To us here at this Consider Common Sense, the most amazing aspect of the discussions is the total failure to recognize and attribute this debacle on the ever upward spiraling demands by the union, the United Auto Workers (UAW) Union. We believe to know that this is a fact. When it comes to the opinions of the media and the Democrats across the country, they love the unions since they have represented a major voting block for the Democrats and it does not require repeating, the media is overwhelmingly liberal and is therefore willing to support Democrats wherever they can.

            This crisis that has befallen the domestic auto industry has been in the making for a very long time and is not the result of some recent fiscal/financial crises, oh no, for people with some common sense and who observed the domestic auto industry the time has finally arrived and has now put the three car companies into a situation of irreconcilable troubles without major surgery. One of the strongest contributors to this point of no return is the competition our carmakers have gotten from foreign car companies who have production facilities in America. Toyota, Honda and BMW among others all build cars right here in the United States and they are doing it much cheaper than Detroit. Now you ask yourselves, why is that? The simple reason is that the foreign car companies are not unionized, their average hourly wage rate is about $45 compared to the $75/hourly rate of the domestic carmakers. Yet, the ‘foreigners’ are producing high quality cars with all the amenities the ‘local’ carmakers have, in fact, an argument could be made that the foreign cars are superior to Detroit’s when it comes to fuel efficiency, quality and styles.

            And now, the CEO’s of the Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler) flew in their private jets to Washington and ask for a bail-out in the amount of 34 billion dollars. They stated the money would be needed immediately to ‘survive’ the current troubles, their cash reserves and credits being so low that it might mean bankruptcy filings if the money would not be made available to them. This all sounds pretty scary, who would ever thought of a time when major American companies such as General Motors and Ford could go belly-up? But apparently, the time has arrived and only loans and or bailouts by Congress remain as the only means of survival.  At least that is what they tell us.

            Considering the fact that the Big Three collectively spend about 7 billion dollars each months, we can easily see them coming back to Washington D.C. by April of next year and asking for another 25 or even 50 billion dollars to ‘survive’ and to avoid bankruptcy filings. This is utter nonsense in our opinion and will result in nothing more than increasing the Federal deficit unless some major corrections can be made to the production viability of the Big Three and without addressing the ‘labor’ portions of car manufacturing by major renegotiating of the existing union contracts in total, it is inevitable that the Big Three cannot survive. Details of these union contracts are described in an editorial, Gold-Plated Pacts, in the December 1, 2008 edition of the San Diego Union Tribune and one must wonder how the union membership can in good conscience demand to continue to adhere to the existing labor agreements.

            But there is plenty of blame to lay at the feet of corporate management of the three carmakers, they are at a minimum guilty of major fiscal irresponsibility and we do not mean flying in private jets to Washington D.C., those kinds of expenses are negligible in the overall picture of their financial situation. What were they thinking when they gave in to union demands for higher wages and greater benefits. Could they not or did they not see where this upward spiraling Ponzi scheme would lead? Did nobody in upper management have the courage years ago and say: Enough is enough, if you (the union membership) cannot live with what we already have giving you, then we will face bankruptcy and you all will be out of work, period!

            Instead the executives kept their fingers crossed, hoped for the best and continued the recklessness that has lead them to this point in time. It is amazing to see how multi billion dollar corporations are being run by such incompetent people. Of course, the same could be said of the union bosses who demanded more and more and more and did not spent a second on what it could  mean in the future. We encourage everybody to dig into the union contracts to find out what the current benefit packages contain, it is truly mind boggling!

            In the meantime, the Democrats in Congress find themselves in a dilemma, they want to keep the union workers happy (and to keep on voting Democrat in future elections) and they are pouncing on the Executives to re-write their business plans and so on. How dumb is that? The existing labor agreements are killing the carmakers especially in a time of economic turmoil and crisis and all the wishful thinking in the world does not change that reality. To us here at Common Sense Politics, there is only one reasonable solution to this problem: Filing for bankruptcy and starting over again with new labor agreements and lower executive paychecks and stock options! Only such drastic action can solve this problem, anything else just supports this recklessness and postpones the inevitable.

Thank You, United Auto Workers Union is a post from: Common Sense University

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Here is what’s at stake and we quote from the editorial ”Single mothers who work as part of a welfare-to-work-program may chose the person who is paid by the state to keep their kids while they work. Many moms choose a relative – grandparent, aunt, or sibling – who needn’t be licensed. About 700,000 families are in this subsidized childcare program, which costs taxpayers more than $3 billion a year.”

