt because he doesn’t have to worry about his job and being terminated, and his income is secure so he didn’t have to worry about money, and the mind denigrates over time to the vices that exist in the backs of a broken mind. It works the other way too, I’ve known many, many born-again Christians that were former drug abusers or alcoholics that can use the extra time reading the bible and becoming clean. But most of the time, the security provided by organized labor breeds contempt and allows the employees minds to slide into a corrupt state of mischief. And for those of you who will say I’m not a psychologist and not qualified to make that statement, I’ll tell you this. I earned my opinions from the power of knowledge and observation, not some pin head without any life experience. And I’m a lot more qualified than most to cast an opinion because of my experience.

When the mind is void of competition, it rots. When a human being does not have to worry about losing a wife, he tends to abuse her either physically or mentally or both. When a person does not worry about losing their job, or competing to stay valuable, they become lazy. And when they don’t have to worry about where their money is coming from or the limits of not having enough, their minds have time to meditate on their vices.

Those are facts of life. My strategy has always been to show my employers how much money I can make them, then ask directly for the days off I need. So this is my answer to the question posed as to whether I like my weekends or not. I would have negotiated my own deal, so I do not have a union to thank for those things in my life. And I don’t see ANY value in organized labor based on my personal experience. They collectively bargain in mass and intimidation to hide their own laziness and have cost this country millions and millions of jobs and loss of GNP. They can’t argue directly. All they can do is make threats of violence or work stoppage, or vandalism. And that makes them thugs.

They can write me the nasty letters which I’ll laugh at, because I know the mind behind them is rotten. And I’ll keep those letters to prove my point at a future time when it will matter. (wink)

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Defend Ohio Rally in Columbus was Organized by Socialists

The shooting in Arizona is tragic. But at this time, the facts are still coming in, and there is other news going on at the same time that needs attention. One of those news stories is the impact of the man who structured the Defend Ohio rally up in Columbus to protest John Kasich’s position on organized labor is a Socialist!

Meet him here:

Doc Thompson had a great banter with a spokesman from Defend Ohio, a group I had never heard of because it was apparently formed just last weekend to attack John Kasich’s Administration before it could even get started. But the fellow came on WLW to discuss his position, and for that I give him credit. Listen to that conversation here:

If these people weren’t so dangerous, in trying to compete legitimately in the battlefield of ideas, I might just pat them on the head and encourage them to keep learning and trying. But, as I’ve discussed on this forum many times and in many ways, socialism, communism, progressivism, imperialism, and on and on, are infantile mutterings of the lazy, collective oriented that lack true courage, because they seek to hide their ambition behind a government entity that they wish to use as a bargaining chip.

I have news for those childish minds. The country was built on capitalist principles. Not socialist principles and unions. In fact, the growth of our nation has stopped since socialist started penetrating our political culture and used the aspects of American Culture we collectively feel guilty about, like slavery, like our treatment of women, and the handling of the poor, to manipulate the political spectrum in a way that has made the United States less competitive. For people who believe such things, their minds are like shallow streams and their recollections of American History are just as deep. American History may only be as deep as a mighty river, but there is much more under the surface that makes up the contents of the river. America is not just simple poor against rich, working man against the white-collar man, black against white, men against women, its swirls of all those things and a lot more to add. Such duality in thinking is only useful to small-minded souls that can’t see beyond their individual cages.

When I heard the interview above on Doc Thompson’s show, I thought the man from Defend Ohio was naive, but well-intentioned, and I had figured he just needed to think things through a lot deeper. But now I know after a little research, that the people behind this rally are socialists! No wonder they don’t like Kasich!

Before 2010, I thought communists and socialists in our American society was something that was attempted during the McCarthy era, and even then, I actually thought that McCarthy was far-reaching in his pursuit to weed out communists. I thought that because I believed what the media told me, that Joseph McCarthy was a right-winged-paranoid-do-gooder. I started to question the media when I saw that they used the same approach to attack Kenneth Star, when he investigated Bill Clinton. Star was just doing his job. Clinton had flat-out lied in federal court. It happened right in front of our faces, so that made me question the reporting of the socialists in the McCarthy hearings.

Now, the evidence is everywhere. Socialists have their own party. They try to put up candidates, they have infiltrated unions, newspapers, television, Hollywood, publishing. They are a legitimate competitor for political ideas and they have done it under the radar.

So now they have met at the capital of Ohio on January 8, 2011 to protest a Governor that is trying to bring capitalism oriented ideas back to a state to attempt to save that great state from the damage done by socialist that have infiltrated the political culture for decades. The difference between now, and when they originally started, is it’s out in the open who and what they are. And America has to make the decision about what they want to do about it.

