The Right to Work Isn’t

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Yesterday, Michigan’s Republican governor signed the Republican lame-duck legislature’s improperly named “right to work” statute. Already, people are clamoring for a similar law to be passed in New York, so that we, too, can join the other, enlightened states that have such legislation – states like Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Oklahoma. Tea party states. N0bama states. 

Giving laws exquisitely misleading names is a hallmark of the last few decades. The PATRIOT act offends most American values we used to hold dear. The Defense of Marriage Act doesn’t defend any marriage; it prevents the federal government from recognizing the legality of same-sex marriages if states allow them. There are tons more, and it’s a bipartisan issue. 

But “right to work” statutes sound fantastic – it would be great if the government actually instituted a law that gave people a fundamental right to work. However, such laws were actually a hallmark of Leninist dictatorships, where people were given make-work do-nothing jobs because who cares? Everyone works for the state, anyway. 

Isn’t it hilarious that the proponents of an American “right to work” scheme are the same people who shout “socialism” at a market-based, conservative Heritage Foundation-created Obamacare? They also scream “MARX” and “LENIN” at you when you suggest that we should join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee every American the right to access to quality health care. 

As an aside – if you yell “socialism” at everything Obama does, and the economy starts to improve – if your personal situation improves – then “socialism” is going to gain in popularity. Dummies. 

Back to Michigan and “right to work”. What it does is interfere with the right to contract. What it does is interfere with the right of workers to collectively organize and negotiate with management for better pay, better benefits, better work conditions. By weakening those labor protections, you weaken the right to organize and to freely associate. 

Right-to-work laws prohibit “union security agreements”, which are contracts between unions and management whereby the union can require labor to join a union as a condition of employment. This ensures that labor can effectively negotiate working conditions with management at something approaching a level playing field; it gives the exploited labor some leverage. What these laws are not is some sort of statutory guarantee of available employment for every citizen of a state. 

That’s not always how it shakes out. For instance, right-to-work North Carolina has a 9.3% unemployment rate right now, while liberal Massachusetts has a 6.6% rate. You’d think that employers, unshackled by unions, would flock to North Carolina and hire wildly.  Indiana’s unemployment rate dropped somewhat after it passed a right-to-work statute. No huge drop, however. And what do you give up for that? The right to work for crappy wages with crappy benefits? How does this help grow the middle class, or lift the middle class up? How does this advance our society in any meaningful way? How does this enhance the dignity of work? 

The American assault on labor began in earnest when Reagan broke the air traffic controller’s union. Since that time, wages have stagnated, and income inequality has skyrocketed. When you weaken labor, you turn America into a plutocratic banana republic, where the very rich pay off the politicians to ensure that their wealth is protected and secured at the expense of the remaining 99% of Americans. That’s what conservatism in America has wrought. 

Instead of making it easier for workers to be exploited more by their management, the government should be protecting the rights of workers to be treated fairly and equitably. We should be protecting the right of people to organize and associate with each other in order to ensure good treatment in the workplace. We should be expanding – not contracting – the rights of labor, and by doing that you strengthen America. An America where people don’t march in the streets when multinational corporations legally avoid paying taxes by exporting their profits to holding companies in tax havens. We don’t march in the streets when people shoplift so they can get chemotherapy treatment. We don’t march in the streets for much of anything, except to stand in line for Zhu Zhu Pets or to rail against some fantasy Kenyan socialism. 

What Michigan did is done, and perhaps its unemployment rate will drop, in time. But so will New York’s, and so will everyone else’s. The question is – what are the quality and type of the jobs being created, and why should we further erode the constitutional guarantee of free association. Instead, Michigan is about to free ownership to treat workers as fungible chattel. 

WTF, America?

The Antoine Thompson Hire: Look on the Bright Side

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The Buffalo Employment and Training Center (BETC) is a Buffalo city agency that exists to help people find jobs. It works with applicants to try and match them with prospective employers, and has a roster of companies and agencies with which it works. It would make sense that the person whom the city retains to operate BETC would have some significant and meaningful experience in the field of hiring, human resources, or recruiting. 

Antoine Thompson spent his political adolescence being groomed by the Grassroots political club to be the next Byron Brown.  His ambition often seems to be in adverse proportion to his abilities; he started out in the Common Council as Brown’s appointed replacement, and within just 4 years was sniffing around Louise Slaughter’s congressional seat because he was upset that the party leaders had not picked him to replace then Mayor-elect Brown in the senate. Thompson eventually made it to the senate in 2006 when, with the support of Brown and Grassroots, he defeated Marc Coppola. It should come as no surprise that the Thompson/Coppola battle of 2006 forms the genesis of the hostility between the Lenihan and Brown political factions. Thompson then defeated then-Democrat Mark Grisanti in a primary race for the 60th Senate District seat in 2008. Grisanti ran as a Republican in 2010 and defeated Thompson that year. 

