Tag "union power"
Back to homepageGood: BART strike backfires badly for unions
July 9, 2013 By Chris Reed When San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi took on the enormous pensions that were hollowing out the city’s budget in 2011, nearly all the big name Democrats in the Bay Area wouldn’t back him
Read MoreGov. Brown says one would ‘think’ Dems for disadvantaged
May 20. 2103 By Chris Reed On Friday, I noted that the state budget scrum always involved a series of hardball power plays that exposed as fiction the idea that the California Democratic Party and the most powerful forces on
Read MoreReuters bests state media at covering San Bernardino’s collapse
April 1, 2013 By Chris Reed If you had to fashion a nut graph to explain why so many local California governments are in deep fiscal trouble, here’s my nominee for an honest generic overview: Over the past 20 years,
Read MoreSan Diego mayor resumes public-employee enrichment schemes
March 14, 2013 By Chris Reed Well, that didn’t take long. Bob Filner — a paleoliberal former Democratic congressman who was elected mayor of San Diego in November — is embracing the same sort of ridiculously generous public-employee compensation policies
Read MoreSome minority L.A. Dems realize unions are dubious allies
March 12, 2013 By Chris Reed The hegemony of Democrats in California is based to a striking degree on the ability of public employee unions — whose leaders and most affluent members are predominantly white — to keep minorities on
Read MoreSan Diego mayor embraces voter nullification
March 1, 2013 By Chris Reed In 2006, San Diego voters gave a landslide win to a ballot measure that would force groups of city workers to compete against private firms for the right to provide city services in a
Read MoreRepublican lawmaker touts bill pushed by labor bullies
Feb. 21, 2013 By Chris Reed You don’t have to be a union hater to be amazed at all the different ways labor decides to make its Sacramento puppets jump through hoops. The latest example is legislation that would require
Read MoreEdSource look at superintendent turnover ignores union elephant
Dec. 8, 2012 By Chris Reed There are none so blind as those who will not see. EdSource does a 1,500-word analysis of a new study showing far higher turnover of superintendents in large school districts than smaller ones in
Read MoreJoe Mathews weighs in on CalWatchdog piece
Dec. 5, 2012 By Chris Reed Joe Mathews, one of the least ideological mainstream California political pundits, has weighed in on the analysis I did last week on the evidence that unions are trying to stifle direct democracy in California
Read MoreThe union assault — covert and overt — on direct democracy
Nov. 30, 2012 By Chris Reed For decades, signature-gathering to win placement of measures on the local or state ballot in California has followed a basic script. Once proponents gathered some 30 percent more signatures than the minimum threshold necessary,
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