It’s ok to be wrong. And socialist are out-of-their-minds wrong. But it’s not OK to wreck American Culture to pursue the infant diatribes of half-baked minds.

Now, to understand what is behind Defend Ohio, read this article. I put it up here so it doesn’t disappear after this rally turns out embarrassing for the organizers.

U.S. | Labor & Workers
SOCIALIST CANDIDATE’S BACKERS FOUND NEW ORGANIZATION TO FIGHT TO DEFEND OHIO JOBS AND SER
by Dan La Botz
Tuesday Dec 7th, 2010 8:33 AM
Ohio leftists create Defend Ohio campaign and launch Stop Kasich movement against new government’s radically anti-worker program

Supporters of the Dan La Botz, Socialist for Senate campaign of 2010 met in Columbus, Ohio over the weekend to found a new organization and launch a campaign to fight for jobs and public services in Ohio—and they pledged to resist the policies of Republic Governor-elect John Kasich. Dan La Botz was the Socialist Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio in November 2010 and received 25,000 votes.

The labor and movement activists from cities throughout Ohio created the Buckeye Socialist Network (there will soon be a BuckeyeSocialist.org website). The Network’s first campaign is called DEFEND OHIO and will focus on defending public employees’ jobs and public services.

“Governor Kasich has unleashed a class war in Ohio,” said Dan La Botz. “And we intend to fight back. Kasich’s inauguration is the ideal occasion for Ohio’s working people to protest in at the Capital in Columbus and to show the governor that he is going to face four years of fierce resistance by unions and social movements.

“Kasich,” said La Botz, “pledged to revoke the union organizing rights of home care and child care workers in Ohio. This is a vicious and despicable attack on the some of the state’s hardest working and lowest paid workers. And it is not so different from President Obama’s recent promise to freeze the wages of Federal employees. These attacks on public employees parallel the private employers drive for two-tier labor contracts intended to lower wages and they parallel attacks on social programs for low-income people in our society.

“We will be organizing working people to fight to defend public employees’ jobs, their wages, and their right to unionize. We will be fighting to defend all of the many services that these workers—teachers, social workers, water workers, garbage collectors, and so many others—provide. In doing so, we will be beginning the fight to rebuild the power of unions in Ohio.”

Union members from the Teamsters, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, American Federation of Government Employees, Communication Workers of America, and United Food and Commercial Workers were among those in attendance at the founding meeting of the Buckeye Socialist Network. Representatives from Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton/Yellow Springs, Canton, and New Philadelphia attended the half-day meeting.

…………………………………………….

Hey, you can’t make this stuff up. Progress Ohio has their name all over this. These “types” of people are in the minority, but because they are motivated radicals, they must be dealt with equal passion from those of us that think correctly. And yes, there is a correct way to think and an incorrect way to think. Individuality and the power of the individual are correct. Collectivism is wrong. It allows the worst of people to live in a state of mediocrity. This popular video of the New York Public worker wrecking a car on a snowy street is a perfect example of what you get when you allow people to live in that state of mediocrity. This is your typical union employee. And I say that from lots of experience.

Don’t ever ask me to pay for people like this with tax dollars.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

“B” Day is Coming!!!!!! Lakota’s dreaded busing cuts!

“B” Day is coming! “B” Day is the day that the school busing cuts are implemented.

On January 18th, Lakota will proceed to cut busing to students K through 8th grade within a mile radius. And all high school students will lose their busing.

I remember in 2005 when the same program was implemented except it was only half as tough, the radius was only a half mile. My wife had already been driving my kids to school each day so we didn’t think life would change much.

On January 7, 2011 I went on WLW to talk about this experience with Doc Thompson along with a number of other issues that center around the growing budget problems regarding school funding. We had a great discussion that covered a lot of ground. Worth listening to!

Instantly, the day of the “B” Day in 2005, the roads filled students trying to get to school, and what used to take 15 minutes turned into 30 to 40 minutes of roads loaded with the extra traffic. Accidents happened and my wife was an unfortunate victim. She had a collision with an inexperienced young driver that was cast into a situation he wasn’t prepared for. The boy didn’t have enough experience to be driving, and had been rushed through his licensing process because his parents couldn’t drive him to school.

The airbags deployed in the collision to our beloved Jeep Grand Cherokee which was paid off and a wonderful vehicle which totaled the vehicle even though it only sustained a damaged bumper. Because of the air bag deployment the cost of repair exceeded what insurance agreed to pay for the repair.

That Jeep Cherokee was an unfortunate victim to the “B” Day of 2005.

