Let's Make A Deal

Somewhere along this path, concepts like compromise and negotiation have become negative rather than positive.  It's happening at the local level- our school board refusing to sit down with us to work together to solve the budget issues.  It's happening at our state level- Walker refusing to sit down and talk with union leaders and the 14 Democratic Senators.  And it's happening at the Federal level, as we all know from the circus going on in Washington.

On June 4th Time Magazine ran this article, and said, "Since Obama's election, McConnell has mostly treated compromise like a dirty word, derailing his GOP colleagues when they tried to bargain with Democrats."

And from earlier this week from the SGV Tribune, "The truth is that Democrats have made clear they are open to a compromise deal on budget cuts and revenue increases. Republicans have made clear they are not."

As a parent of two children, I am constantly pushing my children to solve their own arguments.  

This is what it looks like.  

My son:  "Want to play legos?"

My daughter:  "No."

My son:  "You can bring your Barbie and I'll make her a car."

My daughter:  "OK."

There you have it.  Negotiation and compromise from a 10 and 5 year old.  

Problem solved.  Life goes on.

At my job I work with students who have a wide range of disabilities.  For many of the students I work with, their ability to compromise and negotiation is weakened or delayed.  And I help them learn these skills.  But before I can teach them, I must find out the underlying cause to their difficulties with these skills.  And it's all about perspective.  Understanding how to put yourself in someone else's shoes.  Comprehending that not every person thinks and feels the way you do.

So when I teach the students, I first help them learn that perspective means "Everybody feels different.  And that's OK."  From there I teach them how to identify how someone else might be feeling in a situation and why.  And then we role play and practice being someone else to learn to understand other people.  And then, after lots of practice, I help the students learn how to negotiate and compromise so that they get some of what they want and so does the other person.  

So I think I've found a second career- one to supplement the pay cut I will take this year.  I'm willing to give workshops to anyone at any level of government for just a small fee.  Because if I can teach my own children and the children I work with at my job, then I can teach a bunch of adults who have forgotten one of the most basic and important skills of all, i.e. How to Get Along with Others

Maybe that could be the title for my workshops.  I like "Let's Make a Deal" better, but that phrase may already be taken...

It's Not a Four Letter Word

Socialism
Has been given a bad rap.
"We're going to take your hard earned money and give it to lazy people who don't want to bother to get a job."  Listening to NPR a week ago I heard one of the guests on the Republican side respond to a caller who asked about raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

His response?  "Hey, those rich people worked really hard for their money- they earned it.  It's not fair to ask them to share it with others."

Not fair?

My husband made a great point the other day when I complained (something I've said many times before)  "Why is my career worth less than someone else's? Why is a doctor more valued than a teacher?"  Now that's what seems unfair to me.

It's all about the market, my husband told me.  Simple supply and demand.  Education jobs, for example, are a dime a dozen.  We've had as many as 900 applicants for a teaching job at our school.  Somehow, I doubt there's 900 doctors applying for one job.  He added that in a sense, we've done this to ourselves- letting too many teachers graduate from college, flooding the market, driving our wages down.

John Nichols was on WPR this past week, talking about socialism.  I often have thought of myself as a socialist (there- now I've said it and completely ruined my chances of ever running for political office).  It goes back to my personality- the need to have things be fair and equitable.

Which leads to the second complaint I often utter- "How much money is enough for one person to make?  Does a surgeon really need to make $600,000 when a teacher makes $60,000?"
I've heard people say that if teachers really loved children, then they'd be willing to work for even less than they do now-
Out of the goodness of their hearts.
Because it's really about the children.

I don't hear anyone saying that about doctors.

The anesthesiologist who put my daughter under for her surgery- a 90 minute procedure-
made over $1000.

But shouldn't he have done it for less?
You know, out of the goodness of his heart.
Because he loves his job-
and it's really about the patients.

Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  That's my husband's stance.  So he's been looking for a new career.

As for me, I'm going to be reading up more on this socialism thing- make sure it's really the way I want to go.  And I'll start here.

A Slight of Hand Trick

My daughter broke her hand a couple weeks ago.  We took her to the ER.  We were told the break was so bad they couldn't set it then-she had to see an orthopedic surgeon.  She ended up needing surgery for two broken bones and a torn muscle.

