Steven P. BarrettOUTSOURCING-- ONE OF THE (PUBLIC) BOSSES' MEANEST OUTCOMES: PICKING ON LUNCH LADIES!
June 19th 2008 16:10
EVER WANT TO SEE A WORKPLACE BECOME DEMORALIZED IN NO TIME FLAT?
WANT TO SEE HOW "PROGRESSIVES" IN LIBERAL COLLEGE TOWNS HANDLE THEIR PESKY EMPLOYEES TRYING TO SAVE THEIR INCOMES, BENEFITS AND DIGNITY?
IT'S NOT ANY PRETTIER THAN WHAT YOU'D FIND FROM A LOT OF FACTORY OWNERS. AND GIVEN THEIR OPEN DECLARATION TO PROMOTE MORE "SOCIAL JUSTICE" IN THEIR CURRICULUMS, WHY IT BECOMES EVEN UGLIER.
WATCH WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A COMPANY -- OR PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM -- STARTS OUTSOURCING ITS EMPLOYEES WORK OR DROPS THREATENING HINTS.
First off a 'fession's in order: This is a very personal posting. My wife, a h.s. cafeteria worker for the Amhest (MA) Regional Public Schools (ARPS) is likely to find herself completely outsourced to a Long Island-based company, Whitson's Culinary Group (School Services Dept.) sometime later this year. She's not losing her job; just a good chunk of her dignity, a dozen sick days, a huge chunk of personal days and paid holidays and in two years we could be facing a "health plan" with a $6,000 deductible. OUCH!) And that's not all, soon she'll be losing her public pension benefits as well.
WHY? To save a whopping $150,000, or the cost of one assistant principal (with full benefits, no less), outdoor modules for a school scheduled for closing, etc., etc. But the real target is the Lunch Ladies' public pensions. In fact, every school employee's public pension could be at risk if a few influential members on this school committee have their way.
In fairness to Amherst school officials, they're not the only ones out to look like "fiscal accountability experts" (at the expense of the workers who make their schools look like world beaters.) This is happening all over the nation and perhaps in differing ways throughout the UK, European Union, AUS, NZ, and Canada.
If you're a public employee, or even work for a private "non-profit" college or foundation, you'd better be watching your back.
This is another nasty trend we'd all better be more wary of in the years to come. Just because President Bush was (justifiably) slapped down when the real reasons behind his "privatization" of Social Security surfaced (it's actual death through fiscal malnutrition), it doesn't stand to reason that state and local public workers can breath any easier. Quite the opposite.
At least the Federal Government has Fort Knox and the ability to print/mint its own money. Excuse me, thanks to the permission of the School Committee, school officials went out and bought a $12,000 copier. For that kind of money, the town ought to be able to print its own money. And if it wasn't illegal, I wouldn't put it past them--but for their pet projects only, like the modules they didn't need to buy for a school that'll soon be decommissioned; perhaps a new, high salaried and fully benefitted assistant principle the school doesn't need. Anything else? Come members, pad your tab while the printer's still warm.
But the people working hardest to make these ladies bleed won't have to worry about their pensions or drop in benefits. Some of them are fully tenured academics working for UMass/Amherst or the other colleges, etc.
It's always easier to cut when you're not going to do the bleeding.
Thankfully the contract between ARPS and Whitson's hasn't been signed (at least according to Whitson's) so there's still some hope for the all-female staff, more commonly and affectionally known as "Lunch Ladies" (not only in Amherst, but everwhere else.) What's really surprising to me is the actual location of this (wholly unnecessary) labor dispute.
Amherst, as long as I've known it, is one of America's towns and cties with the biggest "lefty" reputations. ABC=Amherst, Berkeley and Cambridge (MA)! The school system's chock full of so many programs promoting this or that trendy program that's been fully vetted out by the local Politically Correct gestapo.
But when it comes to the Lunch Ladies, well, let's say an issue like this tends to focus a spotlight on one of academia's bigger mortal social sins: classicist snobbery. Remember that old Hank Williams, Sr. tune, "If you've got the money, honey, I've got the time?" Let me fix that a bit to "If you've got the larnin' honeys (the degree, and most importantly -- tenure status) -- we've got the time." (Not to mention the money the former superintendent and the School Committee denies the system having.)
