The Patronage for Political Hacks Bill

How dare you suggest gutting labor rights (4.00 / 4)

might have something to do with corruption and patronage!


birch paper; on Twitter @deanbarker

---

by: Dean Barker @ Wed Mar 23, 2011 at 17:37:27 PM CDT

Patronage was the order of the day until the advent of the Federal Tort Claims (0.00 / 0)

Act and state variants after World War II in response to fraud in military contracting.  Now public officials had better not make arbitrary and/or capricious decisions or they'll be personally sued by disaffected entities who perceive themselves to be injured by the preferential treatment.  Private corporations provide somewhat more protection for individual officers and then, of course, private corporations can hide behind "patent rights" and "proprietary information" and privacy rights.  All of which account in part for the rush to privatization and contracting out by public officials who don't want to be personally liable.  One suspects that Republicans became convinced that fair notice and equitable contracting regulations were just roadblocks thrown up by wimps. Though they were counseled that "tort reform" was required to get back to how favors used to be doled out, I suspect they didn't believe they couldn't do what they wanted once they got into office.

American enterprise has always been dependent on the public teat. Competition was never about doing a good job; it was to get favors and shove the other guys away from the trough. American enterprise was never goal oriented; it was about keeping opponents down.  Favoritism is the name of the game.  That's why affirmative action is so hated.

---

by: hannah @ Wed Mar 23, 2011 at 18:22:57 PM CDT

As a former shop steward, (4.00 / 3)

plant manager, and (currently) small business owner, I can say with some confidence that most private sector non-union employees have little recourse in a termination.  What protections they do have are part of the package put together by the management to ward off union organizing efforts.  For example, Pratt & Whitney is recruiting an Employee Relations Manager.  The first job responsibility listed:  Maintain management represented status of the plant.  It also works in reverse - as unions lose influence, employers reduce hr plans.

But I digress.  I don't think it's about patronage, Elwood, although it's probably a bonus for them.  I've given this a lot of thought and here are my take-aways, not in any particular order:

1.  I think that they realize that there's a better than even chance they get thrown out on their ass in 2012, and they don't care.  This is about ramming an ideology down our throats and trying to block off all the return exits (see CACR 6).  

2.  This is partly a punitive strike against a political foe.  If successful, there are serious roadblocks to the only organizing successes in the past 40 years.

3.  Eliminating public sector unions creates management by fiat conditions, which is exactly what Republicans have wanted for years.  Economic instability and vulnerability is a feature in the Republican economic model (Alan Greenspan was an outspoken advocate of this as a tool to tamp down wages.)  Henry Ford is doing cartwheels in the 4rth circle of hell.

4.  If there's a vesting period with the state pension plan, employees who have not been vested could be at risk of termination without union protection.  This could be a back door pension scheme.  I'd love to know what the non-vested portion of dough is in the system.

5.  It's hard to explain what the strategy is in Concord.  I think it's because there is none.  The leadership is simply reacting to the Free Staters and Liberty Caucus members who are churning out ideological bills.  They are burning blowing up bridges with every constituency group in the state - this is not a tenable political strategy, particularly when the very few economic bills you are passing are making things worse.

"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world." A. Einstein

---

by: StraffordDem @ Wed Mar 23, 2011 at 19:04:22 PM CDT

Don't dismiss patronage so quickly. (4.00 / 4)

Imagine a Governor Benson and 3 pliable ECs.

Install a couple of Commissioners and fill an agency with thousands of people who owe you favors.

---

by: elwood @ Wed Mar 23, 2011 at 19:08:09 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Right. I'm not dismissing it, (4.00 / 1)

and I think it's a question that should be asked of and answered by the Republican leadership.

But if this backlashes half as much as I think it will, they lose everything.  Even in passing this would be a Pyrrhic victory.  

On the other hand, the voters have demonstrated that they have very, very, short memories.

