Froth Slosh B'Gosh

So Let Me See If I Have This Straight

UPMC pays non-medical personnel so little that some of them must go to food pantries to get enough victuls for themselves and their families.  Rather than pay those employees enough so they do not have to go to food pantries, the Evil Empire instead sets up its own in-house pantry and encourages its employees to donate food items to it, so employees wont have to go to the "outside" food pantry.

That's about right, isn't it?  How much money does UPMC president and CEO Jeffrey A. Romoff make heading up this so-called "non-profit?"  Six million dollars a year?  That'll buy a lot of macaroni and cheese for the pantry!

Seriously, why doesn't UPMC just issue scrip to their employees and open a company store?

Walker Survives Recall

Although "survive" is the wrong word.  Walker easily defeated Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett.  The CBS story on the recall election has a lot of exit polling data that reveals quite a bit, but one stat from the exit polling stands out in my mind:

Sixty percent of Wisconsin voters said in CBS News exit polls that recall elections are only appropriate for official misconduct. Twenty-seven percent said they think they are suitable for any reason, while 10 percent think they are never appropriate.

So the margin of victory could very well be those ten percent who think that recalls are never appropriate, which I find rather interesting.  But the big takeawy I'm getting from this is that Republican governors in other states now have incentive to go after public sector unions, since there's no political price for doing so.  In Pennsylvania, the Corbett administration is already laying the groundwork for attacking pensions.  I fully expect that effort to accelerate, especially if he wins a second term.  There are other interesting details, such as men went for Walker, women for Barrett, people making more than $50,000 trended Walker, and those making less trending Barrett, along with majorities stating support for President Obama.

Another thing I'm reading from this, and which I find rather annoying, is that 60% of the voters think recall is only appropriate for official misconduct.  Tell that to Gray Davis, who was recalled by California voters in 2003 for having the audacity to increase vehicle registration fees.  Recall, like impeachment is a political act.  If an elected official violates the law, there are courts and juries to handle the situation.

Orange Crushed

This is insanity.  Fourteen law firm employees lost their job for wearing color coordinated shirts.

Employers asked the employees to a meeting room, asked them whether it was some sort of protest, to which all replied in the negative, and then the firm fired all employees found wearing an orange shirt.

According to the workers, some employees began wearing orange shirts to work on paydays as a way to self-identify when they hit the bars to celebrate the beginning of the weekend.  The practice had been going on for months.

I tried doing the Google to see if the color had any connection with protest activities.  All I could find (other than other stories on this particular incident) was a site that encouraged gays and lesbians to wear orange on St. Patrick's Day to protest being excluded from New York's St. Patrick Day's Parade.  It seems like a pretty far stretch to connect that to a protest in Florida, espcially as the sacked employees wore orange on Fridays for some time prior.  Perhaps orange has some other protest connection I'm unaware of, but such a connection would be pretty obscure.

Its stories like this one though, that make me glad I belong to a union.

Union Busting

Looks like the entire roster of the Pittsburgh Power arena football team was fired this week in an effort to break the player's union.

One of the team's owners is former Pittsburgh Steelers star receiver Lynn Swann.  During Swann's playing days, he was represented and protected by a union that looked after his interests, in an era where professional football players didn't make the kind of money that they do today, and injury could (and still can) end a career before it ever gets started.  Thanks to Swann's union, he enjoys a comfortable pension.  I guess it makes a big difference though when you're writing a check of $400 dollars per player per game!  How DARE those ingrates ask to be paid as much as $1600 a game! (that, sports fans, works out to less than $30,000 per player for an 18 game season, compared to the $7,200 the players were making).  They should feel lucky that their Galtian masters allow them to get the snot beat out of them for 400 bucks a game while charging from $20 to $170 a ticket!

Something Is Not Adding Up

This article in the P-G detailing the Turnpike's plans to go to an all-electronic toll collection system and eliminate toll booth collectors to save money doesn't make sense.  The PA Turnpike wants to spend $320 million dollars to set up the system, which would cost $83 million dollars a year to operate.  This would eliminate the need to spend $65 million dollars for the salaries of toll collectors. 

According to my calculator, that means the automated system costs $18 million dollars more per year to operate, along with the $320 million dollar startup costs.  How does that save money?  I suspect the real reason isn't to save money, but to eliminate more union jobs.

Paging Mr. Dickens, Mr. Charles Dickens....

Just when I think things can't get any more looney, along comes the New Hampshire GOP.  Now they want to eliminate lunch breaks.

Wage Theft

Pretty sure that even if the perps are identified, no one will go to prison.

Such so-called wage theft - a term that state regulators avoid - can occur in a variety of ways. They include: workers who are paid below the minimum wage; workers who aren't paid the overtime they are owed; workers who aren't paid at all or are only paid part of what they are owed; and workers who don't receive their final paycheck after they depart from a job.
In the state and across the nation, wage theft is more prevalent in low-wage industries such as retailing and restaurants, according to the Justice Center.
It's a growing problem in North Carolina. The amount of money employers short-changed employees rose by 21 percent in fiscal year 2011 compared to the previous year; the number of employees who were shortchanged rose 37 percent.

Just another reason to belong to a union!