We just got the first of the insurance statements.  It made me sick to my stomach- literally.  For just the ER visit and the pre-operational physical and blood work, the bill to our insurance was $3000.  Plus another $1000 for the anesthesia for the surgery.  But those bills don't even include the consultation with the surgeon, the actual surgery and the follow up care she's needing- those we have yet to see.

Now at the ER they took x-rays and gave her pain meds- and those costs seem within what I would have expected.  But on the bill there's an item marked "surgery," we looked up the code- it's basically the cost for the doctor to take a piece of cloth, wet it so it becomes stiff, place it under her hand and arm, and then wrap everything with an ace bandage to immobilize it- a splint.  That "surgery" which took less than 5 minutes cost over $200.00.  And then prior to surgery she needed a physical with her pediatrician.  She had been getting some bad bloody noses, so her doctor ordered some blood work to make sure her white blood cell count, etc was OK.  One test alone- over $400.00

I am going to be writing Scott Walker, Mary Lazich, Paul Ryan and Ron Johnson about this issue- this slight of hand trick that politicians are playing on us hard working middle class people.

We all know how these magicians- I mean politicians- work. They distract the American people by causing all this commotion over here.  "It's those greedy, lazy public workers who are causing your life to be so bad.  Let's get 'em."  Meanwhile, over there, the other hand holds the real "trick-" our dysfunctional health care system.  "Don't let the people see the reality of what's causing their problems, because then we'd actually have to go back to talking about health care reform."

I am not fooled by their slight of hand tricks- and I know neither are many other Americans.  Yet here we are, watching the same stupid magic trick over and over again and never calling their bluff.

Teacher Pay Losing Ground

I'm getting tired of defending my salary- and the myth that my husband and I, as educators, are somehow so much better off than other middle class working Americans.  We're not.  And when I find myself once again debating this issue with family members who really have no idea exactly what we do as educators, and exactly how much time and energy we put into our careers, I will be directing them to this:

The Economic Policy Institute issue #298 published on March 30th: 
THE TEACHING PENALTY

An update through 2010

"Trends in weekly earnings show that public school teachers in 2010 earned about 12% less than comparable workers, a gap equivalent to that found in our 2004 study. The weekly earnings disadvantage for teachers relative to comparable workers grew by 10.5 percentage points between 1979 and 2010, with most of the erosion (8.2 percentage points) occurring between 1996 and 2001. This increase in wage disparity for teachers is particularly troublesome because the 1990s recovery was one of the few periods in recent decades of strong overall wage growth for workers."

And how do benefits fit in?

"We found that the average weekly pay of teachers in 2003 was nearly 14% below that of workers with similar education and work experience, a gap only minimally offset by the better nonwage benefits in teaching." 

Conclusion?

"If the policy goal is to improve the quality of the entire teaching workforce, then raising the level of teacher compensation is critical to recruiting and retaining higher quality teachers. Policies that solely focus on changing the composition of current compensation (e.g., merit or pay-for-performance schemes) without actually increasing compensation levels are unlikely to be effective. Simply put, improving overall teacher quality requires correcting the teacher compensation disadvantage in the labor market."E1

Back for More Fight

I'm back- after a hectic end of the year and some family issues- and ready to fight.

Good Test Scores = Good Teachers?

Yesterday JS Online ran a story about Senate Bill 95, saying it would allow "School boards across Wisconsin could use teacher evaluations - which rely in part on the results of students' standardized state test scores - as part of the reason for dismissing and disciplining educators, according to legislation considered by the Assembly and Senate education committees Monday."

This is similar to legislation going on around the country, the "value-added modeling" approach.

Like New York- where test scores will account for 40% of teacher's evaluations

And Georgia, where 50% of the evaluations are based on student test scores

And New Jersey

And Massachusetts

But do good test scores = good teachers?  Do good teachers = good test scores?  Is it really that simple of an equation- so simple that teachers' should be evaluated based on how well their students do on a test?