The “B” Day of 2011 will be equally devastating for some unfortunate victim, because when you put that many people on the road at the same time, bad things are bound to happen. And when it does, remember that cutting busing which only saves $600,000 this year, and 2.8 million next year only represents a fraction of the overall operating budget. For every bus they keep off the road the school system saves $70K.

Also remember that the school system was paying Ryan Fahrenkamp, the Lakota teacher busted in January for child pornography with a school computer involving students of his class, 70K a year. That teacher cost the same as operating a bus for one year. I think a bus is more valuable than a pervert teacher that stayed hidden behind layers of union protections for the last 2 years. But that’s just my opinion.

The leadership of Lakota thinks it’s more efficient to take away buses. That’s why we have budget problems.  Just so everyone remembers the last levy attempt and the numbers numbers involved, here is a collection of the media blitz in the final days prior to the vote.

It’s important to remember how we got here, and the smoke screens that get put in place to make you forget.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

John Kasich and the Cusp of Renewal: A plan for solving Ohio’s Problems

Want to know what a politician should sound like; listen to this interview of John Kasich from Bill Cunningham of 700 WLW?

The Governor was very explicit in that interview that he does not intend to take a public job to get another public job. He mentioned a bill to prevent unions from being able to strike against public organizations and he spoke about balancing the budget and bring jobs back to Ohio by taking away the restrictions that drive business away.

All too often politicians stick their fingers to the wind and check public opinion before taking action. That is the problem. People like Kasich are successful without politics. He doesn’t need the small wage of what an Ohio Governor makes. It’s not important to him to see his name on the signs welcoming people to the state, because he’s in the job to do the job. Not to fill his ego.

Heads of companies tend to do the work of balancing the budget of companies without worrying about whether or not they make all the employees angry, because they are the boss. And a boss can’t get wrapped up in popularity. All that really matters is if the state remains financially stable so we can live our lives in the state, and it’s the governors job to make sure that happens.

If you’re the kind of person looking for the government to do something for you, then you won’t like Kasich, because you have misread the intention of government and have bought into the “great lie” of Progressives. But if you want government to get out of our way, so we can create jobs, live out our lives, and not have all the money that should go to savings going to a bunch of “air headed” progressive programs, it is with great relief to hear a governor on the edge of taking control of the state government, that professes the attitude that he’s here to do the job, not begin running for the next public office so he can get the benefits of inflated public entitlements.

That’s what you get when you put people who are independently successful in office, instead of some mindless parasites that are clueless as to how the world works!

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Lakota Teacher Busted for Child Porn made over $65K per year

Below is a story about the Lakota Teacher arrested for child pornography charges. For the thousands of you that follow this blog and know some of the history here, Ryan Fahrenkamp is #286 on my list of teachers that make more than $65,000 per year. Fahrenkamp made $69,456.00. That’s the kind of “quality” teacher that our tax money has purchased. My comments about the impact this has on Lakota are right after the Enquire portion of the article. Ironically, Doc Thompson did a piece about the value of teachers from a wage stand point as this story was breaking during his January 3, 2011 show. I think it is an interesting argument while at the same time reading the details of this child porn story.

Story from the Enquire by: dhorn@enquirer.com
A former elementary school teacher in West Chester was arrested Monday on charges of possessing child pornography.

FBI agents said Brant Fahrenkamp, 42, used his school-issued laptop computer to access pornographic websites and to store images of young men, including some former students, without their shirts on. Fahrenkamp is a former teacher at Endeavor Elementary School.

An FBI spokesman said their investigation began in May 2010 when Lakota school officials contacted the West Chester Police Department about a parent’s complaint that Fahrenkamp was sending text messages to a student.

FBI officials said a search of Fahrenkamp’s hotel room in May 2010 turned up a camera and the laptop, both of which had video files depicting a naked boy. Investigators believe the photos were taken in 2008………………………………………………..

Interesting choice of words, “former,” as mentioned above Fahrenkamp was receiving almost $70K a year while he was taking pictures of little boys at Endeavor Elementary with their shirts off. He was employed until August of 2010.

The first line of defense that other teachers would proclaim is that they cannot be judged by the actions of this demented man, Mr. Ryan Fahrenkamp. And I would say that’s true. There are always a few bad apples, and the actions of Fahrenkamp should not reflect on all teachers.

However,

How many times during the last levy campaign were we told that money bought us “quality” teachers? And if we didn’t pay the extra money in taxes, those teachers might leave Lakota. Right now, how many people out there think that Fahrenkamp was a “quality” teacher and what made him worth more than $65K per year?

On another philosophic debate, when talking about a utopia type of society, where teachers do the work of teaching our children while many parents trot off to work completely entrusting the lives of their children to people like Fahrenkamp, this incident proves that such an act is a folly. Fahrenkamp was using a school lap top to store images of several boys with their shirts off, several students from Endeavor Elementary, and if that cautious parent had not caught text messages going to their child, how far would this incident have gone and for how long?