Besides blaming Washington, Boston and even the local proles for not buying enough lottery tickets to pad up state's education kitty, one of the reasons they say the money isn't there has to do with a whopper of a tax increase the voters turned down. Well! The members of this public school politburo were apparantly so aghast at being snubbed that they did what their Bolshie buddies in ye Olde Soviet Union often resorted to: blaming the ignorant masses and line up a few sacrificial victims for the firing, excuse me, outsourcing, squads.
Kinda reminds me of a time when I was a state prob/parole officer in central Florida. A bunch of us had to take a firearms lesson at the Sumter prison. When we got to the firing range, the instructor, a real gen-U-Ine Bubba kindly reassured his nervous pupils that the sound of the reports echoing from the firing range had a calming effect on the "residents'" mental outlook.
The Ladies aren't locked up, or resigned to losing, either. But when you see people who've never grown up in the same system you have, just come in with all their degrees, arrogance and unwillingness to seriously look at the plight of a group of women who've given so many years (no turnovers, as compared to the teaching, and especially very well paid/benefitted administrative staff) you can't help what additional kinds of excuses for ammunition the bosses be using soon.
By the way, the superintendent, after five years on the job, took a similar job for a very unsocialist salary: $250,000 in Bedford Hills, NY.
LUNCH LADIES EVERYWHERE -- DON'T LET YOURSELF BE OUTSOURCED UNLESS YOUR BOSSES HAVE ACTUAL REASONS NOT BLANKS (UNFOUNDED EXCUSES AND OTHER FANCY LIES.)
IF THIS CAN HAPPEN IN THE WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS HAPPY VALLEY OF SOCIALISM -- NO PUBLIC EDUCATION EMPLOYEE'S JOB -- OR PENSION -- (NO MATTER HOW LOWLY SHE OR HE IS PAID) -- IS "SAFE" ANYMORE, UNLESS YOU'RE TENURED AND DON'T WORK FOR THE SAME SCHOOL SYSTEM.
WANT TO SEE HOW "PROGRESSIVES" IN LIBERAL COLLEGE TOWNS HANDLE THEIR PESKY EMPLOYEES TRYING TO SAVE THEIR INCOMES, BENEFITS AND DIGNITY?
IT'S NOT ANY PRETTIER THAN WHAT YOU'D FIND FROM A LOT OF FACTORY OWNERS. AND GIVEN THEIR OPEN DECLARATION TO PROMOTE MORE "SOCIAL JUSTICE" IN THEIR CURRICULUMS, WHY IT BECOMES EVEN UGLIER.
WATCH WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A COMPANY -- OR PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM -- STARTS OUTSOURCING ITS EMPLOYEES WORK OR DROPS THREATENING HINTS.
First off a 'fession's in order: This is a very personal posting. My wife, a h.s. cafeteria worker for the Amhest (MA) Regional Public Schools (ARPS) is likely to find herself completely outsourced to a Long Island-based company, Whitson's Culinary Group (School Services Dept.) sometime later this year. She's not losing her job; just a good chunk of her dignity, a dozen sick days, a huge chunk of personal days and paid holidays and in two years we could be facing a "health plan" with a $6,000 deductible. OUCH!) And that's not all, soon she'll be losing her public pension benefits as well.
WHY? To save a whopping $150,000, or the cost of one assistant principal (with full benefits, no less), outdoor modules for a school scheduled for closing, etc., etc. But the real target is the Lunch Ladies' public pensions. In fact, every school employee's public pension could be at risk if a few influential members on this school committee have their way.
In fairness to Amherst school officials, they're not the only ones out to look like "fiscal accountability experts" (at the expense of the workers who make their schools look like world beaters.) This is happening all over the nation and perhaps in differing ways throughout the UK, European Union, AUS, NZ, and Canada.
If you're a public employee, or even work for a private "non-profit" college or foundation, you'd better be watching your back.
