Monday, October 25, 2010

Cuomo's War On Unions

Expect a very bad four years if you are a member of a labor union in New York State:

Andrew M. Cuomo will mount a presidential-style permanent political campaign to counter the well-financed labor unions he believes have bullied previous governors and lawmakers into making bad decisions. He will seek to transform the state’s weak business lobby into a more formidable ally, believing that corporate leaders in New York have virtually surrendered the field to big labor.

And even as he girds for war, Mr. Cuomo, the state attorney general and an expert practitioner of political hardball, also plans to lavish attention on individual legislators, who he says are sick of being demonized and eager for accomplishment after years of gridlock and enmity.

In a rare extended interview, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, insisted voters can believe he will succeed where other governors failed, saying he has the savvy and the experience to maximize the leverage of the state’s highest elective office. “I know these guys. I know them very well,” he said of the state’s political class. “I’ve played with them, I’ve played against them. I know this game. I know it extraordinarily well. I know what they’re capable of, I know their strengths and I know their weaknesses.”

Cuomo thinks that business and Wall Street have surrendered to labor?

What drug is he on?

Just in education, over the last ten years I have watched the teachers union cave on merit pay, teacher evaluations tied to test scores, the charter school cap, longer school days and longer school years.

I have seen my union grant a Tier Five pension for new hirees in order to get back two days of work. In fact, after Klein added another day at the end of the year, it turned into just one day.

Meanwhile I have seen the hedge fund managers and the Wall Street CEO's take bailout money and use it to hand themselves Christmas bonuses.

I have seen these same Wall Street criminals hijack public education with their backroom poker games and push public schools out of their own buildings so that the charter schools they back can have the space.

I have seen the bankers game the housing market and now the foreclosure market and stick the taxpayers with the bill, even as they engage in fraudulent activity and crime.

And Cuomo thinks labor is the problem?

Holy mother of mercy, the next four years are going to be very, very bad.

And if you're a teacher, well, listen to this news:

While his father once spoke of campaigning in poetry and governing in prose, Mr. Cuomo is campaigning in PowerPoint: he began the interview with a slide show describing his model for creating what he called a “new paradigm” to tackle the state’s ever-swelling budget.

New York, Mr. Cuomo argued, should move away from what he called the “block grant” model of spending, especially in areas like school aid, municipal aid and Medicaid. In each area, he said, he would cut projected spending but create pools of bonus money that can be won — by cities and villages, by school superintendents, by unions — in public competitions much like the federal Race to the Top education grant program.


Great - no more state aid grants.

Instead, everything will be a Race to the Top competition.

You can bet that if you want state aid for education, Cuomo is going to force you to add hours to both the school day and the year, substitute merit pay programs for salary steps and perhaps even change the teacher evaluation system to "All Test Scores/All The Time."

And this guy is the Democrat?

8 comments:

  1. Which is why for my narrow self interest, I'm voting for Palladino. He won't be able to hurt us as much since the Albany Dems will be working to block his policies. Cuomo will get a free ride in completing the national scapegoating campaign of teachers if elected.

    You want more of the same, even on an accelerated track, vote Cuomo. You want to be villifed in the press, vote Cuomo. You want to sweat it out as an ATR, vote Cuomo. You want Andrew Tisch, Meryl Tisch's brother in law, to make many millions peddling his "hybrid education" online education services (K-12 Inc.) in city schools, vote Cuomo.

    You want to agree and seal your fate with Chancellor Slime, vote Cuomo. Cuomo has already announced that he will call a Constitutional Convention on all pensions. You want that, vote Cuomo. You agree with President Dumbama's anti-teacher policies, vote Cuomo.

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  2. This is payback for the union not endorsing his first bid years ago.

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  3. Yes it's what Anon 11:14 AM said. Koch did the same thing, as I can still recall although I am one of those "senior teachers". They will be sorry that they are making it so uncomfortable for us "seniors". Retirement means never having to say you're sorry! I'd like to see how many retired teachers are ready to form their own political party, since that is the only way we will ever be heard. If Mr. "The Rent is Too Damn High" Party can be on Saturday Night Live, why can't we use all of our skills to start our own political party. Who else has our back?

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  4. Wow, yeah. But Palladino doesn't have a chance,does he? Is there a Green Party candidate?

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  5. Howie Hawkins for Governor....he's the Green Party candidate. Paladino is against abortion a la 1975 but it's 2010. He's too unstable to hold any position whatsoever.

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  6. ALL media outlets said that Bloomberg would win by at least 15 points, causing MANY to stay home. He only won by 4 or 5 points.

    Who cares what Palladino thinks on abortion? He can't create any legislation regarding that, and even if he could, it would never pass. Ergo , an Albany logjam, which is perfect for us.

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  8. What the hell is going on? I can hardly recognize America anymore. Unions represent working class people. Martin Luther King Jr. died while supporting the striking sanitation workers who were fighting for justice. Why are we going backwards? WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!! If we're not careful, we'll end up with a pre-civil rights society... Next thing you'll know, they will start tampering with our constitution--and then it will be the beginning of the end...

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