"TIMES are tough in Toledo and everyone should expect to have to make sacrifices for the greater good of the community, and that includes city workers represented by the Teamsters union.
For the last decade, 245 members of Teamsters Local 20, who haul trash and treat wastewater for the City of Toledo, have had a sweetheart of a deal that requires the city to pay for their health insurance without having any control over coverage or steadily increasing costs.
Yet, we get the impression that Local 20 President Bill Lichtenwald thinks taxpayers are chumps. At a time when the city is facing a $10 million budget deficit, tax receipts have stagnated, jobs are fleeing to the suburbs, and residents have been asked to dig into their own pockets to maintain city services like trash collection, Mr. Lichtenwald justifies the insurance contract by stating that his responsibility is to his membership. "Our job is to directly benefit them," he said. "We have to answer to them. They are our board of directors."
The Teamsters' deal is very much like Mr. Finkbeiner's costly move back in 1999 to have the city pick up the full 8.5 percent of union employees' portion of municipal pension contributions, a contractual obligation recently upheld by the Sixth District Court of Appeals. That decision, benefiting Local 7 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, will cost the cash-strapped city $384,000 this year and nearly $600,000 in 2008."
What the author(s) of the editorial over look is the failure of the city council(s) to force the Mayor to not offer and agree too contract provisions like this when times are tough.
If the administration and council(s) are not able to negotiate contracts that are favorable to both parties and in difficult financial times, then yes the tax payers are chumps.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070927/OPINION02/709...
Carty was mayor in 1994 but it's not clear if negotiations for that took place before he came into office - though it's safe to assume he approved the contract as well as City Council in 1994. The percentage of PERS pick up increased ending up with the city paying the their full share and the full employee share in 1999.
..of Carty's greed. It would never have been offered if Carty was going to veto the contract.
If I recall, Carty was getting in the beds of several shady characters, including a condo whore named Ed, around this same time.
Now look at how intimate Carty is today with these grateful and appreciative union pig...I mean bosses.
Oh John Irish, I hope you're carrying your diaphragm these days....
I covered my feelings on the City/Union contracts. Especially in these times, the City cannot afford to nego. w/ terrorists. Why do I call "unions" terrorists? Simple...they hold the City hostage to their demands. They threaten the Citizen's safety for compensation. By threatening or going on strike, they suspend City services and that places the population in danger of all sorts of trouble from disease to crime to burning to death in a fire. If it happened in the winter, our streets would not get plowed, thereby making it impossible for people to go to work, which cuts into the City's income.
After such negotiations, the departments then have to go into overtime just to catch up, making even more money and draining the city even further.
As a "Result" of Carty's ball point pen, city departments that actually need staff cannot hire staff, as a "result" of his economic development policies, we have a shrinking tax base for income and when you combine these two things with his stellar contract negotiations..we're running up deficits faster than Spears takes off her underwear.
The "Results" we're getting from this Administration = a screwing w/o a reach around.
...But let's not ever mention the negative impact of me-too agreements! (sarcasm off)
Actually, unions have a tendency to incorporate 'me-too' agreements wherein they tie increases in benefits (wages, pers pick-ups, vacation days, overtime, etc.) from one union to another union. When the city ended up agreeing to pick-up all the employee PERS contributions from one union, every other union used either the "me-too" agreements or this example to bargain for the same.
Unfortunately, when using this pattern of bargaining, unions tend to look ONLY at what was gained and not at what was traded - or given - for that benefit.
So if ASCME got full PERS pickup, maybe it's because they bargained for that INSTEAD of a pay increase or elimination of some other benefit. However, when the other unions came along and said 'give us the same thing,' administration and council said, 'sure - fair is fair.' What they should have said was, 'sure - but only if you give up what they gave up in order to get that pick-up.'
But that never happens.
How much of our tax dollars are being electronically sent to the Cayman Island?
that's more bait than shark fishers use...lol.... Do expound :-)
I'm just asking a question. The answer could be, zero. Or, maybe someone out there has a different answer.
And yet there only seems to be the blame placed on the workers group for the failure of the administrations and councils to say no we cannot agree to that proposal and so on.
It takes two to negotiate a contract and cities larger than Toledo have negotiated contracts that did not contain the same as before in times of financial down turns.
http://toledoohioneighborhoodconcerns.com/blog
neighborhood -- the thing that you're forgetting is the union's political involvement. In large part the union works to get administrators elected who favor them; in Toledo they are more than successful at this. The result is that they are, in effect, sitting on both sides of the bargaining table.
If you don't believe this than look at all the candidates currently running who are claiming union ties/endorsements. Everyone from Webb, to the gal in the south-end, to Goulding is trumpeting his or her union love. Candidates fall over themselves to win the adulation of local union bosses.
