Dear Senator Landrieu,

Please Mary Landrieu!

Don't sell out working Louisianians, don't flip-flop on the Employee Free Choice Act.

Make sure Senator Landrieu knows you'll be holding her accountable for this vote and tell her to vote yes.

Here's the info for her various offices:

Washington, DC 724 Hart Senate Building United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Voice: (202)224-5824 Fax:(202) 224-9735 Email Senator Landrieu
New Orleans Hale Boggs Federal Building 500 Poydras Street Room 1005 New Orleans, LA 70130 Voice: (504) 589-2427 Fax:(504) 589-4023		Baton Rouge Room 326, Federal Building 707 Florida Street Baton Rouge, LA 70801 Voice: (225) 389-0395 Fax:(225) 389-0660
Shreveport U.S. Courthouse 300 Fannin Street Room 2240 Shreveport, LA 71101 Voice: (318) 676-3085 Fax:(318) 676-3100		Lake Charles Hibernia Tower One Lakeshore Drive Suite 1260 Lake Charles, LA 70629 Voice: (337) 436-6650 Fax:(337) 439-3762

Vitter Leads Cao, LA Republicans In Effort To Supress Wages

Moving backward on fair wages for Louisiana workers.

Senator Laughingstock (R), Louisiana

I know this quote has been highlighted throughout the New Orleans blogosphere and the rest of the country but I was just on the phone with my dad and he was asking me about what I thought about how our Senator killed the bailout.

I said I had to read this to him and I did, verbatim:

Morgan Johnson, president of the United Auto Workers local representing General Motors workers in Shreveport, said Friday that Sen. David Vitter's role in blocking an auto bailout indicates "he's chosen to play Russian roulette" with Louisiana jobs and the national economy.

"I don't know what Sen. Vitter has against GM or the United Auto Workers or the entire domestic auto industry; whatever it is, whatever he thinks we've done, it's time for him to forgive us, just like Sen. Vitter has asked the citizens of Louisiana to forgive him, " said Johnson, president of Local 2166. Otherwise, Johnson said of Vitter, it would appear, "He'd rather pay a prostitute than pay auto workers."

There was immediate laughter, then a weird silence, then a lot more laughter.

Morgan Johnson, you should get a promotion out of this. How 'bout you and me get jobs with Rep. Charlie Melancon?

Seriously, I still cannot believe that Vitty had the nerve to step out on this thing. It's not like he's Corker from Tennessee or Shelby in Alabama, who are both clearly beholden to the interests of the foreign auto makers.

We actually have GM jobs here in Louisiana. I can just picture the campaign ads now:

Forget his personal indiscretions, David Vitter has accomplished a lot for the state of Louisiana. He killed a bill that would have saved hundreds of factory jobs in Shreveport. So as you can see, he's still just as effective at stomping the little guy as he was before his credibility was rocked by a sex scandal.

Because of the way the GOP has made gains here in Louisiana and because of Sen. Vitter's ability to shrink away from the bright lights, I was actually starting to think that he might have a chance at reelection.

Not no more. This was the nail in the coffin.

Corker: Bush and UAW In Cahoots

One of the theories coming out of the failure of the auto bailout in the Senate is that when Dick Cheney met with Senate Republicans last week and imparted the administration's commitment to saving the big three, he was essentially freeing them to vote as they'd like. Why would the Senate GOP take it as a chance to breakout? Because Cheney's posturing basically confirmed that the administration would step in and use the TARP to help the auto industry if Senators refused to vote for cloture.

Senate Republicans from the South ended up whipping enough votes together to kill the bill, apparently because organized labor had refused to accept a definitive date by which their members' middle class salaries would be drawn and quartered. Another sticking point for holdout Republicans was that they wanted the blue collar employees of the Big 3 to agree to a salary reduction to the same levels as foreign manufacturers, whereas there was some degree of bipartisan support for a language that required salary reduction to "competitive" levels.

The GOP holdouts then went on a PR blitz to explain why the bill failed, funneling all blame squarely onto the shoulders of the UAW. Countdown obtained a GOP talking points memo that illustrates their view of this battle as a critical part of a larger war against organized labor.

This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.

For me, it's pretty difficult to picture organized labor being able to pitch the passage of the bill as any kind of victory, given the massive wage and benefits cuts they'd agreed to, but I guess that's beside the point now.

Senator Bob Corker from Tennessee appears to have spearheaded bill negotiation for the Republicans. He went on Face the Nation yesterday and pitted blame squarely on the shoulders of the UAW, but with an interesting new twist.

Corker: They (UAW) knew the White House had these TARP funds and there was really no reason for them to agree to this.

Scheiffer: So they had gotten word from the White House that they were going to do it anyway and that's what killed the deal in the Senate?

Corker: Well, they knew they had the funds. I'm not blaming the White House but they knew that the White House had funds that they could put forth without any strings.

Carl Levin tried to cut in but Schieffer went to a break.

Seems kind of ridiculous to me that Corker would offer that the White House had been sending signals to the UAW about this thing. Seems like it's a lot more likely that the Republican White House was talking to their own Republican Senators about their intention to use the TARP, so that Southern Republicans could use the vote to score media points against organized labor for later use. Just saying.

OPSB Votes Down Collective Bargaining

Yesterday, the lame-duck OPSB voted to reject a new contract with the teacher's union.

Fahrenholtz, who had said all along that he would vote no, said, "It really needed to be addressed by the incoming board."

Really?

No similar crisis of conscience when it came to approving the school facilities master plan as a lame duck, however.

I wanted the board to pass the contract. The teacher was often seen as an impediment to progress but it's not like this new agreement is some stone-aged relic:

The contract proposal sought to give teachers a say in curriculum and professional development through an existing joint task force; to give teachers the right to expunge certain unflattering material from their personnel files after three years; and to allow union representatives time during the school day to allow them to handle school issues without interfering with instruction.

That seems pretty reasonable to me.

But I actually do agree with Jimmy Fahrenholtz that it's a matter that should be taken up by the new democratically elected school board. I just wish he felt the same way about his vote on the school facilities master plan.

And I also wish we'd picked a better incoming school board. It is highly unlikely that the issue of collective bargaining for teachers will be revisited by the new board. I believe that the current board would have voted to approve the contract had we not selected a new board that campaigned so openly against the teacher's union.

Retroactive Immunity for Reckless Charterization

This is why the pilot schools model is better than what was force fed to this city like it was the end all be all of education reform policy.

Key words: oversight, accountability

Isn't that exactly why the educational reform movement got started in the first place?


Bonus: The local chapter of the teacher's union is toothless and pathetic. Seems to me that they've got to secure a date for the restoration of collective bargaining rights, even if they have to compromise on the length of the wait.

The New OPSB

Leigh breaks down the T-P's profile of the new OPSB we just elected.

I'm not particularly enthused, myself. I support the right to collective bargaining and believe it should be restored immediately. I agree that it needs to be easier to fire ineffective teachers, but that's something that will likely result from negotiation. Teachers need to be able to work together to obtain the salaries and benefits they deserve as the backbone of our community and they need to be able to protect themselves from administrative witch hunts that often result from unwelcome whistle-blowing.

I believe that Woody Koppel is the worst of the bunch and am so ticked off that district 6 voters chose him over the extremely qualified Percy Marchand, who has been informed, engaged, and willing to take brave stands throughout this whole master plan process. Big mistake, district six. Big mistake.