According to an article by the Economic Policy Institute, there are problems with using test scores to evaluate teachers.  "A review of the technical evidence leads us to conclude that, although standardized test scores of students are one piece of information for school leaders to use to make judgments about teacher effectiveness, such scores should be only a part of an overall comprehensive evaluation. Some states are now considering plans that would give as much as 50% of the weight in teacher evaluation and compensation decisions to scores on existing tests of basic skills in math and reading. Based on the evidence, we consider this unwise."

I would encourage everyone to read the entire study, which can be found here.  Here's one excerpt:

"For a variety of reasons, analyses of VAM results have led researchers to doubt whether the methodology can accurately identify more and less effective teachers. VAM estimates have proven to be unstable across statistical models, years, and classes that teachers teach. One study found that across five large urban districts, among teachers who were ranked in the top 20% of effectiveness in the first year, fewer than a third were in that top group the next year, and another third moved all the way down to the bottom 40%. Another found that teachers’ effectiveness ratings in one year could only predict from 4% to 16% of the variation in such ratings in the following year. Thus, a teacher who appears to be very ineffective in one year might have a dramatically different result the following year. The same dramatic fluctuations were found for teachers ranked at the bottom in the first year of analysis. This runs counter to most people’s notions that the true quality of a teacher is likely to change very little over time and raises questions about whether what is measured is largely a “teacher effect” or the effect of a wide variety of other factors."

And another:

"Adopting an invalid teacher evaluation system and tying it to rewards and sanctions is likely to lead to inaccurate personnel decisions and to demoralize teachers, causing talented teachers to avoid high-needs students and schools, or to leave the profession entirely, and discouraging potentially effective teachers from entering it. Legislatures should not mandate a test-based approach to teacher evaluation that is unproven and likely to harm not only teachers, but also the children they instruct."

Roger Tilles, a member of the New York State Board of Regents, recently made this position statement.  In it, he said, "If these value-added techniques were applied to other professions as they are being applied to teachers, it would mean that dentists be would evaluated not on their skills but only on how many cavities a dentist’s patients gets in a year or with a doctor on how many times his patients get sick in a year. Similarly, police are not evaluated on the number of crimes committed on their beat, nor fire personnel on number of fires in their jurisdiction. We would all acknowledge that such rating systems are at best incomplete."

And another study by RAND:  "Finally, our analysis and simulations demonstrate that VAM- based rankings of teachers are highly unstable, and that only large dif- ferences in estimated impact are likely to be detectable given the effects of sampling error and other sources of uncertainty. Interpretations of differences among teachers based on VAM estimates should be made with extreme caution."

Millions and Millions of Dollars

There's been some interesting talk about Wisconsin millionaires in the news.   

Here's some information from back in March.

And a blog post today from Will Blog for Food.

And yesterday this article came out: Wisconsin Millionaires Expected to Double in 10 Years.  Basically the article says that some millionaires lost that status during the recession and they are expected to get that status back as the economy continues to recover.  But this in itself is important to me and many other middle class Americans who are going to see their salaries shrink.  The article quotes Patrick Mehigan from Deloitte's tax branch in Milwaukee. 

“But for those that say that we're losing millionaires in Wisconsin because of whatever possible policy, I think this study would at least suggest that's not the case."

You know who "those" are, don't you?  Why our own Governor Walker and his far right Republican Congress!  And every other Republican politician in this country.

Republicans are always saying that taxing the rich will cause them to leave a state for another one with lower taxes.  But is that really true?  Not according to this post.  

"Earlier this month, the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts (PERI) released a study by Jeffrey Thompson that concluded that the availability of jobs, rather than relative levels of taxation, is the leading factor that causes people to move from one state to another. It also found 'that the impact of taxes on cross-state migration is very weak.'”

And here's some further information from the Wisconsin Budget Project.  It quoted:

"Evidence from surveys of migrating households, the existing economic literature, and the new analysis in this paper all suggest that taxes do not play any notable role in causing people to leave a state. The most important factors in influencing household migration are economic and family-related reasons. If anything, higher state income taxes are shown to decrease the numbers of people leaving a state. Taxes do appear to influence the choice of which state to live in once a person has decided to move, but the impact is modest. If states use the revenues from higher taxes to create jobs, reduce unemployment, and reduce property crime, the small negative impacts from taxes can be easily overcome.”