The other issue is how the school system kept a cap on this story during the media blitz of the school levy of 2010. This teacher was arrested right after the first levy attempt of 2010 and all this investigation was going on during the last one that ended in November of 2010. How did everyone keep this story quiet, and why? This seems like the kind of story the community should have known about back in May. So since the Lakota School System kept the story so quiet, it makes you wonder what other stories they are keeping a tight lid on. I’m sure Fakrenkamp is not the only bad apple.

The pictures of the students with their shirts off from Endeavor Elementary dated back to 2008. The original arrest was on May 26th of 2010. The lag on this story is far too long. This shows that the Lakota School System was more interested in protecting their image than exposing the story. It is unlikely that the concerned parent was the first whistle-blower. It may have been the first alarm from “outside” the school system, but I’m certain there were other behavioral signs that some other co-worker was aware of. The choice was to keep it quiet when the public should have known. That says everything!

I’ll say again that Fakrenkamp does not reflect all teachers everywhere. But because of people like Fakrenkamp, schools will never be able to be 100% trusted with our students. Parents will always have to be a part of their children’s lives if they want to protect their children from people like Fakrenkamp. That might be an inconvenient truth. But it’s a fact of life that must be considered when assessing the value of the teaching profession.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior

www.overmanwarrior.com

Executive Order 10988: The Start of Public Sector Unions

Defeating the Lakota Levy in November of 2010 was not considered a victory, as many would assume. 

We all know what the real trouble is; it’s the wage levels of the teachers that are forcing a re-evaluation of tax allocation.   Prior to the last election, many people in our community didn’t know how much teachers actually made.  Teachers aren’t alone; all public sector employees are experiencing this issue, where the tax payers are paying the servants of the community more than they make.  The tax payers just cannot support the expectations set by public sector unions.  The failure of 1962 is now completely obvious and must be reversed before it bankrupts our entire government.  You see, government unions did not always exist.  In fact, it was FDR that warned us about them in 1937.

 “Meticulous attention,” Roosevelt insisted, “should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government….The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.“

So, how did government unions come to be?

At the federal level, government unions came to being as a result of President Kennedy’s 1962 Executive Order 10988. Unions in the federal government were created not by law but by Executive Order.

So now in 2011 we have arrived at a place where the cost of those unions followed by a recession where funds are short in the private sector, have finally come to a point nobody can afford. 

State funding will be drastically decreased, so Lakota will find itself even more strapped for cash.  The union step increases are set to devastate our community budget.  So the fight is far from over.

The campaign never really stopped.  The LEA should have done the right thing and renegotiated their contract to save the community money.  But they didn’t, so now things will get rough.  To think in terms of wins and losses is to miss the real problem.  The fight will continue until Lakota can live within its supplied budget without breaking the financial back of the community. 

So for the sake of information, I include below Executive Order 10988 for analysts of that devastating decision that has thrust our nation into its current peril. 

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

EMPLOYEE-MANAGEMENT COOPERATION IN THE FEDERAL SERVICE

WHEREAS participation of employees in the formulation and implementation of personnel policies affecting them contributes to effective conduct of public business; and

WHEREAS the efficient administration of the Government and the well-being of employees require that orderly and constructive relationships be maintained between employee organizations and management officials; and

WHEREAS subject to law and the paramount requirements of the public service, employee-management relations within the Federal service should be improved by providing employees an opportunity for greater participation in the formulation and implementation of policies and procedures affecting the conditions of their employment; and

WHEREAS effective employee-management cooperation in the public service requires a clear statement of the respective rights and obligations of employee organizations and agency management:

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution of the IUnited States, by section 1753 of the Revised Statutes (5 U.S.C. 631), and as President of the United States, I hereby direct that the following policies shall govern officers and agencies of the executive branch of the Government in all dealings with Federal employees and organizations representing such employees.

SECTION 1. (a) Employees of the Federal Government shall have, and shall be protected in the exercise of, the right, freely and without feel of penalty or reprisal, to form, join and assist any employee organization or to refrain from any such activity. Except as hereinafter expressly provided, the freedom of such employees to assist any employee organization shall be recognized as extending to participation in the management of the organization and acting for the organization in the capacity of an organization representative, including presentation of its views to officials of the executive branch, the Congress or other appropriate authority. The head of each executive department and agency (hereinafter referred to as “agency”) shall take such action, consistent with law, as may be required in order to assist that employees in the agency are apprised of the rights described in this section, and that no interference, restraint, coercion or discrimination is practiced within such agency to encourage or discourage membership in any employee organization.