"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world." A. Einstein

---

by: StraffordDem @ Wed Mar 23, 2011 at 19:21:01 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

c'mon (4.00 / 2)

saying the voters have 'short memories' is disrespectful to Democrats...In NH this past election we held the same vote total roughly as we turned out in 2006, our 150 year watershed election. Its the undeclared independent voters who drank the Rove Carney Pataki Chamber Kool Aid, that's who we lost, and to whom I would guess you are referring. That's who will be awakened now to the swindle, if we show up in numbers tomorrow and every day they try to kill Collective Bargaining. NH voters are for fairness. Independent undeclared voters swung totally away from the Democrats, a vote against the status quo and the Party in the WH due to economy etc. But they never were told what they were getting. What was in the box was quite different from the picture on the outside.
I think they will be there for us in 2012, if we are there for them now.
They are cops, teachers,firefighters...people who got burned worst by Bush's economy, and who weren't getting any help.

"Freedom ain't nothing if it ain't free" -Kris Kristofferson

---

by: JonnyBBad @ Wed Mar 23, 2011 at 19:40:51 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

No offense meant to those with excellent (4.00 / 1)

memories and the good sense to avoid picking at scabs.  

Your post reminds me, jb, that there has been a bit of detente between Rs and organized labor over the past few years.  Tepid support of the labor status quo opened a window for some union household support for Rs.  We saw this in the MA special election, where Brown received 50% support from union households.  I think we can safely assume that no Republican will get near that level of support from a union household in 2012.  Ken Roos, NH SEIU VP, said last night that there were many R state workers who have told him that they will never cast a ballot for a Republican again.

At another level, in the past, the right wing has been brilliant at splintering progressive groups along cultural fissures.  My sense is that most of these cultural issues are passe, with large majorities in support of equality and fairness as you point out.  Without these issues to divide us, we become much more formidable when our economic stability is threatened.  I'm expecting large blocks of voters to vote with a single, economic voice in 2012.

If you stand with the people, they will love you for it.

 

"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world." A. Einstein

---

by: StraffordDem @ Wed Mar 23, 2011 at 21:18:20 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I'm fascinated by #4, (0.00 / 0)

but I suspect #5 is correct (with an added dash of crass electoral $-raising incentive) for the House.

birch paper; on Twitter @deanbarker

---

by: Dean Barker @ Wed Mar 23, 2011 at 19:51:03 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

On #4 (0.00 / 0)

If a worker leaves before completing 10 years and before turning 60, I believe the state pays out the worker's accumulated pension contributions to him, but keeps the employer contributions.

So, if that's correct, pushing workers out before vesting lets the pension system keep that pot of employer contributions.

---

by: elwood @ Wed Mar 23, 2011 at 20:34:33 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Labor rights (0.00 / 0)

And don't you think the new bargaining tactic will be to propose outrageous terms to employees so that there's no chance of a contract. Then they're at-will and you can just get rid of them.

---

by: Katemck @ Thu Mar 24, 2011 at 10:05:36 AM CDT

We need to watch out (0.00 / 0)

for small town school boards who have been trying to negotiate contracts with teachers and get concessions from them because they are desperate to fund regular education while their budgets are being cut every year.  They are not happy with the unions and I have heard some expressions of intense dislike for collective bargaining.
Now before you immediately begin attacking these people, remember that because of our refusal to deal with our tax structure, they are caught, as elected officials who mostly do love their schools, between a rock and a hard place.  We must address their concerns at some point and the sooner the better.  

---

by: Lucy Edwards @ Thu Mar 24, 2011 at 10:15:58 AM CDT

School board members are the heroes of politics - (0.00 / 0)

All you do is tick more and more people off at you.

(Plus, make things work, as though we value that.)

---

by: elwood @ Thu Mar 24, 2011 at 17:17:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yep (0.00 / 0)

Do you suppose that's been the plan, all along?

The trough of patronage? Yes. They want a political machine to compete with unions, which they consider to be our machinery.

But they also just want the fight. They want a public debate about the power of unions, at a time when unions are already weak.

It's all a great example of a phenomenon I've been calling The Little Republicans That Could. Victory is not as important as just being there and advancing their issues a little bit. Think the Jamaican Bobsled Team, appearing in one Olympics so that appearing at the next one isn't quite as absurd.

---

by: JimC @ Thu Mar 24, 2011 at 12:46:29 PM CDT