It is logical for these moms to – since given a choice – select a relative, a person that they can trust and have no cultural or language barrier problems. These ‘babysitters’ are also not required to be licensed by the State of California. Now then, is that the concern of the Legislature since this is a government-subsidized program? Are they proposing to license the grandmas and others who watch the kids while the moms are at work? You would think so. But that is not the case. The Democrats have other priorities: They want the babysitters to be unionized! State Senator Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles introduced the bill and it already has passed the State Assembly and is now being considered in the State Senate. The bill allows the Service Employees International Union – SEIU – and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees to try and organize unlicensed childcare providers into a “provider organization”.

We cannot help to be cynical at this point. The union’s purpose is to negotiate pay and working conditions of the new members and according to the editorial, topping the list of the union priorities are higher pay, health insurance and pensions! It is bewildering to us at Common Sense Authors that this is even an issue at a time when California finds itself in a major budget crunch, if not outright crises. There are currently budget cuts proposed for education programs in excess of $4 billion dollars for the 2008/2009 fiscal year.

We have to seriously wonder if there are any budget-conscious Democrats in the State of California in Sacramento. Is there nobody in that bunch of politicians who thinks in somewhat realistic and responsible terms who would stand up and say to his fellow Democrats: “Hold it, let’s not get sidetracked with new programs when we are struggling to find ways to pay for the ones we have on the books.” From our perspective we can only establish very strongly that the Democrat lawmakers at the state level in California are totally void of any degree of common sense. There is not even a smidgen of evidence to the contrary.

Running the numbers from the article, the granny-babysitters make on average between $4,500 and $5,000 per year paid for by the state. It used to be and we know for sure it still is in certain sectors of society where grandparents just love to watch their grandchildren while the parents are at work. That’s the way it has been for hundreds of years and should remain that way too. But one can always count on Democrats to come up with proposals that are simply mind- boggling and so far out of the realm of normalcy, we have to wonder about the mindset of people who keep voting for them, the Democrats, and therefore giving them opportunities to come up with these outrageous programs and then seriously fight for them to become law. By providing them “Union status” for protection, these grandmas can also go on strike if they think they are underpaid or do not get enough pensions in the future. Who will look after the kids then, should it come to that? This is so extremely ludicrous, it deserves no further comment!

Back to the editorial, the article is pleading with Governor Schwarzenegger to veto this bill and we have to ask – Why? Is there a chance that the governor would even consider signing this ridiculous bill? Apparently there is or the newspaper would not have written the article. We like to believe that a person – short of having had a lobotomy – who called just a few years ago the Democrats in California ‘girly men’ cannot possibly change to the point where he would sign such legislation, even if it would be part of a legislative trade-off as was suggested in the article. We will keep you posted as to what California’s ‘Governator’ will do, stay tuned!
 
This article and others on Common Sense Authors are designed to provoke further thought and investigation.   It is not the intent for the articles to be politically biased. Sources are referenced in each article to encourage readers to delve into the supporting material.  We welcome all readers to participate with their point of view either in support or contrary with additional information sources.

Unionizing babysitting grandmas? is a post from: Common Sense University

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     It does not seem to matter how much money the State of California allocates for education, it appears that it is never enough. During the just completed campaign for governor resulting in the re-election of Arnold Schwarzenegger, members of the teacher’s union attacked the governor relentlessly that he was not trustworthy because he had broken promises he had made to them earlier. These campaign slogans were repeated endlessly until election-day even though the 2006/2007 state budget had been passed in June of this year. The annual budget had allocated over 66 billion dollars towards education according to their website - yes, that’s billions!

     According to an editorial in the San Diego Tribune published on December 3, 2006, page G2, the schools in the State get $11,268 average ($10,996 according to CA budget) per pupil for school year 06/07. They further assert in the article that budgets will jump 30 percent by 2010, i.e., in four years. The article also states and we quote:

     “Some administrators complain that the declining enrollment will erase the gains, because schools are paid by the student. San Diego Unified, for example, has lost 20,000 students since 1999. This ought to be good news. Fewer students mean fewer teachers, buses and portable buildings. Well-managed districts will scale back operations accordingly and use the extra cash to improve education”.

     Let us compare this with a private High school (grades 9 to 12) in West Los Angeles called Chaminade College Preparatory School. On their website one can find that the annual tuition for each student is $9,350 for the current school year. This school is much sought after by those who want their children to get an excellent education and they are willing to pay the tuition, the school received the ‘National Blue Ribbon School’ award in 1998 for outstanding achievements.