So see?  You don't have to harbor that sympathy for the rich anymore.  They will do just fine, no matter what state they live in and what taxes they pay.

Unions: All for One and One for All

You may have seen these statistics already.  They hit home the reality of what's happening to our middle class in America.  On this blog, Karla Walter, Senior Policy Analyst and David Madland, Director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, wrote:

"The middle class is markedly stronger when workers join together in unions.  The power of unions to create prosperity for working families is well recognized: Organized labor is one of the few voices for the economic interests of the middle class in our government. Unions were key to creating and protecting the social safety net."


Not only are middle class wages decreasing, but as I've demonstrated in previous posts, wages of the rich continue to increase, creating a wider and wider income gap in our country.


The Center for American Progress Action Fund published this article.  It said, 


"The essence of what labor unions do—give workers a stronger voice so that they can get a fair share of the economic growth they help create—is and has always been important to making the economy work for all Americans. And unions only become more important as the economy worsens."


And they provided this interactive map to see what's happening in your state.


Yet with all this data showing how important unions are to all middle class workers, here was the headline from JS online yesterday:  
Unions might drop state status

And here's what it said,

"If Gov. Scott Walker's union bargaining measure becomes law and forces do-or-die recertification votes for public employee unions, some large public unions might simply skip the votes and drop their official status with the state."


I am sad today.

Here's where we are headed middle class, right down to the bottom of the barrel...without a voice.  

Fight on!

Super PACs

Back in this post, I talked about the Citizens United ruling.

Russ Feingold has started a campaign to fight back- Progressives United.  I am proud to be a member of this group.

On April 28th Russ appeared on the Colbert Nation.  Besides providing some comic relief, it also does a great job of explaining the Super PAC.

Sign the pledge against the Super PACs here.

The War on Schools

In February of this year a special issue in Labor Notes focused on the war against public education.

"A handful of conservative billionaires with enormous political and media savvy are leading an all-out war on public education and its unionized teachers. Their initiative is part of a broader attack on all public services and public employee unions. This special section on the following pages outlines the attacks and explores alternatives."

It's a great article and I encourage everyone to read it.

"It’s no coincidence that those fueling and funding school reform are millionaires, billionaires, and large corporations. To believe that their interest lies in helping children would require a suspension of logic and a denial of our history." 

You should also check out this blog post "10 Things Charter Schools Don't Want You to Know" from Modern School, a blog by a public educator in the San Francisco area.  I will adding the blog to my list on the right.

Have you seen Waiting for Superman?  Check out this post, which explain why this film is yet another example of the attack on our public school.

Two Steps Back

It takes an emotional toll, this fight we, the middle class, are fighting.  One step forward, two steps back.
Remember how just a few weeks ago, I posted this: A (Small) Victory for the Middle Class.

And today, this story broke:  Bill voiding sick leave law sent to Walker.

Yesterday the Assembly Republicans sent a bill to Walker that would void the Milwaukee ordinance requiring businesses to provide paid sick leave.  More and more we see businesses running our country.  We've heard the Republican drill:  if we treat businesses well by offering tax cuts and no regulations, then they in turn will create lots of jobs, helping us "lower" class via the trickle down effect.

But what are the results?  The CEO's get richer and the middle class gets poorer.

Want to see even more crystal clear graphics?  Then go here:  Mother Jones.

Wisconsin's Journey in Photos

This photo was taken by Lori Compas, a Wisconsin photographer from Fort Atkinson.
Check out her blog- Traveling Light- for some amazing photos of the Wisconsin protests and most recently, the walk from Whitewater to Madison by UW Whitewater faculty.

Thank you, Lori, for telling our story in photos!

If I Only Had a Heart

On the April 6th show, Rachel Maddow said, "Corporations do not have hearts.  They have profits, they have interests."  She later went on to say, "For corporations seeking profits regardless of the human cost, it is rational, it's business.  And watching out for the humans in that equation- that is what governments are for."

