How stupid and outrageous is this? How low can they go?

A rightwing think tank in Harrisburg has paid a dozen people to hand out flyers against the union in Philadelphia.

Can’t they find anyone who actually agrees with them instead of paying people?

Categories Philadelphia, Unions

17 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

GST says:

October 15, 2014 at 8:03 pm

Not surprising since the Commonwealth Foundation has been a leader in Pennsylvania fighting to end public employee pensions, teachers’ union dues deduction, and Obamacare. Their web site features strong advocacy for cyber charters and right to work (for less) laws.

By the way the NEA is calling on its local members to walk with the Philadelphia PFT members tomorrow. I will be there to support my wife, a proud Philadelphia K-2 life skills teacher who, against all odds, continues to make a positive difference in the lives of her students. Tom Corbett and his 1% Commmonwealth Foundation are a disgrace.

LikeLike

Reply
- Linda says:
  
  October 16, 2014 at 10:06 am
  
  Municipal and state foundations, that appear as philanthropies, by using names like Columbus Foundation and Cleveland Foundation, seem to consistently support charter schools. I infer from their websites, an objective to create an image of Anglo-Saxon largesse for disadvantaged urban youth. The charter school funding projects, pose along side, lofty-sounding projects, that employ terms like “green” to suggest environmental concern. It’s an effective strategy.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
wgersen says:

October 16, 2014 at 6:54 am

Work is hard to find in Philadelphia, so it’s a good thing that these conservatives are creating jobs! Given the scripted lessons provided by some of the for-profit charters in Philadelphia handing out leaflets is not that different from handing out worksheets or monitoring rooms full of kids looking at screens. And t least these people handing out flyers are not “takers”…

LikeLike

Reply
Chiara says:

October 16, 2014 at 8:23 am

I live in the rural rust belt in Ohio, so we still have labor unions here. It’s a working and middle class area. People sometimes hire me to help them with figuring out their retirement- budget, assets (just a house, usually) and such when they get old and can no longer work and also who gets what should they die.
The people who were in a union are much better off. It’s just a fact, and the difference between the two groups is huge.
If you’re not a manager or an owner and you’re in a union, my advice would be stay in one. I think you really need to look at the non-union workforce compared to the union workforce when they can no longer work to get an accurate idea of just how bad it is out there for working class/middle class people. They really have nothing, in fact, they’re lucky if they aren’t in negative territory (debt) and they are terrified.
It’s compounded by the fact that there’s so little enforcement of even existing federal and state law as far as worker protections, and that gets worse every year. You have to remember that along with the anti-labor lobbying there is also lobbying to gut any federal and state worker protections. The two things are happening at the same time.
I can’t imagine what this place will look like in 20 years, when the entire “secure” retired working/middle class is gone. There are going to be a lot more old people who are, as a practical matter, poor, and who can no longer work.

LikeLike

Reply
- FLERP! says:
  
  October 16, 2014 at 8:27 am
  
  People have a remarkable tendency to keep their heads down and go about their business until the moment they can’t. But I think senior citizen poverty will be widely seen as a full-blown crisis in the US in 10 or 20 years.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  - Chiara says:
    
    October 16, 2014 at 8:43 am
    
    I think they are “keeping their heads down” because they’re working and trying to stay afloat, though. They know. They just don’t know what to do about it, and really there’s not much they can do about it. They’re barely making it day to day.
    I’m amazed at what employers get away with now. It’s like they know there’s no longer any real enforcement of worker protections and people would have to join a class action or something to enforce existing laws. I think there was such lax enforcement over the last 2 decades they eventually figured out complying with these laws is essentially voluntary. I think we’ll see less and less compliance because not complying offers a competitive advantage and there’s no real sanction for pushing right to the limit (and really well beyond).
    
    LikeLike
  - FLERP! says:
    
    October 16, 2014 at 8:57 am
    
    The problem is that people have no savings, or not nearly enough savings, for retirement. That includes a lot of people who make what many would consider a lot of money. If you don’t have a defined benefit pension or a couple million dollars in the bank, the best plan may be to drop dead. If you have good life insurance, so much the better.
    