Why? Not because they love "the working man" necessarily, but because labor can get-out-the-vote in one-way or another.
Toledo is bought and paid for with union dues (whether actual or through taxes) and the sad truth is that most people don't seem to mind. Trading liberty for false security is perfectly acceptable to most Toledo residents...but like everyone else in history, they'll get neither in the end.
Again...who runs this town and who is serving whom?
Mr. Holdbridge your bias against unions is obvious from the comments made on this board and others.
If the city was bought and paid for by unions the union precense would be larger and wield more influence.
If that is also the case the cities along both coasts with large union precenses would also be in decline and hard to do business in.
Toledo is floundering as there is no clear plan set forth by business or the governments both local and regional to attract businesses to the area with the exception of Wood County, locally. And there are union locals there as well and they are not impeding the explosive growth of the area.
The city of Toledo for too long depended on traditional manufacturing businesses and now a newspaper that is dependent on readership and with people leaving the area the readership declines and instead of accepting the fact and looking for ways to increase the number of people living in the area they blame the employees for the problem the paper is facing.
And the leadership in the city has been resisting the notion that there are fewer and fewer people in the city even though census figures and other resources show the declining numbers and in turn there is not enough being done to bring people in and stimulate the cities economy, short of planting flowers and planning roads that do not need to be built.
Finkbeiner and a group of citizens were front and center in the fight to stop a non-union employer which wanted to open a store and bring good paying jobs to the city. And now despite the efforts the store and new plaza are open and there is ancillary growth despite the efforts to stop the development and yet Block and others decry the unions.
And who or what is the problem with growth in Toledo?
http://toledoohioneighborhoodconcerns.com/blog
If you're not willing to admit that labor excercises enormous political power in Toledo/Lucas County than I'm not even going to justify you with a thoughtful answer.
Matt Holdridge
The Toledo Tattler
"labor excercises enormous political power in Toledo/Lucas County "
Can you give me some examples to review, please.
I am not aware and want to be of examples of which you write or make claims of.
We are all aware that the Democratic party as part of its base enjoys union support but across the country there have been unions and union locals that have and continue to support some Republicans.
The sweetheart deals were made by our current Mayor and he should be reminded of the deal and the budget debacle now. Is the budget mess and current state of the city a result of the unions and so on?
U.S. auto companies have been loosing market share to the other car makers since the 70's.
Is the lose because of unions or the inability of the auto makers to produce cars with the same appeal, quality and so on or is it because the leadership of the companies made mistakes or exercised poor decisions.
The workers do what they are told to do and if management refuses to listen to ideas then who is to blame?
This principal helped the automakers outside of the U.S., active listening.
http://toledoohioneighborhoodconcerns.com/blog
Why does anyone assume that the business environment would suddenly change? Every union job (with its higher wage) provides opportunities to other businessmen to sell their goods and services. Why does anyone assume that the lower wages that would result would be a boon to these businessmen? I am just asking, but I do have to wonder at the "faith" of the "free-marketers". I would think that it would be a disaster for the real-estate market if the wages of those in the auto industry in Toledo we cut by even 10%, let along 25% or 50%.
The accumulation of wealth in the upper strata of society might result in more investment in our community but I doubt it. Instead, I would assume they would invest where labor is cheaptest. It's a race to the bottom, unless we all begin to invent new products and services for others to buy. I should quit wasting my time here, and come up with a new Internet scam.
Is the Marina District /Dillon deal going up in smoke?
It's a Me, Me Me world out there. I think like Reagan when it comes to Unions.... Go back to work and play fair or find a different job. This is the cheif reason I feel I will never be voted in as Mayor in this city. If a union failed to realized the combined sacrifice(s) needed, held my administration hostage, I'd fire them on the spot. There are plenty of unemployed people out there that would do the job faster and better for less. Hunger drives work...period.
Well, that real estate disaster needs to happen anyway. Homes in Toledo are overpriced by 50% on average.
...a supplier a family member works at had to shut down too.
Union workers were "getting" a $200 a week stipend for striking. The family member was going to get $410 a week for being non-union.
Let's go UAW, and all other "shove it up for your ass for pennies on the dollar compensation" unions, for the betterment of all those that mock you, chase business away.
I agree, Homes in Toledo are on average, over by 50% or better. Folks seems to have delusions of grandure when it comes to profiting on their homes. IMO...there is not a single normal residential home in the entire area that I would give more than 200K for. While many homes in the City and surrounding areas would fetch much higher prices in other states, locations, beachside, this is Toledo. Home prices in this area should reflect the reality of the area.