A 2003 article from the San Francisco Chronicle: Corporations not Human, reported on the Supreme Court case, Kasky vs Nike.  "A corporation is an artificial being -- invisible, intangible and existing only in contemplation of law. Being human must be a valid condition for protection under the First Amendment. In effect, the court ruled that there is no constitutional basis for bestowing Bill of Rights protections upon corporations."


Which seems a direct contrast to the recent Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission, which now allows corporations to donate as much as they want to political campaigns.


Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, saying, “In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it."


What can you do?  Go to this website:  Move to Amend  Sign the petition to amend the Constitution.
Get involved in their project- here's an event in the Milwaukee area next weekend.

Columbian Unions

On April 6th the US and Columbia reached a free trade pact which will raise US exports to Columbia by more than $1 million.


The deal came, "after the Colombians agreed to offer greater protections for workers and union leaders, an area of key concern for the U.S."


"The key U.S. concerns in negotiating the Colombia pact focused on high rates of violence against Colombian labor union leaders and insufficient protections for workers' rights. Under the new agreement, the Colombian government will phase in a series of measures throughout the year aimed at increasing protections for labor.

The measures include:

— Expanding by April 22 the scope of existing protections to help union leaders protect labor activists, workers trying to join unions, and former union activists who may be threatened because of past activities.

— Reforming Colombia's criminal code by June 15 to criminalize and penalize actions or threats that could limit workers' rights, including the right to organize.

—Directing Colombia's National Police to assign 95 full-time investigators to support prosecutors handling cases involving crimes against union members by December."


So the US government fights for workers' right to organize and join a union... as long as they're in Columbia.

Pessimistically Optimistic

As we wait to hear the results of the Kloppenburg vs Prosser vote, here's an article from last Friday's Examiner that gives hope.

"The ruling by U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman affirms that collective bargaining rights cannot be overturned by governmental edict. Guzman told the Legislature 'it had no business trying to interfere with collective bargaining'" 

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

Here's an excerpt from Martin Luther King III on the Unions.org blog.

"Forty-three years ago my father, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated while he was in Memphis, Tenn., supporting a strike of municipal sanitation workers. It was, in his eyes, more than a quest for a few more dollars in a paycheck. He saw the strike as part of the great struggle of his time—a struggle for democracy, for truth, for justice and for human dignity.

These are the same basic reasons that my father would be joining with millions of other Americans today in supporting public employees in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and other states, where collective bargaining is now under attack.

On April 4, the anniversary of the assassination of my father, I’ll be joining the with thousands of Americans of all races in the nationwide “We Are One” demonstrations supporting America’s public employees, trade unions and working people in a common quest for jobs, justice and decency for all citizens. In this endeavor, we seek the support of all Americans of good will."

http://wisaflcio.typepad.com/wisconsin-state-afl-cio-blog/2011/04/we-are-one-wi.html

It's What I've Been Saying

Last night, Rachel said what I've already been saying- that last year the CEOs of this country did very well for themselves (some of those which we, the American People, bailed out) while the rest of us...not so well.

Here are the resources she sited:

USA Today:  CEO pay soars while workers' pay stalls

McClatchy: Strong corporate profits amid weak economy- What's up with that?

Here's the interesting thing- if you read the McClatchy article, here's what it says:

"Regalia and other analysts think several factors are behind the strong profits, which seem to contradict other indicators of an underperforming economy, especially the 8.9 percent unemployment rate. These factors include record low interest rates since late 2008, muted demand for borrowing by companies and a surge in productivity that has allowed companies to do more with the same number of workers or fewer.

Profits aren't rising solely because companies are making and selling more widgets to keep up with customer demand, which would be the case in a healthy, booming economy. Instead, they're more profitable because it now costs less to make the same widget, often because there are far fewer workers needed to make it."

Listen, I can read between the lines as much as anybody.  Here's what this really means- companies got rid of their workers when the economy tanked.  The rest of the employees were expected to do twice as much work to take on the load and they did it because they didn't want to lose their jobs.  Now that things are getting better, CEOs are making more because profits are up.  But are they hiring more employees and helping our nation's unemployment?  No.  Are they spreading the wealth by raising wages of those employees they do have?  No.


I do not feel badly for these CEOs.