(b) The rights described in this section do not extend to participation in the management of an employee organization, or acting as a representative of any such organization, where such participation or activity would result in a conflict of interest or otherwise be incompatible with law or with the official duties of an employee.

SEC. 2. When used in this order, the term “employee organization” means any lawful association, labor organization, federation, council, or brotherhood having as a primary purpose the improvement of working conditions among Federal employees or any craft, trade or industrial union whose membership includes both Federal employees and employees of private organizations; but such term shall not include any organization (1) which asserts the right to strike against the Government of the United States or any agency thereof, or to assist or participate in any such strike, or which imposes a duty or obligation to conduct, assist or participate in any such strike, or (2) which advocates the overthrow of the constitutional form of Government in the United States, or (3) which discriminates with regard to the terms or conditions of membership because of race, color, creed or national origin.

SEC. 3. (a) Agencies shall accord informal, formal or exclusive recognition to employee organizations which request such recognition in conformity with the requirements specified in sections 4, 5 and 6 of this order, except that no recognition shall be accorded to any employee organization which the head of the agency considers to be so subject to corrupt influences or influences opposed to basic democratic principles that recognition would be inconsistent with the objectives of this order.

(b) Recognition of an employee organization will continue so long as such organization satisfies the criteria of this order applicable to such recognition; but nothing in this section shall require any agency to determine whether an organization should become or continue to be recognized as exclusive representative of the employees in any unit within 12 months after a prior determination of exclusive status with respect to such unit has been made pursuant to the provisions of this order.

(c) Recognition, in whatever form accorded, shall not—

(1) preclude any employee, regardless of employee organization membership, from bringing matters of personal concern to the attention of appropriate officials in accordance with applicable law rule, regulation, or established agency policy, or from choosing his own representative in a grievance or appellate action; or

(2) preclude or restrict consultations and dealings between an agency and any veterans organization with respect to matters of particular interest to employees with veterans preference; or

(3) preclude an agency from consulting or dealing with any religious, social, fraternal or other lawful association, not qualified as an employee organization, with respect to matters or policies which involve individual members of the association or are of particular applicability to it or its members, when such consultations or dealings are duly limited so as not to assume the character of formal consultation on matters of general employee-management policy or to extend to areas where recognition of the interests of one employee group may result in discrimination against or injury to the interests of other employees.

SEC. 4. (a) An agency shall accord an employee organization, which does not qualify for exclusive or formal recognition, informal recognition as representative of its member employees without regard to whether any other employee organization has been accorded formal or exclusive recognition as representative of some or all employees in any unit.

(b) When an employee organization has been informally recognized, it shall, to the extent consistent with the efficient and orderly conduct of the public business, be permitted to present to appropriate officials its views on matters of concern to its members. The agency need not, however, consult with an employee organization so recognized in the formulation of personnel or other policies with respect to such matters.

SEC. 5. (a) An agency shall accord an employee organization formal recognition as the representative of its members in a unit as defined by the agency when (1) no other employee organization is qualified for exclusive recognition as representative of employees in the unit, (2) it is determined by the agency that the employee organization has a substantial and stable membership of no less than 10 per cent of the employees in the unit, and (3) the employee organization has submitted to the agency a roster of its officers and representatives, a copy of its constitution and by-laws, and a statement of objectives. When, in the opinion of the head of an agency, an employee organization has a sufficient number of local organizations or a sufficient total membership within such agency, such organization may be accorded formal recognition at the national level, but such recognition shall not preclude the agency from dealing at the national level with any other employee organization on matters affecting its members.

(b) When an employee organization has been formally recognized, the agency, through appropriate officials, shall consult with such organization from time to time in the formulation and implementation of personnel policies and practices, and matters affecting working conditions that are of concern to its members. Any such organization shall be entitled from time to time to raise such matters for discussion with appropriate officials and at all times to present its views thereon in writing. In no case, however, shall an agency be required to consult with an employee organization which has been formally recognized with respect to any matter which, if the employee organization were one entitled to exclusive recognition, would not be included within the obligation to meet and confer, as described in section 6 (b) of this order.

SEC. 6. (a) An agency shall recognize an employee organization as the exclusive representative of the employees, in an appropriate unit when such organization is eligible for formal recognition pursuant to section 5 of this order, and has been designated or selected by a majority of the employees of such unit as the representative of such employees in such unit. Units may be established on any plant or installation, craft, functional or other basis which will ensure a clear and identifiable community of interest among the employees concerned, but no unit shall be established solely on the basis of the extent to which employees in the proposed unit have organized. Except where otherwise required by established practice, prior agreement, or special circumstances, no unit shall be established for purposes of exclusive recognition which includes (1) any managerial executive, (2) any employee engaged in Federal personnel work in other than a purely clerical capacity, (3) both supervisors who officially evaluate the performance of employees and the employees whom they supervise, or (4) both professional employees and nonprofessional employees unless a majority of such professional employees vote for inclusion in such unit.