    LikeLike
  - Threatened out West says:
    
    October 16, 2014 at 9:31 am
    
    I pay into three retirement systems: Social Security, my state teachers’ retirement system, and my own private retirement fund. I am 41, and I don’t expect that I will be able to retire until I’m nearly 80, because I don’t expect that two of those three funds will even exist by then. I hope that I don’t have to die while at school, teaching in my 80s.
    
    LikeLike
  - Linda says:
    
    October 16, 2014 at 9:50 am
    
    In an unintended consequence, that resulted from oligarch actions, people are starting fewer new U. S. businesses because of their financial insecurity.
    Workers, who have contributed to the nation’s productivity and failed to receive the “fruit of their labor,” due to an economic system, rigged by people like Romney, the Walton’s and Koch’s, experience poverty.
    If hedge fund owner Pete Peterson has his way, the earned, fair, popular and solvent Social Security will be abandoned, which is a call to action, for voters. We must stop those plutocrats, who are a scourge on society.
    
    LikeLike
  - teachingeconomist says:
    
    October 16, 2014 at 1:55 pm
    
    Here is a chart of the poverty rate by age from 1959 to 2010. In 1959 it was estimated that 35% of those over the age of 65 lived in poverty. The figure in 2010 was 9%
    
    Click to access figure5.pdf
    
    LikeLike
  - FLERP! says:
    
    October 16, 2014 at 2:19 pm
    
    LikeLike
  - Michael Fiorillo says:
    
    October 16, 2014 at 2:38 pm
    
    It probably won’t take that long: statistics indicate that the overwhelming majority of the Baby Boom cohort will have insufficient income during retirement, and thousands of them are filing for Social Security every day.
    
    Add the fact that defined benefit pensions are fast becoming a thing of the past – at this point, it’s basically just public sector workers who have them, and we all see them being targeted – and a somewhat secure retirement will the stuff of legend for all but a small minority of the population.
    
    Soylent Green Is People!
    
    LikeLike
FLERP! says:

October 16, 2014 at 9:02 am

I’m just impressed that Harrisburg has a “think tank.”

LikeLike

Reply
Chiara says:

October 16, 2014 at 12:31 pm

FLERP!
October 16, 2014 at 8:57 am
The problem is that people have no savings, or not nearly enough savings, for retirement.

I disagree as far as working class and middle class people. This always gets turned into a discussion of how people who can afford to “don’t save” for retirement.

The people I’m talking to “don’t save” for retirement because their wages haven’t gone up in real terms for more than a decade. That’s real. It means these specific people, 25 to 35k, cannot save anything for retirement because they don’t have enough money. They’re not irresponsible. They just haven’t had an increase in wages for more than a decade. That has an actual effect on their real life, over time, and I’m seeing it.

It’ll ripple, too, because they won’t pass any property (wealth) to the next generation. They never had much to pass, but they usually had something, and 10k in a lump sum is the downpayment for a house in this county. Their grown children won’t get that. They’ll start less well-off than their parents did, because most of their parents got the 10k from THEIR parents.

I don’t even know where some of these older people are going to live when they can’t work. They better build some low income housing, stat.

LikeLike

Reply
- FLERP! says:
  
  October 16, 2014 at 12:42 pm
  
  Sorry, I didn’t mean that people have foolishly chosen not to save. That’s probably true for a lot of people, although who among us isn’t foolish. I just meant that they have no savings (or not enough).
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
- FLERP! says:
  
  October 16, 2014 at 12:44 pm
  
  Re: your last paragraph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOV8mBjHHYg
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
- Linda says:
  
  October 16, 2014 at 9:44 pm
  
  The 1% don’t need a reminder that the loss of 401k savings to fees, is estimated at 40%. They rigged the system to take the workers’ retirement savings.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply