#355 – Dick Bernard: The Public "Lambs to the Slaughter"

/in , /by

Today’s Wall Street Journal had a very clear front page headline (click on photos to enlarge them).

Wall Street Journal page 1 April 4, 2011


The essentials are easily read: “Medicare”; “under the age of 55”; “cut government spending”….
The aim, of course, is not at all to “cut spending”. Rather, it is to cut government control of that spending, so as to facilitate making even more money at the hands of the helpless.
Here’s a simple example:
As it happened, today I was paying a bill to an Emergency Care facility. The essence of the bill is below.
It is a reasonable bill: the “You Now Owe” column showed $49.42.

(I had a bad sore throat, and I went to the neighborhood facility rather than wait till the next week and drive 20 miles to my primary care doctor. I had a simple throat culture to check for Strep and went home….)
The Bill is pretty self-explanatory. The apparent hourly rate for the procedure I had is $675.00 an hour (I was billed for 20 minutes). I’m on Medicare, and Medicare paid $19.61. More important, Medicare disallowed $155.97 of the bill, leaving me owing $49.42. In all, I’d estimate less than 10 minutes time with a nurse and then with a doctor during this visit. As anyone who’s visited a doctor’s office knows, waiting alone is most of the time spent.
I have no idea, of course, on what the $675 per hour figure is based. It could simply be a conjured up number. The fact of the matter is, however, that it is a number declared by the provider.
Another fact of the matter is that the entirety of that Government money at all levels is ultimately spent on all of the things government budgets are spent on: wages, materials, etc., etc. The vast majority of that spending ultimately goes to purchase something from the economy.
The issue is not the money; it is the control of the money. Apparently, in my case, the provider of the care would have preferred to ring up a tab of $225, but Medicare thought that was about $175 too much.
Without Medicare, the bill I had to pay would have been much, much higher.
Of course, the same business community that chafes at any controls on its ability to make money, has no qualms whatever in attempting to interfere with workers rights to organize and bargain. That’s just how business is…competition is good, so long as the winner is known.
So is how it goes with economics dominated by greed.
A few hours earlier, CBS’ 60 Minutes had an excellent segment on the war between banks and huge numbers of people whose homes are being repossessed. The segment is well worth watching. Succinctly, banks hired out the task of reconstructing missing documents to a firm that subcontracted out to another firm who had employees fraudulently sign paperwork for submission to Court. One person interviewed said his quota was 350 signatures an hour, for $10 an hour wages. The responsible banks refused requests for interviews, and blamed the subcontractor for their misdeeds. And these are people we trust?
Sooner than later – hopefully before it’s too late – common people, of which I am one, will realize in large enough numbers that they are being played for fools by big money and big business, and all that stands between them and disaster is a reasonably strong government which can effectively regulate the bandits among us who make a huge amount of money.

#351 – Dick Bernard. A Cup of Coffee at Wally's in Westchester

/in , , /by

A brief trip to Chicago in early March was to attend the burial of my Uncle Art.
As it happened, my hotel was in the “village” of Westchester (pop. app 17,000), a middle class suburb where my Uncle and family had lived for over 20 years till his first wife died and he remarried and moved about 1980. I had visited Westchester with some frequency back then, so I knew the town pretty well, and it was an opportunity to re-see it.
For many years I have made a practice of seeking out the local “flavor” when I travel. So, on Saturday, March 5, the hotel offered breakfast with the room charge, but I got in the car and wandered back into Art’s old neighborhood to find something in the neighborhood, and finally noticed a promising sign:

Wally’s was in one of those ubiquitous small shopping strips that dot American communities. It was your standard “coffee and donut” place. I was the only customer at the time I entered.
Westchester is a middle class professional community, and Wally’s was not fancy as I would have expected, actually quite spare in its decor.
Something immediately caught my eye. Posted very visibly, twice, was an article from the April 9, 2010, Chicago Tribune. I read the article. The proprietor Walid Elkhatib, had been a franchise holder for one of those immense donut and coffee chains, and in 2010 had lost his franchise after a long legal battle over his refusal to market a certain kind of sandwich which went against his Muslim beliefs. The article was fascinating, and I wanted to talk to “Wally” but he wasn’t there at the time.
A little later he came in, a very engaging sort of guy. Customers came and went. Wally had a particular affinity for youngsters, and had a bowl of donut holes he called “munchkins” for the young children.
I lingered a bit longer and had an opportunity to talk briefly with him. He’d been in business since 1977, he said. With full knowledge of the franchise company, he didn’t market the sandwich because of his beliefs, and there were no questions.
But ultimately after September 11, 2001, the corporation turned up the heat, and the end result was his losing his franchise – huge loss. All that remained was his storefront, on which he held the lease, and a local trade which he had known for many years.
When I walked in the place, I had no idea of the earlier corporate link. After I knew, it all fit together (his apple fritters are delicious, just like in the old corporate stores you’ll find in every state.)
He and I had never met before, and didn’t have much of an opportunity to chat, but there was lots of content in those few minutes we visited.
It is clear to me, particularly from an earlier Chicago Tribune article, that the sandwich really wasn’t the issue; it was Wally’s religion and the post-9-11 hysteria that led to his downfall.
The community? It is predominantly white, Christian, middle class, professional.
He said that the local community gave and gives him very strong support. The legal issue was between the Corporation and himself. He lost.
He’d planned to retire, but the legal case did lots of damage to his savings, and he needs to keep the business.
I hope to be able to stay in touch with him.
I wish I had a photo of Wally behind the counter, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to take a photo at the time. I came back later, and he’d left for a couple of hours, and I couldn’t return….
(I couldn’t come up with an internet copy of the Chicago Tribune article posted in his shop, or the specific court case. I will keep looking.)
NOTE: This history of this post goes back to a simple act of kindness shown by a Muslim family in western North Dakota in 1953-54, as described in my September 5, 2010, blog entry.

#350 – Dick Bernard: Part 18. The Scourge of Half-thought, and the danger….

/in , , , /by

Today I was at the local copy place, making a photo copy of my mother’s first contract as a teacher. Busch Esther 1929 contra001.
At the next copier, a young woman was making large numbers of copies on colored paper. A somewhat older woman, though much younger than I, was with her.
We struck up a brief conversation. It turned out that the younger woman was a 4th grade teacher in a neighboring public school district. I gave her a copy of Mom’s 1929 contract. The other woman was the teacher’s mother. “Teaching is a really hard job“, the Mom said, referring to her daughter. Shortly into my Mom’s contract the great economic crash of 1929 occurred. I wonder….
Earlier I had sent around a commentary recently written by a veteran of many years in the trenches of public education, particularly teacher union work. I’d like the young woman to have this commentary as well, but likely will not ever hear from her or meet her again. But for the readers of this blog, here is Bob Barkley’s commentary. (Disclaimer: Bob Barkley is a good friend whose professional career mirrored mine, though at the national level and in another state.)
Later in the afternoon my wife and I watched 60 Minutes and saw a segment on the revision and treatment of a certain word – the “N” word – in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. The segment featured teachers and students at our local high school, one mile from our home. It was a surprise to say the least. And excellent. It was refreshing to see an example of real discussion and debate within the public school setting involving teachers and students.
Economically, most all of us live in almost heavenly economic conditions compared to Mom and those farmers she worked for in 1929-30.
But public policy, especially public education, is, and has for years become, a major ideologic battleground in the United States. It is a hard, uncertain, place to be.
At the moment, at least, the juggernaut that is the “Power” establishment seems to have the upper hand in setting in place regressive public policies under the many guises presented: “reform”, diminishing or destroying the impact of unions, controlling curriculum, bringing that young woman’s salary and benefits to heel, et al. The young lady has more to worry about than those colored sheets of paper she was working with.
I have come to observe an alarming degree of what seems to be half-thought by most everyone in society, most especially Power People – the ones who can do the most damage. (By “half thought” I mean an utter lack of thinking through anything beyond the short term “win” or “loss”.) There are endless examples. People see an issue only through their own lens, and at the moment. The long term is what happens now, this year, on our own terms. In fact, “half-thought” might be giving far more credit than deserved. We want exactly what we want, now. Too often, we want what we want required of others, too.
The young teacher I saw this afternoon is likely too tired and overwhelmed with doing what she is supposed to do in the classroom to pay much mind to things like attempts to destroy her rights to collective representation or due process for dismissal or anything like that. She’s too young to remember the struggle to get what she has. There are legions like her, too busy to think of anything beyond doing what they’re directed to do.
In the 60 Minutes segment, the issue being “debated”, between two obviously highly professional colleagues, could be decided, case closed, by implementation of state or federal Laws limiting or eliminating their options – closing off their debate. You win or you lose. Period.
There are winners and losers in the half-thought society I mention above. The winners prevail in getting the RIGHTS to decide. The losers are given the RESPONSIBILITY to do what is imposed on them. It is not healthy for winners or losers or our society.
I still quite often see a TV commercial for a particular alcoholic beverage which seems to touch this issue. It is apparently a play on a more famous quotation, “With great privilege comes great responsibility“. The commercials says: ‘With [enjoyment of this] great [alcoholic beverage] comes great responsibility.” In other words, get drunk with our product, but don’t blame us afterwards….
It would be good for the movers and shakers – those out to “win” at any cost – to pay very serious attention to the “responsibility” piece, the long and global view.
As for the rest, the victims of this Power-grab, I hope they get themselves organized and that they hang in there.
They, not the rich and powerful, are the salvation of this country of ours.
There’s will be a really, really difficult job. But if they lose, we will all lose.

#344 – Dick Bernard: Part 14. We're witnessing a deadly game in which we're the ultimate victims.

/in , , /by

The bizarre drama that is Wisconsin continues to play itself out.
It is a very high stakes and scary game, where an ideological fringe has, for the moment, managed to seize control of the government and is asserting its will. In the end the ultimate victims of this power play, the working middle class, will be the ones relied on to drive a stake through their own heart by allowing a highly financed, amoral and truly vicious political machine to demolish workers rights in favor of big business and the very wealthy.
Wisconsin is the test for all the rest of us.
I believe Wisconsin’s – and our – democracy is still strong enough to self-correct over time. But Wisconsin will be a very major test of the foolishness of our tendency as Americans to make our politics simply a spectator sport or, far worse, make politics into something that is beneath us, mostly because we do not wish to become engaged at any level.
Sometimes I wonder if we are our own worst enemies…that we loathe ourselves…that we don’t deserve fair treatment and good wages and working conditions. We seem to be easily taught to be passive.
There are far more than enough members of the working middle class to turn the tables on the big and very selfish Power interests, but will they? That is an open question. (The poor are unlikely to engage for good reason: their struggle is simply to survive. Their ranks are rapidly increasing.)
Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune carried an excellent Los Angeles Times column which does a good job of defining some of the issues.
Locally, Steve Berg in the on-line newspaper MinnPost had an equally excellent commentary.
But opinions are just opinions, and in the end analysis it has to be the people – every one of us – who will collectively decide whether they deserve better or worse. We can collectively engage, or choose to stay unengaged, saying “it’s their problem”, etc.

I get the notion that our entire society is victimized by its tendency to engage in what I might call “half thinking”; we are a society which has no vision beyond our own vision for our own moment in time. Cartoonists regularly describe us as Ma and Pa in our easy chairs watching TV and spouting off to each other…. The cartoonists have us nailed.
Watch the debate – or more, the lack of debate. Those of us who are doing okay cannot conceive of the possibility that things will not be okay. We think that somebody else’s government benefit, including his or her employment, is wasteful and should be eliminated; while forgetting that someone else thinks the same about our own benefits, regardless of where those benefits originate. We think things half-way through, or less.
I am constantly amazed at the short-sighted big business attitude, basically dictated by Wall Street these days, which focuses on making the quarterly (three months) “numbers”. Corporate leaders should not only know better, but they have huge organizations where there should be “vision” people who can identify long-term consequences of short term profit oriented benefits. Squeezing profits out of working people’s wages and benefits in the short term inevitably cuts into the corporations profits long term, and there are no alternative markets equal to even come close to the old United States consumer spending engine.
At this writing, it appears that the Republican majority in Wisconsin will “succeed” in the short term, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory for them, even if they stave off recall or election challenges. But everyone will suffer. It is risky business to begin a downward spiral, and that is what is now happening.
Caveat emptor. Get off the couch that is your comfort zone and get engaged.
Postnote: A couple of days ago a very level headed person I’m getting to know, an engineer by training, career corporate employee, quite well known and very actively engaged politically, sent me a note, as follows. In this case we were discussing public education, and he was talking about a report that was issued by a reform-minded special interest group 28 years ago. What he says applies to everything in our public sphere today:
“As you said, the intentions have been hijacked by groups who have a different agenda. Only a few people recognize the marketing, the propaganda and the massive attack on public awareness is an intentional strategy developed and funded by incredibly well-organized behind-the-scenes groups. Some of these initiative groups have no personal animosity to the people they damage, but they have no respect for humans either. I read an excellent blog post today. It covers Vallay Varro, the new director of MinnCAN, another shadow group. I agree with him, she has been bought.
We have been conditioned when to pay attention, and when to ignore. How else can we justify, based on a lie, invading a country [Iraq] uninvolved in 9/11, bombing their infrastructure back to the ’50’s and killing more than 100,000 of their innocent citizens? Then we go the church!
Most recently I happened onto the BBC documentary “The Century of the Self”.
I am [getting on in years], and this documentary opened my eyes to things that I suspected and feared, but never thought so true. We in America have been so distracted that our society depends on others making the important evaluations and decisions for us. Watch the video as soon as you can, maybe even twice (as I am doing) and extrapolate it to other mass manipulations done to us, known and unknown.”
NOTE: Part 1 of this uninterrupted series began with a post on February 17, 2011. While the issue is extremely important, other topics will become a more regular feature. Future posts on the topic of Wisconsin and public employment specifically will be labeled Part 15, etc.

#339 – Dick Bernard: Part 9. The Rich

/in , , , , /by

Pretty clearly, the Rich have won, at least temporarily. Not the ordinary rich, but the Filthy Rich.
Take a moment to look at what “rich” means, thanks to a series of charts published in Mother Jones magazine.
Then, there’s an interesting commentary entitled “Koch Dreams” which refers to a David Koch piece in the Wall Street Journal, and some counterpoint. That is here.
There are over 2500 comments to the Mother Jones piece. One can get a flavor by just looking at a few of them.
I am always interested in the apologies/justifications for the Rich folks: they’ve earned it, they deserve it; it’s to their credit, etc. The poor, were they not such dolts, could do as well. The America dream is open to everyone, or so the Ayn Randians suggest. Go for it.
For some of the rich, money does indeed grow on trees…until the tree dies. Ask the supposedly savvy folks who queued up to be accepted as investors by Bernard Madoff. Each of them had heard of the risk pyramid – the greater the return, the greater the risk. But the siren song of guaranteed high returns on investments proved irresistible. And then the crash came and they lost anything, and it is everyone’s fault but theirs. They earned that money, they say. Until it disappeared.
There are lots of followers of Bernie Madoff-likes….
Money does grow on trees, only because it is abundantly fertilized by those of less means. It is the middle and lower classes that fuel wealth in this and other countries. One wonders, then, why the wealthy is obsessed with making the middle class poorer, and weaker, and the lower class destitute. That is what seems to be happening these days.
If I venture outside my suburb to the inner cities, I’ll come across pan-handlers working very hard to collect enough money for their evening delight, whatever that happens to be – or for their very survival.
If I accept the stereotype – that it’s cheap booze they’re after – they have to buy the booze, and in so doing contribute to an entire food chain of wealth, right up to the super wealthy. That panhandler contributes to the wealth of that entrepreneur who markets the cheap wine. It’s legitimate business. But without the addict, it would be a little more difficult for the rich guy.
This doesn’t stop at my communities poor. I have a particular affection for Haiti. If one goes to Haiti these days, the only rice one sees is labeled American rice. That’s because the domestic Haitian rice farming enterprise was deliberately destroyed back in the 1980s by American government policy, giving the long term competitive advantage to American rice growers. Sell cheap rice, drive Haitian farmers out of business, corner the market and increase the prices…. It’s easy.
Haiti is one of the world’s poorest nations. Every time I’d go to a meeting about Haiti someone would ask why there is such an interest in keeping Haiti down. There were a number of different answers.
The one which made the most sense to me was this: there are about 8,000,000 Haitians, and if they have an average resource of $1 a day, perhaps one-fourth of that, a quarter in American dollars, goes for food, usually rice. Doing some simple math, that’s $2,000,000 a day, or $730,000,000 a year – and this in the poorest country in the hemisphere. Low hanging economic fruit.
Bigger picture: the only advantage the rich do not have is the numbers. For every rich person there might be as many as 99 who are not so rich.
This is a known problem for the wealthy, and the strategy is how to keep the vast majority quiet and in chains.
So far they’ve been successful.
But they always live in fear of being found out.
More on that in a following post.

#337 – Dick Bernard: Part 7. Misinformation and sloppy citizenship: An invitation to commit national suicide

/in , , , , /by

An unplanned trip took me out of town most of the last three days. I had planned to write this post about how money ends up in collective bargaining agreements; specifically about supposedly “free” money for Pensions given for Public Workers (a false charge).
I don’t have to write that commentary. David Cay Johnson of Tax.com has “hit the home run” on the issue. You can read it here. I hope you do. Last night after returning home Pat Kessler of WCCO-TV in Minneapolis also did a pretty good job in a minute or two to summarize out this issue as well. But is anyone listening?
In our contemporary society, we seem to prefer opinions over facts. Facts can be troublesome, so if the “wrong” facts surface, the volume of background noise is simply turned up, or the hearing aid is turned off…. In the process we’re killing ourselves as a society. We don’t want to hear the bad news; and the bad news is NOT public unions and collective bargaining agreements or deficits. We are being taught to hate the very entities, unions, which made American prosperity possible. If the contemporary version of the Republican party succeeds in its quest (likely) we will rue the day. There will remain unions, but these unions will have no teeth – they’re called “company unions” – and they’ll be blamed for being weak and ineffective. As I say, “we will rue the day”.
On return home last night I chose to take down from my bookshelf “A Man’s Reach”, the autobiography of my deceased friend Elmer L. Andersen. Elmer was the wealthiest man I personally ever knew. He was life-long Republican, served in the Minnesota Legislature from 1949-58, was Minnesota Governor 1961-63, and afterwards was a philanthropist and outstanding public citizen for the rest of his life. Public buildings are named after him. We learned of each other in 1992, and were good friends until he died in 2004. I have written of Elmer Andersen several times in these pages.

“A Man’s Reach” is still available in libraries and I would not diminish it by attempting a long review. It can and should be read.
The book talks about how politics was back in the day of Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower (contemporaries of Elmer L. Andersen).
Then as now politics was a competitive business, but there was recognition by most in all parties that a winner take all philosophy was not in anyone’s short or long term best interest. Andersen had no problems with unions – he worked with rather than against organized workers, including in his own companies. They were more partners than enemies, and everyone prospered.
I specifically took down the book last evening to see if I could find one particular passage to quote. For now I’ve failed, but I know it is in there, since I read it there some years ago.
Andersen was talking about how lawmakers went about making important decisions back then, and in essence said this: lawmakers in both partisan and non-partisan settings would first determine what good public policy was – what was needed by the citizens of the state. Then, and only then, they would determine how to pay for that policy through taxes or other fees.
Today the philosophy seems completely opposite: decide what we’ll pay, and that and only that drives the policy.
Andersen’s position in government came coincident with the the greatest surge of prosperity ever in our state and nation.
I think there was a “chicken-egg” relationship between that prosperity and the governing philosophy of Republicans and Democrats like Elmer L. Andersen.
We desperately need a rebirth….

Elmer L. Andersen Oct. 12, 1995. Photo by Dick Bernard at Mr. Andersen's home


NOTE: What’s behind, and ahead. I began this series on February 17 with no idea that it would continue as it has. Quite by accident, it was preceded by another five-part series February 6-11 before I had any notion of troubles in Wisconsin. (Part 5 of that series remains incomplete. I’m still considering exactly what I want to say.) Part 7 of this series is doubtless not the last. This issue is far too important to forget about. Keep checking from time to time. Thank you.

#336 – Dick Bernard: Part 6. Our "fellow Americans", Corporate personhood and the Wealthy American

/in , , , , /by

Feb. 22, as the debate continued to rage about Wisconsin public employees and the right to bargain, I got an e-mail from a 41 year old man, a good friend who is one of those loyal employees who make corporations succeed. He was responding to my blog post of February 21.
I know this young man well: he is hard-working and loyal to the corporation he works for. In many ways he can legitimately claim he’s self-made, overcoming some personal obstacles to achieve moderate success. He despises unions largely because his Dad’s union – his Dad was a public school service employee – was headed by someone even I knew to be somewhat notorious and disreputable back in those days. I’ve gathered that my friend had some struggles in school, and didn’t get the help and encouragement he needed then. During the time I’ve known him he attacked and essentially conquered a serious learning disability, on his own, I think. He’s not high on public schools. All of these things seem to be his armor against what he seems to feel are lesser beings who need unions. His apparent attitude: real people, like he is, attack their problems and succeed on their own. (He knows my job for many years was representing people in these very unions.)
In his e-mail to me, Tuesday morning, he said this: “Just saw the news about John Deere and Cat[erpillar] moving the small equipment production to China by 2012. The unions will lose about 20,000 jobs in the Midwest (Iowa and Minnesota). No word from the unions and how they are partnering with business to keep the jobs in the States. This is an issue that’s getting some heat, finally…is the union involved with bus driver/busing issues? I know the cost of diesel fuel is forecast to be $4.25 to $5/10 during the 2011-2012 school year. Any cost containment proposal from the union leaders?”
I responded at considerable length to the questions, knowing that the response would fall into something of a ‘black hole’ of non-acknowledgment that I might know something as someone who’s ‘been there, done that’ and is 30 years his senior. In very brief part, I noted “sometimes I wonder what the companies think their responsibilities are (other than to the very rich people who are the major shareholders.)” They have fought hard, after all, to be considered persons just like my friend and I, and they’ve succeeded. Against me, they’re far bigger than Goliath, but “persons”, every one of them. Unions are pesky inconveniences.
Tuesday afternoon I went to the union rally at the Minnesota State Capitol. Compared with other assorted rallies I’ve been to, this one was huge and extraordinarily high energy. I wrote about my experience there, yesterday.
Wednesday morning I read, as I always do, my copy of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the state’s major newspaper. I expected there would be something significant about the rally in the paper. There was almost nothing – a paragraph buried in another article. This had nothing to do with newspaper deadlines, or interest in conflict. The same paper was full of stuff about Wisconsin, and Libya and other uprisings. Minimizing the news about what was happening at the Capitol was a deliberate editorial choice.
I always read, first, the editorial and opinion pages of the “STrib”. This day was a long column by the papers editorial page editor D. J. Tice. It speaks for itself. It is about another 40-or-so year old, a member of Minnesota’s mobile elite: some apparently successful guy who can hold governments hostage by not-so-idle threats to move to more favorable places, as he decides*.
I thought of my comment to the other 41 year old I know (see above). I’m going to send Tice $5 as a contribution to his friends plane fare to help that guy get out of Minnesota if he wants to leave. After all, it’s suggested that I can’t count on this greedy person for support of a strong state. He’s self-made and maybe self-obsessed.
I believe the big-shots, like the Koch brothers, Scott Walker et al (linked is the YouTube of the now famous conversation between a Koch impersonator and Gov. Walker, Part I of 2), know that there are short and long-term consequences to their actions to bludgeon workers into submission. But lust for power and greed are powerful drivers.
It will be beleaguered and underpaid and under-appreciated workers who will have to stand up and be counted in the coming days.
I’m there in solidarity with them.
Previous posts on this topic on February 17, 18, 21, 22, 23.
I am sure there will be a Part 7 to this series. And maybe more.
* – Doug Tice’s commentary reminded me of another Star Tribune column I read over 17 years ago. It was headed “How will future reckon with Cousin Kenneth” and is Cousin Kenneth ’93 STrib001. I don’t know how Cousin Kenneth has fared, overall, these past 17 years. It would be interesting….

#335 – Dick Bernard: Part 5. "Solidarity forever"

/in , , , , , /by

Tuesday afternoon I went over to the Minnesota State Capitol to join the demonstration in support of public workers.
I’ve been to lots of demonstrations and gatherings in that rotunda. Never have I felt as much pride as I did yesterday. There was energy in that space as I have rarely felt. I didn’t hear a single word of a single speech. I don’t know who talked or what they talked about…there were too many people and the sound system was not up to the challenge.
What I could hear was roar of those within hearing distance; and what I could see was the sea of people of all ages, all exemplifying firmness and civility and solidarity.

Close as I could get to the rotunda


On the stairs I struck up a conversation with an AFSCME member, and a member of the AFSCME union field staff who was along with her. I asked if I could take a photo for this blog. The staff member thought it most appropriate to take a photo of a member of the Union, and so Natalie, who works in Superior WI, did the honors.

Out the front door of the Capitol, and heading towards my car and home, a member of the National Association of Letter Carriers caught my eye, giving witness to her union and its work for the citizens of this country.

Back home Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was given some air time on the 6:00 news for part of his “fireside chat” with Wisconsin residents – we live ten miles from Wisconsin so what is happening there is local news. Of course, he said he loved Wisconsin public workers, but the taxpayers can’t afford them, and on and on with the standard talking points. It struck me that he never once looked at the camera, rather at whatever served as his teleprompter to his left. His effort to make “public workers” as an alien class, something different than real “taxpayers”, was very obvious. Wisconsin will judge his performance. The local news analyst suggested that Walker had lost the momentum he began with. That is how these things can work. Take nothing for granted.
It’s been years since I’ve been in harness, working with public sector union issues as best I could.
Were I to give advice, I’d urge the leaders to let the followers take the lead, and to take the message back to their local communities. There is scarce a family that does not have one or more public workers within its constellation. They are the real people, not the union spokespeople. There is an immense amount of deliberate misinformation out there, about the reality of public employees compensation, the supposed burden of taxes, etc.
The intense focus has been on making the public employee the villain, with no talk about other solutions. There needs to be some truth telling. If there are disequities – too much or too little – these need to be pointed out and acknowledged. Basically untold is the story of the huge inequity in wealth in this country, and that the wealthy are doing very, very well – thank you – in these difficult times. They are to be insulated from this sacrifice.
Maybe there were 2,000 in that rotunda area yesterday. If each of those concentrated on ten people who supported their cause; and those ten found ten, and so on, there would be serious momentum very fast. But it takes effort to keep up momentum. Power has the means to wait out the Powerless. It will be work.
Minnesota legislators and others are waiting to play copycat if Walker succeeds in his gambit. They will be tempted otherwise if the momentum shifts.
Each of them, behind the bluff and bluster, is wondering about votes in the next election.
They need to be very worried.
They need to know that they can not step on a truly exceptional group of employees on which citizens of every state depends.
Solidarity forever!

#331 – Dick Bernard: Part 1. "On, [the public employees of], Wisconsin!"

/in , , , , , , /by

Thursday afternoon, February 17, we went across the Mississippi River to see a music program at a local suburban St. Paul elementary school. The performers were about a hundred fifth graders, one of whom was our grandson. The audience was classmates from other grades, and the usual assortment of parents, grandparents and others. It was standing room only in the gymnasium.
It was a great program – they always are. Classroom teachers, and all public school employees, on average are genius level when it comes to working with kids. The average civilian would hardly last a day with one-fourth of the students a normal teacher is assigned each and every day. Ditto for those cooks, custodians, secretaries, Principals, etc., etc., etc. Occasional problems? Sure. There are, after all, nearly 50,000,000 kids in those places called “school”.
Thursday we watched one of this large elementary schools music teachers work his magic during the impressively choreographed and timed program with his young charges. Thursday evening the program was repeated.
Teachers – indeed, all school staff – are to be celebrated.
But those same employees are certainly not to be tolerated if they get uppity, and wish to share a tiny bit in the riches of this country.
Across the river, down the road perhaps 300 miles in Madison Wisconsin, at the same time I was listening to my grandson and his classmates, teachers and other public employees were engaging in rarely seen huge protests over an arbitrary attempt to strip them of rights and benefits under the guise of balancing the state’s budget. At this writing, it appears that the employees, with the help of Democrat legislators who literally left the state to prevent the dominant Republicans from achieving a quorum, will manage to at least minimize their losses in the short term, and bring powerful public attention to the problem of attempts to break unions, particularly unionized public workers.
I taught public school (Junior High) for nine years, followed by 27 years of representing unionized public school teachers. Union dues paid my salary and helped fund my private pension. I grew up in a teachers family, and on and on and on. So I am not unbiased when I cheer on those valiant souls who challenged the Wisconsin Governor and hopefully cause he and his slash and burn allies to regret their move (such unanticipated results do occur from time to time.) It’s past time to take a stand.
Public workers are essential to the public good, and not ‘essential’ as defined by those who would wish them to work as, truly, “public servants”.
Many years ago I heard the issue defined well by a colleague: “public employees are the last to reap the benefits of prosperity, and the first to be burdened by the costs of recession.” He was speaking an abiding truth. The public employer gets the leftovers, if there are any, and were anti-union forces to get their way, the good old days of “come to the table and beg” would again become policy.
Probably half of my nine years of teaching were in those “at will” days where the teachers got what the school board wished to give, which usually wasn’t very much.
By happenstance, my career as union staff coincided exactly with the beginning of collective bargaining in my state, and while both sides made mistakes that first year nearly 40 years ago, and later, we did learn, and collective bargaining has worked reasonably well ever since.
Actually, it would work even better for ALL parties, including the public, were the bargaining playing field opened to include all of the abundant issues which face public education, but managers are afraid of bogey-men that exist in their “minds eyes” about allowing practitioners to – horrors – have a say in education policy.
Get rid of bargaining? Honest managers would agree that unions bring stability to employer-employee relations generally. I know. I did the work, and I know people who worked on the other side of the table back then.
I applaud those courageous workers who when faced with an arrogant challenge by a wet-behind-the-ears new Governor took to the streets and made the national news.
May they be an example to their colleagues everywhere.
The writer taught junior high school geography from 1963-72; and from 1972 to the end of his career in 2000 was field representative for the Minnesota Education Association/Education Minnesota. A career long primary interest has been positive relationships between public schools and the public at large. In addition to this blog site, he retains a site with ideas for better public school engagement with the non-school community. You can access it here.

