Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Bloomberg Threatens To Lay Off Teachers At The Same Time He Gives Raises To 48 Members Of His City Hall Staff

It's that time of year again, folks - it's time for Mike Bloomberg, the genius fiscal king of New York City, to claim the only way he can balance the city budget is to lay off teachers and other city workers.

I posted about his latest threat yesterday.

This time around, he's threatening layoffs at the same time he's handing out generous raises to his staff at City Hall:

Despite a gaping budget hole that could lead to layoffs of teachers or police officers, Mayor Bloomberg found money in the city budget to give out raises to 48 members of his City Hall staff.

A Daily News review of payroll data found that 10 of those lucky employees got raises that topped 20% since last summer.

“It is hypocritical,” steamed City Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn). “It’s just disrespectful to the people who basically make the city run.”

But Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna said the mayor’s office was paying some employees more because they were performing more work as a result of staffing cuts.

He said the office shrank by 17 workers, going from 484 employees in June 2011 to 467 in June 2012.

“Fewer people on staff means some employees have been promoted or taken on more work, so their salaries increased, but we’ve pushed our overall salary costs down,” he said.

...

Gregory Floyd, head of Teamsters Local 237, which represents 20,000 city workers, was angry about the raises.

“I thought there was no money for raises for any city employee, and the last I checked the people who worked in the mayor’s office were city employees,” he said. “They’re being paid with taxpayer money.”

Harry Nespoli, who heads the sanitation workers union, said every union is working without a contract and being told to inform its members to work harder without any rises.

“He had enough money to give raises to the people in City Hall, but not the people that work for the citizens of New York City on a day-to-day basis?” he questioned. “That is totally unacceptable.”


Yes, you teachers had better work longer and harder for the same money, get those test scores up as measured by the city's jive ass value added measurement system with the 87% margin of error or they will "I-rate" your ass and fire you.

But people on the mayor's staff get a 20% raise for working harder at whatever it is they do there at City Hall (i.e., mostly bullshit political stuff - like looking for ways to spin why the city needs to do layoffs.)

Just another example of the hypocrisy of this mayor and the Ruling Class he represents.

Austerity for the commons, party time for the connected.

Corporate profits reached an all-time high in June 2012.

Corporate tax rates are at their lowest rate in 40 years.

Wages are the lowest they have been in 25 years.

So corporations are making more money than they ever have before, their paying the lowest amount of taxes in two generations, and they've been squeezing wages for the last 25 years and they're STILL telling us there's no money for anything?

It is clear that the Ruling Class have stolen all the of the money, all of the wealth, and have relegated the rest of us to fight it out amongst ourselves for the scraps.

Until they fear that there will be an uprising to take back the stolen wealth, circumstances are not going to change.

We will continue to have the Ruling Class and their corporate media push austerity for the masses and party time for themselves.

This is why the Chicago teachers strike is so important - it's the first popular, member-led uprising in the face of the Ruling Class Austerity Movement.

Make no mistake, education reform is NOT about improving schools, it is about pushing austerity and fear for the masses while opening up $600 billion in new revenues for the Rupert Murdochs of the world.

It is time to fight back against this austerity, call the education reformers the corporate criminals they are and take back what they are stealing.

It is time to fight back.

Believe it or not, this is what the Rahm Emanuels, Mike Bloombergs and Rupert Murdochs of the world fear.

It is true, they've got the guns and the power of the Surveillance State on their side.

But CTU showed how we can get the numbers on our side and stand up to our corporate overlords.

It is time to stand up to Herr Bloomberg.

4 comments:

  1. As Pharaoh Bloomberg is in his twilight as NYC mayor, where he has done nothing but draw bike lanes and install waterfalls under the Brooklyn Bridge while siphoning off middle class dollars to give to rich government and business cronies, not to mention stopping and frisking minority youth so the tourists can keep snapping pictures of the World Trade Center holes in safety, we will see him be more blatant about the type of "leader" he is.

    Bread and circuses for middle class New Yorkers in the form of waterfalls and bike lanes; harassment for poor ones with stop and frisk and vagrancy ordinances; and a big party for the wealthy on the dimes of everyone else in the form of no-bid contracts and tax breaks.

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  2. The bike lanes, the oversized soda ban, the waterfalls under the Brooklyn Bridge are all perfect attention distractors fomm the lying and thievery of Herr Bloomberg and his mafia cronies.

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  3. Bloomberg is much more of a bully and liar than fiscal genius. If he was truly a fiscal genius and effective businessman/politician he would not be making so many disastrous mistakes such as SAIC and City Time and all the billions of dollars of taxpayer he has mismanged. Didn't he run for a third term making the claim that he had business skills?

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  4. And let's face it, whoever replaces him will be Bloomberg-lite. We're probably looking at more of the same from Quinn, de Blasio, Stringer, et al.

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