And with all these people in the private sector doing more work for the same or less pay, it's no wonder they are upset.  But rather than blame the true cause of this situation- corporate greed- some blame the public sector unions for the situation.


This is why all hard working Americans must ban together- not fight amongst each other.  WE bailed out these companies who CAUSED this problem.  When do we get rewarded for our hard work?  They certainly are!

"Wins" for the Middle Class

Whether or not the Budget Repair Bill ultimately gets passed, the victory lies in the fact that no matter how "right" Governor Walker feels his ideas for Wisconsin are, he and those on his side are not above the law.

And in Indiana, the middle class was heard.

Said Indiana House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, whose Statehouse return Monday was greeted by cheering union workers, "We won a battle, but we recognize the war goes on."


The fight goes on across the country for those of us who are tired of "sharing" the sacrifice.


Richard Thayer said, "Rather than pointing fingers of blame at unions demanding that their quality of life be reduced to the level of non-union members, we should be pointing those fingers at corporations and demanding that some of those obscene profits they’re making be paid out to their hard-working employees, the ones whose productivity and creativity are making those profits possible."


(I urge you to read what Thayer had to say in its entirety.)


Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has introduced legislation imposing a surtax on households earning one million dollars or more and elimination of tax loopholes oil companies take advantage of.  Now that sounds more like "shared" to me!

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

Any 5th grader should be able to tell you what Separation of Powers means and why Checks and Balances are so important to this messy thing we call Democracy.


The race between Prosser and Kloppenburg has brought this topic to the forefront in Wisconsin. 
Here's a quote from the Oshkosh Northwestern from last week:


"If there is any doubt about the impending collapse of the "checks and balances" that three independent branches of government represent, consider this statement from Prosser's campaign manager. 'Our campaign efforts will include building an organization that will return Justice Prosser to the bench, protecting the conservative judicial majority and acting as a common sense complement to both the new (Republican) administration and legislature.'"


And from the Lakeland Times this week.  


"The citizens of Wisconsin expect and deserve that their Supreme Court justices be independent and render impartial and fair rulings. They expect their justices to exercise sound judgment, avoiding even the hint of impropriety. They deserve honorable justices who would recuse themselves if there is a conflict of interest."


But this is a nationwide epidemic- our justices seem to be taking political sides rather than remaining impartial and independent.


Like Justice Scalia and the Tea Party

And Clarence Thomas and the Koch brothers

It's scary stuff to think about these extremist conservative politicians wanting to run government like a business (see last post) and our checks and balances system run by extremist conservative justices.

Fight back America's middle class.  Let your voice be heard!  I'll see you at the polls April 5th!

The CEO of Wisconsin

Otherwise titled "The Privatization of Government"

Can Government really be run like a business?  

No, said James Beattie Morison this past February, because their goals are different.

"if only government adhered to business principles, the United States would be solvent, more efficient, and more prosperous." As with all trivializations in economics, this one resonates well with the public. But it is dangerously wrong, says this article.


And in a 2002 report by James E. Roper, the author makes a very strong case for why government should not be run like a business, including this quote:


"The conclusion that this country would no longer be a democracy if government decisions were made on the business model points to the most profound deficiency in the idea that government should function like a corporation: The individual rights and freedoms that are the foundation of our society would cease to exist. In their defense of taxes, The Cost of Rights, Holmes and Sunstein argue that all rights presuppose an elaborate and costly infrastructure of courts and law enforcement (1999). Without such institutional support, rights and related liberties cannot be sustained. Even if the "law" recognizes them, rights and liberties cease to function if they cannot be defended; and they cannot be preserved without an infrastructure dedicated to maintaining them (1999)."


Frederick E. Allen of Forbes has included additional links to people who have argued that government can not be run like business.


The business model is good for business- let's leave it there. 

Let My Voice Be Heard

I refuse to be a victim of those in power, either political power or financial power.  I will do everything I can to make my voice heard.  Here's a list of things I will be contacting people about.  You may want to have your voice heard as well.