(b) When an employee organization has been recognized as the exclusive representative of employees of an appropriate unit it shall be entitled to act for and to negotiate agreements covering all employees in the unit and shall be responsible for representing the interests of all such employees without discrimination and without regard to employee organization membership. Such employee organization shall be given the opportunity to be represented at discussions between management and employees or employee representatives concerning grievances, personnel policies and practices, or other matters affecting general working conditions of employees in the unit. The agency and such employee organization, through appropriate officials and representatives, shall meet at reasonable times and confer with respect to personnel policy and practices and matters affecting working conditions, so far as may be appropriate subject to law and policy requirements. This extends to the negotiation of an agreement, or any question arising thereunder, the determination of appropriate techniques, consistent with the terms and purposes of this order, to assist in such negotiation, and the execution of a written memorandum of agreement or understanding incorporating any agreement reached by the parties. In exercising authority to make rules and regulations relating to personnel policies and practices and working conditions, agencies shall have due regard for the obligation imposed by this section, but such obligation shall not be construed to extend to such areas of discretion and policy as the mission of an agency, its budget, its organization and the assignment of its personnel, or the technology of performing its work.

SEC. 7. Any basic or initial agreement entered into with an employee organization as the exclusive representative of employees in a unit must be approved by the head of the agency or an official designated by him. All agreements with such employee or organizations shall also be subject to the following requirements, which shall be expressly stated in the initial or basic agreement and shall be applicable to all supplemental, implementing, subsidiary or informal agreements between the agency and the organization:

(1) In the administration of all matters covered by the agreement officials and employees are governed by the provisions of any existing or future laws and regulations, including policies set forth in the Federal Personnel Manual and agency regulations, which may be applicable, and the agreement shall at all times be applied subject to such laws, regulations and policies;

(2) Management officials of the agency retain the right, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, (a) to direct employees of the agency, (b) to hire, promote, transfer, assign, and retain employees in positions within the agency, and to suspend, demote, discharge, or take other disciplinary action against employees, (c) to relieve employees from duties because of lack of work or for other legitimate reasons, (d) to maintain the efficiency of the Government operations entrusted to them, (e) to determine the methods, means and personnel by which such operations are to be conducted; and (f) to take whatever actions may be necessary to carry out the mission of the agency in situations of emergency.

SEC. 8. (a) Agreements entered into or negotiated in accordance with this order with an employee organization which is the exclusive representative of employees in an appropriate unit may contain provisions, applicable only to employees in the unit, concerning procedures for consideration of grievances. Such procedures (1) shall conform to standards issued by the Civil Service Commission, and (2) may not in any manner diminish or impair any rights which would otherwise be available to any employee in the absence of an agreement providing for such procedures.

(b) Procedures established by an agreement which are otherwise in conformity with this section may include provisions for the arbitration of grievances. Such arbitration ( 1 ) shall be advisory in nature with any decisions or recommendations subject to the approval of the agency head; (2) shall extend only to the interpretation or application of agreements or agency policy and not to changes in or proposed changes in agreements or agency policy; and (3) shall be invoked only with the approval of the individual employee or employees concerned.

SEC. 9. Solicitation of memberships, dues, or other internal employee organization business shall be conducted during the non-duty hours of the employees concerned. Officially requested or approved consultations and meetings between management officials and representatives of recognized employee organizations shall, whenever practicable, be conducted on official time, but any agency may require that negotiations with an employee organization which has been accorded exclusive recognition be conducted during the non-duty hours of the employee organization representatives involved in such negotiations.

SEC. 10. No later than July 1, 1962, the head of each agency shall issue appropriate policies, rules and regulations for the implementation of this order, including: A clear statement of the rights of its employees under the order, policies and procedures with respect to recognition of employee organizations; procedures for determining appropriate employee units; policies and practices regarding consultation with representatives of employee organizations, other organizations and individual employees; and policies with respect to the use of agency facilities by employee organizations. Insofar as may be practicable and appropriate, agencies shall consult with representatives of employee organizations in the formulation of these policies, rules and regulations.