This is another nasty trend we'd all better be more wary of in the years to come. Just because President Bush was (justifiably) slapped down when the real reasons behind his "privatization" of Social Security surfaced (it's actual death through fiscal malnutrition), it doesn't stand to reason that state and local public workers can breath any easier. Quite the opposite.
At least the Federal Government has Fort Knox and the ability to print/mint its own money. Excuse me, thanks to the permission of the School Committee, school officials went out and bought a $12,000 copier. For that kind of money, the town ought to be able to print its own money. And if it wasn't illegal, I wouldn't put it past them--but for their pet projects only, like the modules they didn't need to buy for a school that'll soon be decommissioned; perhaps a new, high salaried and fully benefitted assistant principle the school doesn't need. Anything else? Come members, pad your tab while the printer's still warm.
But the people working hardest to make these ladies bleed won't have to worry about their pensions or drop in benefits. Some of them are fully tenured academics working for UMass/Amherst or the other colleges, etc.
It's always easier to cut when you're not going to do the bleeding.
Thankfully the contract between ARPS and Whitson's hasn't been signed (at least according to Whitson's) so there's still some hope for the all-female staff, more commonly and affectionally known as "Lunch Ladies" (not only in Amherst, but everwhere else.) What's really surprising to me is the actual location of this (wholly unnecessary) labor dispute.
Amherst, as long as I've known it, is one of America's towns and cties with the biggest "lefty" reputations. ABC=Amherst, Berkeley and Cambridge (MA)! The school system's chock full of so many programs promoting this or that trendy program that's been fully vetted out by the local Politically Correct gestapo.
But when it comes to the Lunch Ladies, well, let's say an issue like this tends to focus a spotlight on one of academia's bigger mortal social sins: classicist snobbery. Remember that old Hank Williams, Sr. tune, "If you've got the money, honey, I've got the time?" Let me fix that a bit to "If you've got the larnin' honeys (the degree, and most importantly -- tenure status) -- we've got the time." (Not to mention the money the former superintendent and the School Committee denies the system having.)
Besides blaming Washington, Boston and even the local proles for not buying enough lottery tickets to pad up state's education kitty, one of the reasons they say the money isn't there has to do with a whopper of a tax increase the voters turned down. Well! The members of this public school politburo were apparantly so aghast at being snubbed that they did what their Bolshie buddies in ye Olde Soviet Union often resorted to: blaming the ignorant masses and line up a few sacrificial victims for the firing, excuse me, outsourcing, squads.
Kinda reminds me of a time when I was a state prob/parole officer in central Florida. A bunch of us had to take a firearms lesson at the Sumter prison. When we got to the firing range, the instructor, a real gen-U-Ine Bubba kindly reassured his nervous pupils that the sound of the reports echoing from the firing range had a calming effect on the "residents'" mental outlook.
The Ladies aren't locked up, or resigned to losing, either. But when you see people who've never grown up in the same system you have, just come in with all their degrees, arrogance and unwillingness to seriously look at the plight of a group of women who've given so many years (no turnovers, as compared to the teaching, and especially very well paid/benefitted administrative staff) you can't help what additional kinds of excuses for ammunition the bosses be using soon.
By the way, the superintendent, after five years on the job, took a similar job for a very unsocialist salary: $250,000 in Bedford Hills, NY.
LUNCH LADIES EVERYWHERE -- DON'T LET YOURSELF BE OUTSOURCED UNLESS YOUR BOSSES HAVE ACTUAL REASONS NOT BLANKS (UNFOUNDED EXCUSES AND OTHER FANCY LIES.)
IF THIS CAN HAPPEN IN THE WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS HAPPY VALLEY OF SOCIALISM -- NO PUBLIC EDUCATION EMPLOYEE'S JOB -- OR PENSION -- (NO MATTER HOW LOWLY SHE OR HE IS PAID) -- IS "SAFE" ANYMORE, UNLESS YOU'RE TENURED AND DON'T WORK FOR THE SAME SCHOOL SYSTEM.
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