Call In Day To Block Social Security Cuts

On March 28 and 29, join the Social Security coalition in a National Call-In to protect Social Security.  To reduce the federal deficit, some in Washington are proposing deep cuts to Social Security benefits.  We need to stop them.  Social Security belongs to the people who pay for it in every paycheck.  Don’t let Congress cut benefits, raise the retirement age, or reduce the COLA.  Senators Sanders (I-VT) and Reid (D-NV) have introduced the Social Security Protection amendment to block cuts to Social Security.  Call your U.S. Senators on March 29th and 30th, by dialing 1-866-251-4044.  Tell them: Hands off Social Security!  Vote YES on the Sanders-Reid Social Security Protection Amendment! Our Students’ Future At Stake —They Are Counting On Congress For Support! As Congress returns from their district work period, negotiations will continue on a long-term continuing resolution (CR) to fund programs through the end of the current fiscal year (September 30, 2011).  The current short-term CR will expire on April 8; Congress must act on a full-year CR prior to that date to avoid a government shutdown.  At stake is funding for critical education programs like Title I, IDEA special education, and Pell Grants – programs that are critical to ensuring every student the opportunity to succeed in the 21st century.  Compromise will be necessary to get any bill passed.  But, conservative Members will be pushing for deep cuts in education and other programs.  Your voice is critical to keep up the pressure for investments in education.  Take Action TODAY:  Tell Congress to craft a continuing resolution that invests in education for our nation’s future.  We Are One: Stand Up For Workers’ Rights On April 4 On April 4, 1968, 43 years ago in Memphis, a long struggle for human rights and human dignity ended in the tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but it brought economic justice and the respect that all people deserve to 1,300 city sanitation workers. On April 4 this year, the anniversary of Dr. King’s death, labor unions, civil rights organizations, and religious leaders will stand together across this country for the same human rights and human dignity for working men and women.  We will remember the courage and determination of Dr. King and those workers who endured assault and arrest as they walked a picket line for two months.  We have stood together as one with public workers across this country whose bargaining rights are under attack, with private workers who can’t get bargaining rights, and against those politicians and their allies who want to silence our political voice. On April 4, 2011, on the job, in our schools and in our communities, we will remind our elected officials that workers rights are human rights, and that those rights will not be destroyed. Learn more about We Are One Stand with those struggling to defend collective bargaining rights.  Sign theNEA National Petition for Workers' Rights.

Reliable Plating Works Update

Just wanted to share the email I sent Reliable tonight in response to the comments their president made in the JS Online article.

Dear Mr. Jaime Maliszewski:

I am a full time working mother, and I was deeply saddened by your comments in today's JS Online article about the Milwaukee Sick Pay Law.  I admit, I did not know too much about your company, so I did a little research.  I read about your grandfather starting the company that your father worked at, and which you and your brothers followed suit.  And I also read about the tough times RPW, along with so many other businesses, has had to go through in this recession.  I do not pretend to know your situation or the situation of your workers.  But I do know my situation and that of my family.  And when you made comments against the Sick Pay Law, I was angered.  You see, as a working member of the middle class, I too have suffered from the recession.  I have seen more and more of the benefits I received as a worker taken away or reduced.  I, like so many others, am paying more for health care.  My husband and I saw the money we had worked so hard for disappear from our retirement accounts when the market crashed.  And we have given up on our dreams of sending our kids to college.  Both my husband and I are facing layoffs from our jobs.  To me, giving workers paid sick time is a small concession a business can make for its employees.  It's disheartening to see in Milwaukee CEO's of companies like Harley-Davidson and Sensient Technologies making millions of dollars while my employer is talking of cutting my pay and eliminating my sick time.  I do not work in Milwaukee, but I would hope that instead of banning together to fight the Sick Pay Law, companies like yours would ban together with workers to try to improve Wisconsin worker's conditions across the state.  I will end this letter with a quote from your brother Jeff on your website:

"Superior quality doesn't just mean happier customers and higher profits.  It means the satisfaction of a job well done and a company that fulfills its promise of excellence."  How about being a leader in our state and fulfilling a promise of excellent treatment of workers- or at the very least supporting workers in their struggle to support their families by having paid sick time- a very small concession in my opinion for the hard work we do for our employers.  It is a matter of mutual respect.

Sincerely, 

Jane