SEC. 11. Each agency shall be responsible for determining in accordance with this order whether a unit is appropriate for purposes of exclusive recognition and, by an election or other appropriate means whether an employee organization represents a majority of the employees in such a unit so as to be entitled to such recognition. Upon the request of any agency, or of any employee organization which is seeking exclusive recognition and which qualifies for or has been accorded formal recognition, the Secretary of Labor, subject to such necessary rules as he may prescribe, shall nominate from the National Panel of Arbitrators maintained by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service one or more qualified arbitrators who will be available for employment by the agency concerned for either or both of the following purposes, as may be required: (1) to investigate the facts and issue an adsvisory decision as to the appropriateness of a unit for purposes of exclusive recognition and as to related issues submitted for consideration; (2) to conduct or supervise an election or otherwise determine by such means as may be appropriate, and on an advisory basis, whether an employee organization represents the majority of the employees in a unit. Consonant with law, the Secretary of Labor shall render such assistance as may be appropriate in connection with advisory decisions or determinations under this section, but the necessary costs of such assistance shall be paid by the agency to which it relates. In the event questions as to the appropriateness of a unit or the majority status of an employee organization shall arise in the Department of Labor, the duties described in this section which would otherwise be the responsibility of the Secretary of Labor shall be performed by the Civil Service Commission.

SEC. 12. The Civil Service Commission shall establish and maintain a program to assist in carrying out the objectives of this order. The Commission shall develop a program for the guidance of agencies in employee-management relations in the Federal service; provide technical advice to the agencies on employee-management programs; assist in the development of programs for training agency personnel in the principles and procedures of consultation, negotiation and the settlement of disputes in the Federal service, and for the training of management officials in the discharge of their employee-management relations responsibilities in the public interest; provide for continuous study and review of the Federal employee-management relations program and, from time to time, make recommendations to the President for its improvement.

SEC. 13. (a) The Civil Service Commission and the Department of Labor shall jointly prepare (1) proposed standards of conduct for employee organizations and (2) a proposed code of fair labor practices in employee-management relations in the Federal service appropriate to assist in securing the uniform and effective implementation of the policies, rights and responsibilities described in this order.

(b) There is hereby established the President’s Temporary Committee on the Implementation of the Federal Employee-Management Relations Program. The Committee shall consist of the Secretary of Labor, who shall be chairman of the Committee, the Secretary of Defense, the Postmaster General, and the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission. In addition to such other matters relating to the implementation of this order as may be referred to it by the President, the Committee shall advise the President with respect to any problems arising out of completion of agreements pursuant to sections 6 and 7, and shall receive the proposed standards of conduct for employee organizations and proposed code of fair labor practices in the Federal service, as described in this section, and report thereon to the President with such recommendations or amendments as it may deem appropriate. Consonant with law, the departments and agencies represented on the Committee shall, as may be necessary for the effectuation of this section, furnish assistance to the Committee in accordance with section 214 of the Act of May 3, 1945, 59 Stat. 134 (31 U.S.C. 691). Unless otherwise directed by the President, the Committee shall cease to exist 30 days after the date on which it submits its report to the President pursuant to this section.

SEC. 14. The head of each agency, in accordance with the provisions of this order and regulations prescribed by the Civil Service Commission, shall extend to all employees in the competitive civil service rights identical in adverse action cases to those provided preference eligibles under section 14 of the Veterans’ Preference Act of 1944, as amended. Each employee in the competitive service shall have the right to appeal to the Civil Service Commission from an adverse decision of the administrative officer so acting, such appeal to be processed in an identical manner to that provided for appeals under section 14 of the Veterans’ Preference Act. Any recommendation by the Civil Service Commission submitted to the head of an agency on the basis of an appeal by an employee in the competitive service shall be complied with by the head of the agency. This section shall become effective as to all adverse actions commenced by issuance of a notification of proposed action on or after July 1, 1962.

SEC. 15. Nothing in this order shall be construed to annul or modify, or to preclude the renewal or continuation of, any lawful agreement heretofore entered into between any agency and any representative of its employees. Nor shall this order preclude any agency from continuing to consult or deal with any representative of its employees or other organization prior to the time that the status and representation rights of such representative or organization are determined in conformity with this order.

SEC. 16. This order (except section 14) shall not apply to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, or any other agency, or to any office, bureau or entity within an agency, primarily performing intelligence, investigative, or security functions if the head of the agency determines that the provisions of this order cannot be applied in a manner consistent with national security requirements and considerations. When he deems it necessary in the national interest, and subject to such conditions as he may prescribe, the head of any agency may suspend any provision of this order (except section 14) with respect to any agency installation or activity which is located outside of the United States.

Approved—January 17th, 1962.

JOHN F. KENNEDY
THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 17, 1962

Rich Hoffman

http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Dystopia of Public Union attachment to our Government.