     Comparing public and private school funding shows that, at least in California, there is no big gap in favor of private schools, to the contrary, we now have achieved parity when it comes to funding. Under funding education in public schools should therefore no longer be an excuse used to explain lower achievement averages for students in public schools.

     Enter the California Teachers Association (CTA), the largest professional employee organization – union – representing more than 340,000 public school teachers, counselors, psychologists, librarians and other non-supervisory, certified personnel. CTA is affiliated with the 3.2 million-member National Education Association (NEA). In addition, more than 1,100 chapters or local teachers associations are chartered as CTA affiliates: The California Faculty Association (CFA), the bargaining agent for professors in the CaliforniaState University system and the Community College Association (CCA), representing members in 42 chapters who work in 72 community college districts across the state. This information can be verified on CTA’s website.

     The numbers clearly show the power that this union has and it is using its muscle at every opportunity. When Governor Schwarzenegger in 2005 placed Proposition 74 on the November ballot, it was defeated on the strengths of the vehement opposition by the teachers union and their allies. As the San Diego Union Tribune stated main goals of Prop.74 were to:

v     Increase the probationary period for beginning teachers to five years from two years.

v     This would only apply to teachers whose probation period began during or after fiscal year 2003-04.

v     It would allow school districts to fire a teacher without offering a specific reason during this probationary period.

v     And it would allow school districts to fire a tenured teacher who received two consecutive unsatisfactory performance evaluations. The teacher would have 30 days to request a hearing before an administrative law judge.

     And while it was a fresh and good attempt by the Governor at school reform, the proposition failed! There are hardly any other professions were employees get tenured. No job is guaranteed for life in any industry that we know of, but teachers just have to meet standards for two years before they can become tenured, i.e., a paycheck for life!

     Any attempt at giving parents vouchers whose children are in poorly performing schools to spend the money at private or other better performing public schools is almost instantly attacked with venom by the teachers unions. Even the 2001 Federal legislation called the “No child left behind” Act is still considered “seriously flawed and has been under funded” by the Federal Government according to CTA. There is that excuse again: Under Funding! That is the reason for not achieving the set goals under this Act. According to data on CTA’s website, 44 % of California’s public schools failed to make the annual yearly progress (AYP) under the NCLB and 19% of schools failed to meet the federal AYP for the second consecutive year and are now subject to federally mandated sanctions. This is truly a sad state of affairs since the law’s implementation.

     This now warrants the question: How much money is needed to achieve satisfying results? What if we were to double the annual school budgets in California, would that bring the desired results? It should allow for significant pay raises for the teachers, should it not? Would increased pay lead to better teaching or would this money simply be absorbed into educational bureaucracy?  Since increasing budgets has led to declining test results, common sense tells us that money isn’t the answer and the system is fundamentally broken.  Fifty years ago the system wasn’t broken and it was “fixed.”  Now the system is broken and no one is discussing fixing it.

     There is apparently no easy way to reach consensus among the people. But in fairness, we want to clearly state that we think Not all teachers are performing at the same level. To the contrary, there are many impressive teachers and educators that can truly do what their titles imply: Teach and Educate! But if we as a country are serious about ‘Not leaving any children behind’, then we have to have competent teachers and educators in every classroom not just in California but, in fact, in every state of America.

     To summarize then the facts:

1.      The teachers unions reject serious reforms but want more money,

2.      The legislatures in California seem to agree with that and give in to the unions by allocating more money for education.

3.      Test scores and grades by students do not rise across the board.

4.      We the people do not like it but seem to be unwilling to do anything about it.

     We here at Consider Common Sense are disheartened when we believe that there will never be enough money for education to end the excuses and explanations by the members of the teachers unions for underperformance by our public school students. Why is accountability not applied when it comes to educating our children, our future? Or are we simply asking too much when we want to see higher test scores by every child in every school, especially when we spend at least as much if not more money per pupil in public schools than is needed in private schools where the results are much better? Is the status quo acceptable? It should not be!  Are the multiple excuses, reasons and explanations by the teaching establishment not to be questioned by the public? They should be!  We would like to invite all to a dialogue on this topic.
     This article and others on Back to Common Sense are designed to provoke further thought and investigation.   It is not the intent for the articles to be politically biased. Sources are referenced in each article to encourage readers to delve into the supporting material.  We welcome all readers to participate with their point of view either in support or contrary with additional information sources.

Will there ever be enough money? is a post from: Common Sense University

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