Since leaving government, Thompson has worked on the periphery of politics, nominally a real estate agent but also operating a newspaper and writing web pieces for former Joe Illuzzi associate Glenn Gramigna.

Actual ad on BlackWNY.com

 Throughout his short walk in the wilderness, Thompson has been seen at so many fundraisers and political gatherings that it was merely a matter of time before he jumped back into the life. In recent months, Thompson and Grassroots had been estranged from Byron Brown and his city hall political faction. Apparently, there’s been a rapprochement. 

This week, Mayor Brown appointed Mr. Thompson to become the head of BETC. The job pays almost $80,000 – more than what a state senator makes, exclusive of per diems and lulus – and Thompson’s experience in the private sector amounts to the last two years during which he’s been working as a real estate agent. Investigative Post’s Jim Heaney surmises that this hire gives Brown some cover against charges that his administration is overwhelmingly Caucasian. Perhaps, but this also placates Thompson and effectively removes him from politics, and therefore as a threat to Brown. It releases a pressure valve that would have conceivably seen Thompson challenge the Mayor in 2013, or one of the mayor’s allies in some other race. 

What can’t be forgotten in this instance is that Antoine Thompson’s tenure in the state senate was pockmarked with scandal. There was the bizarre  junket to Jamaica, where Thompson claimed to be on a trade mission, paid for with campaign funds. During the short-lived and wildly corrupt Democratic leadership of the state senate, Thompson’s behavior became brazen and strange. He got his staff to lie for him, had been accused of accepting money in exchange for influence on Racino management, and developed a reputation for being thought of as a statewide laughingstock.  He stiffed groups that relied on his member item handouts.  In his own life, Thompson stiffed his creditors to the tune of $5,700.  Thompson gave $1000 to the legal defense fund for convicted fraudster and woman-slasher Hiram Monseratte.

Thompson arranged for a $400,000 subsidy to Howard Milstein’s Niagara Falls Redevelopment, an outfit run by a billionaire chairman of the Thruway Authority that has redeveloped absolutely nothing. When Thompson suffered a minor pulled-muscle injury in a car crash and discovered that he wasn’t hurt enough to meet the tort threshold and file a personal injury suit, he tried to change the law. 

Then there was this. 

They claimed to have nobody on staff called John Taylor. They said the Albany staffer is Shawn Curry, a recent hire as a legislative assistant.

So who is John Taylor? That’s what we wanted to know. So we called him up.

The Post: “Hi, is this John Taylor?”

“Yes”

The Post: ” But isn’t your name really Shawn Curry? And if so why are you giving out a fake name from the Senator’s office?”

“Could you hold please . . .[in the same voice] This is Shawn Curry.”

The Post: “Why are you using a fake name from the Senator’s office, Shawn?”

“I am very busy, I have business to attend to, I can’t answer your question.”

Just the strangest.  

Antoine Thompson’s qualifications to run BETC are non-existent. Given his track record in elected office, I am at a loss to explain what position he may be qualified to hold in any arena. This is clearly a patronage hire, and a lucrative one, at that. But it’s the mayor’s position to fill, and he can select whomever he pleases. If Thompson’s track record of ineptitude continues, it will be Buffalo job-seekers who will be victimized by it. Thankfully, this isn’t one of those patronage scandals where a new position is created out of whole cloth in order to placate or reward a political associate; he is being hired to fill an existing position. 

Perhaps this is a good thing. Perhaps containing Antoine Thompson is the best way to limit the damage that he can do. Think of it this way – while this hire may be simply horrible for people who turn to BETC for help, it may be good for the community at-large. With Antoine Thompson running a city agency for a decent salary, he has been effectively removed from the world of elected office. That means that we won’t have him running around trying to position himself for a return to the state senate or some other representative office.  Micro loss, macro win. 

There’s much more about Mr. Thompson’s past performance at our archives. Back in 2009, when asked why we need a state senate, Mr. Thompson gave this answer: 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbAFbliBZiY]

 Maybe we collectively dodged a bullet here, folks. 

Thruway

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Not unexpectedly, chairman of the New York State Thruway Authority Howard Milstein is doing for the Thruway exactly what he’s done for Niagara Falls under the auspices of his Niagara Falls Redevelopment, LLC. 

That is, nothing. 

In 2011, its revenue dropped by 1.1%, but its costs went up by 3.9%. Its operation is firmly stuck in the 1950s – so antiquated that it employs human beings to operate an automated ticket dispenser and hand toll tickets out to motorists. It is a caricature of idiotic work rules and redundancy. 