I have spoken about groups like Progress Ohio that are progressive oriented groups in states built on advancing progressive ideas. Until 2010 I didn’t even know there were groups dedicated to such a cause. I was still wondering if the word “progressive” was something Glenn Beck made up to support some conspiracy. As it turned out, Beck probably didn’t say enough.

There has also been a lot of discussion about state budget shortfalls and how on earth our local, state and federal government is going to pay for the massive revenue problems that are occurring. Well, these budget problems are caused by public sector unions that have managed to negotiate an average salary of approximately $79,000 per year per employee. That is more than the average American tax payer makes by over $20K per year. The formula is all messed up; where the public servant makes more than the public it serves. And as government has grown larger and employed more and more people, adding more employees to that fantastically high pay scale and the wages in the private sector have been frozen to deal with the recession.

Now listen below to the suggestion from Progress Illinois of how to cover the budget problems. (LAUGH OUT LOUD)

Can you believe that? That’s how out of touch progressives are. That is their solution to the irresponsible spending problem we’ve allowed in government.

The high wages promised government employees create a government that is revenue hungry.

And this video is hilarious. Didn’t these people go to school? Why do they think the steel mills went overseas? Unions drove the costs too high, so those jobs left the country.


Now they have done the same cost increase of labor as they did in the American Car companies and steel industries. But now those costs are in government and government can’t pick up and move to another country. Government exists to serve the people, so the only thing to do is to cut the jobs or reduce dramatically the salary of those employees in order to justify their existence. The videos below are by Armand Thiebolt of the Cato Institute. This isn’t Fox News, but the Cato Institute. It’s an attempt to present the problem cleanly.


Now this is Fox Business, a piece done by Jon Stossel, but I think it explains things very clear.


This is serious business!

What needs to happen is public sector unions should return back to the legal status prior to the Kennedy Administration. That needs to happen in 2011 while a conservative congress can address the issue. Only by dealing with the issue directly can we hope to avert catastrophic budget failures.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Desperate Cries Over Budget Collapse: A preview of what’s to come.

Coming to a budget meeting near you starting in 2011, complete chaos!

It was sadly humorous to listen to the Cincinnati City Council meeting in their vain attempts to arrive at a budget before the New Year. Cincinnati is running serious deficits and in spite of their desire to build a street car, because there isn’t enough money to pay for the current staff of police and fire department personnel. Tax increases to pay for extremely inflated public sector wages is not an option. That has been the type of band-aid fix that has always bailed out these types of problems in the past. But it is not going to fix the problem going forward.

Those two public sectors police and fire departments are essentially in the same boat as teachers. Too much money is tied up in personnel at too high of a cost per employee. And all across the nation public sector employees that are making over $70,000 a year on average are strangling the budgets of states to the point of bankruptcy.
The audio of this clip is particularly revealing about the nature of everyone involved.


The unions are refusing to see that they need to rethink their contracts. In the audio clip, the head of the police union is reacting violently to the facts presented by council and how much of the budget is taken up by her union. Just like teachers, they are all well-intentioned people who have become accustomed to a certain level of income. And the city council is ill-equipped to make the hard decisions needed. Just like school boards, and township trustees these local level political entities are not able to handle complicated problems. Public sector unions have had their way with these naive political bodies for such a long time that the budgets have bulged to these critical levels.

In 2011 I see that teachers are going to deal with this reality as well. Striking won’t help because there are too many job shortages, so teaching vacancies could quickly be filled with teachers that make far less than tenured teachers do. But it will be painful. During the Lakota Levy of 2010, a slight reduction in state funding caused a fiscal crisis at Lakota, because the step increase schedule was plotting the Lakota Budget on a perilous collision course. In 2011, that same step increase schedule is in place, but under the Kasich administration, public education funding may decrease another 15 to 20%. And local communities will not cover that large discrepancy with tax levies, because it doesn’t fix the problem and is a completely unreasonable cost to communities. It only buys a little more time for the tenured teachers to hopefully get to their own retirements while their pensions and wage rates are still intact. That is the desperation you hear from the head of the Police Union, it’s the realization that life as they have always believed it, is coming to an end. And that desperation is only a preview of the neurotic fits that public education employees will soon reveal.

It’s not that I don’t have sympathy. But remember that public employees chose their professions, and the time that’s coming will be bad for all people who work in public sector work. However, those of us that have stayed in the private sector, which pays less because competition sets the costs, will find that these desperate cries won’t affect us. The cries will come from those employees wanting to be paid from our tax money. And the noise will be intense, but it’s not members of government employment that support our society. It is the tax payer that does. So don’t let that noise confuse the situation. The pain is simply a result of necessity. Our nation needs a smaller, less intrusive government so our economy can expand. Once the smoke clears, it will be a stronger state, and a more resolute nation.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com