Pensions & Benefits

benefit improvements, disability reform, early retirement incentives, long term perspective, municipal health insurance, opeb reform, pension reform, public/private comparisons

Interesting article on unions and pensions

Will, Interesting article here, partly on recents trends in union-busting, but also on public employee pensions.  Proposes, in the final paragraphs, that perhaps pensions should be put to a vote, just like bonds. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/mayjune_2011/features/the_fallacy_of_union_busting029139.php I’m not certain this would work well, because the public tends to have anti-Keynesian impulses (“I’m cutting back, so should the …

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healthcare vote

We send our elected representatives to the State House to make hard decisions.  They are usually not popular with everyone.  Representative Brownsberger has listened to all sides of this issue and made the best choice possible.  Saying no is the hardest thing any of us has to do.  Will, your experience in town government shows …

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Will’s Vote on Health Care

From today’s Boston Globe – ““It’s pretty stunning,’’ said Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “These are the same Democrats that all these labor unions elected. The same Democrats who we contributed to in their campaigns.”  Congratulations to you, Will, and the others who voted FOR the people of MA who get handed …

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Collective Bargaining Rights

I believe it is incredibly insensitive and reprehensible to remove collective bargaining rights from the union when planning health care options for their employees.   As a lifetime Democrat, I believe it is time for me and others to reconsider our political affiliation.     Why are you so afraid of our right to bargain …

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