LaborPains.org

Over at EmployerReport’s blog.

I got into Paris around 6am local time on Sunday and was able to relax a bit during the day to take in the sites. I thought that there would be some visible impact after the big transportation strike, but it seems like its a distant memory already. Many French folks have claimed that although the strike may seem long (more than a week!) to Americans its really nothing to the French. I’ve in US media how it was described as a major victory for Sarkozy’s new govt, but here the perceptions are that concessions were made on both sides.

That’s from NAM’s man on the ground, Keith Smith.

In New Hampshire, they’re wondering what they get for all the money they send to SEIU headquarters in Washington, D.C.:

The SEA pays $1.6 million a year to be in the SEIU, according to the resolution passed to create the committee. At the same time, the resolution says, the SEIU’s 2005 split from the AFL-CIO has sparked a “loss of solidarity” with other unions in New Hampshire.

“The real question is why are we spending that much money and what are we getting out of it,” said former SEA president Tim Decker, a co-sponsor of the resolution.
After the split with the AFL-CIO, Decker said, the competition for fragments of the SEA grew fierce.

“That means they can’t really protect us from other unions raiding us, other AFL-CIO unions,” he said.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. The folks from the Center for Union Facts wish you happy holidays. Unless you’re a union official trying to steal time-honored rights, in which case you should probably read our article in today’s Detroit News.

That’s Nicholas Sarkozy on ongoing French public transit employee strikes. (PLUS: 30% more intrigue and sabotage!)

Harold Meyerson has been called many things.

In other news, Meyerson used his space in the Washington Post this morning to parrot the complaints of labor leaders angry at the National Labor Relations Board. Meyerson, always one to get his dander up for unions, echoed their gripes of an allegedly unfair board — whose recent record did a lot to improve the rights of employees. Hopefully we’ll  get around to more on the substance of his screed later, but it’s amusing to note that Meyerson defends this “outburst” — while the picture below shows just how impassioned the protesters union staff were:

The Associated Press reports that yesterday Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told an assemblage of Iowa teachers that paying them according to their performance “could be demeaning and discouraging.” Clinton also fretted about “who would decide” which teachers would receive merit bonuses.

This is leadership? Paying teachers more for teaching well is a pretty clear way to improve teacher quality, which pretty clearly affects the quality of a kid’s learning. Teachers unions don’t like the idea for a variety of reasons (and Clinton needs their political machines to keep her “inevitability” up), including the reason that teachers paid like professionals (i.e., according to individual performance) might see less need for a union to bargain on their collective behalf.

Fortunately for schoolkids suffering from a lack of quality teachers, however, Clinton did boldly propose a way out of America’s educational morass: school uniforms. As my fellow blogger Bret puts it, you can dress up Clinton’s plans for reform however you like, but it is a naked attempt to protect entrenched union power.

John Powell has the story from Alabama:

“…the employees attempted to return to their jobs Tuesday morning. Wise officials said Steelworkers union employees were being intimidated at the employee entrance to the plant by employees who are still on strike.”

“Wise officials also reported, however, that a former employee, who was demonstrating in the picket line, dived onto the hood of a vehicle that was entering the plant.”