#325 – Dick Bernard: Part 1. Waiting for the Superbowl

/in , , , /by

Saturday we went over to watch our 6th grade grandson play basketball in the local athletic league. The league is like leagues in most towns of any size: if you show up, you play. There are eight five minute segments, and if there are ten boys on a side, five of them play every other quarter. That way, every one gets time on the court. When the quarter starts they line up more or less by height. The aim is to practice, a step above play.
This day Ryan’s team won their second game in a row…after five consecutive losses. They celebrated their first win “like we won the championship” he said, all excited.
My guess is that this year is the last non-competitive year for kids Ryan’s age. Now the competition begins: first to make the team, then to win. You win, or you’re a loser.
*
In a few hours the U.S. will come to a functional halt as Green Bay and Pittsburgh square off for the Super Bowl at Cowboys Stadium Arlington TX. It is Super Bowl XLV – one of the few remaining uses for Roman numerals.
Along with the football will be the Super Bowl of TV ads. If there could be a religious tie-in, Super Bowl Sunday would vie with Christmas.
But everything later today will focus on winners, and not only the team that won, but on those few who get a seat in the stands or the Star Level boxes. Best as I know, there’s no ‘knot-hole gang’ at the Super Bowl.
The rest of us can, and many of us will, watch the spectacle at home, hopefully consuming the advertised foods and drinks of the day.
And then the day will end. One team from one town will wear the crown for one year. And the absurdity of it all will settle in…until next year. Odds are, this years winner won’t repeat next year. In 44 years so far, only on eight occasions has a team had successive Super Bowl championships. Two have been to the Super Bowl on eight occasions; only 16 cities have had representatives in the Super Bowl. There are no dynasties.
This particular year follows a year when my Minnesota Vikings almost made it to the Big Game, defeated in the semi-finals by the eventual champion New Orleans Saints. A year later and the Vikings were a disaster; coach fired before the end of the season, Brett Favre back to Mississippi to the farm. The ultimate indignity was the collapse of the roof of the Metrodome under the weight of heavy snow.
The indignity of the season didn’t derail the owners lobbying for a new Minnesota stadium – the 5th in recent years by my count for assorted pro franchises here – and, I suppose, a dreamed for new beginning for the Vikings. They’ll probably get it. The old metrodome, so functional for so many years, will continue for monster trucks and the like.
Meanwhile, the Superbowl has yet to be played, and the NFL owners are threatening to lock-out the players if an appropriate contract deal cannot be reached.
*
The game of winning and losing…mostly losing…has been refined to a high art in this country. Those in Cowboys Stadium today are clearly among the “winners”. They represent a tiny, tiny slice of America, but yet they are to represent the American dream of victory.
Of those twenty sixth graders I watched play basketball yesterday, perhaps one might end up on the varsity at the local high school by the time he’s a senior. The others will be doing whatever they will be doing.
In our country, competition is sacred. And it is killing us, slowly but surely.
I’ll probably be watching the game today, but mostly my vision will be on the absurdities of the spectacle both on the field and in the stands and the sky boxes….
UPDATE: 9:30 p.m. Sunday evening.
Green Bay 31, Pittsburgh 25. It was Green Bay’s 4th Super Bowl win, including the first two in 1967 and 1968. At the end of the game, tonight, does it have any enduring meaning at all? Is our society any better, short or long term, for having experienced the Super Bowl?
Note from Bob Barkley, after reading the original post: “One of the most important books (to me anyway) I ever read was “The Case Against Competition” by Alfie Kohn.”
Related Posts Feb. 7, Feb 8, and Feb.10.