Governor Cuomo appointed Milstein to this post – is he pleased with how the Thruway is doing and what it’s done? Is anyone in the Albany delegation living west of Albany and within 30 – 40 miles of a Great Lakes sick of the fact that the state runs a 1950s-era toll road in 2012 that acts as a tax on motorists living within that geographic range?  I mean, legislators from the north have a freeway to get to Albany, those from the south have the free Taconic, and those from the Southern Tier have the free 86/17 and the I-88 to get to Albany. Legislators who live within 20 miles of the Thruway west of Albany should be taking that roadway’s cost and operation as if it was a discriminatory tax on their constituents. 

Enough is enough. 

Naming Rights Tower

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What the imminent emptying of the tower-soon-to-be-formerly-known-as-HSBC-Tower underscores is that Bashar Issa wasn’t just a charlatan, but a transparently obvious one. Here is our archive of what we’ve written about Issa over the years. 

Now that HSBC, Phillips Lytle, and the Canadian consulate are vacating Buffalo’s tallest building, what is to be done with it? It seems that the building’s owners should have seen the writing on the wall as far back as a few years ago, but seem to be caught without a plan “B”. To the Buffalo News, Seneca One Realty explains that it’s bringing in the Urban Land Institute to help it decide what to do with 38 empty stories’ worth of building at the foot of Main Street. 

One more vacant office building creates a sudden and dramatic glut of not-quite-class-A office space that will likely depress values throughout downtown Buffalo. For all intents and purposes, it joins the I-190 as a wall that separates Buffalo’s waterfront from its downtown. 

Now, more than ever, it’s time to consider transforming downtown into a sales tax-free zone in order to stimulate economic activity there. 

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Money, Money, Money

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1. Anyone else getting the sense that the Cuomo billion for Buffalo is just a new way for our local Very Important People® to further enrich themselves and their friends on the public teat? We’re attracting a business from Albany?! What does Albany have to say about that? 

2. Congratulations to the Republicans + Tom Loughran for passing a 2013 county budget with an $8.5 million shortfall.  That’s just the kind of fiscal conservatism we need in Erie County. This is precisely the sort of “parental supervision” that the control board was put in place to provide, right? Oh, wait – you say the control board also has problems with what the Republicans and Tom Loughran did? Wait, you say that it’s somewhat suspicious that Amherst’s Democrat joined the Republicans and one of the few increases in the budget is for something called the “Amherst Symphony Orchestra”? 

While Democratic legislators tend to fight for things like funding the culturals and social services, Republicans tend to like things like road maintenance – things that the towns should be handling, but got the county to subsidize for them over the years. So now, with the budget as passed, the county executive needs to find $8.5 million worth of things to cut beyond what the legislature Republicans allegedly “cut” to eliminate the extra $18 additional bucks per year a $100,000 house in Erie County would have paid to help maintain a healthy cultural scene, and our roads.

I’m also especially disgusted by the Legislature’s right wing refusing to negotiate or compromise with the Democrats. As I pointed out yesterday, young Joe Lorigo should be held up for especial scorn for his ignorant, disingenuous statement about how hard people are fighting to raise taxes; Chris Collins went to court to raise them higher in 2008.  

Someday, Erie County will be free of the despicable stranglehold the Lorigo family holds over its politics. They are neither conservative nor proponents of good government, and they would rather promote an unbalanced budget than compromise and otherwise govern. 

The Comptroller’s office said Poloncarz’s budget is sound and reasonable. The control board conducted its own independent analysis, and found that Poloncarz’s budget is balanced and reasonable, and its board unanimously approved the budget and Four Year Financial Plan on October 26th.  By contrast, the control board’s chairman publicly expressed the control board’s concerns that the Republican amendments are unbalanced and unreasonable when he testified at the Legislature on December 3rd.

Here’s what Poloncarz said last night: 

…the Legislature has voted 6 to 5 to approve a 2013 Erie County Budget with the set of amendments proposed by Legislators Mills, Dixon, Hardwick, Lorigo, Rath and Loughran that we have talked so much about over the past week…

…Although I have earnestly kept the lines of communication open throughout this process in hopes of reaching a compromise that ensures the fiscally stability of the county and protects the programs and services demanded by the public, none could be reached.

In fact, earlier this afternoon, I proposed a package to Legislator Hardwick that would meet them half-way.  It cut the proposed property tax in half—to about $4 million, or 9 cents per $1,000—along with a set of difficult, yet real, cuts in discretionary spending to make up the rest.  I was told that it doesn’t go far enough to meet their definition of compromise.

So here we are.   Although the people spoke when they elected me as their County Executive, their voices have been muted by this Legislature.  And while the legislature has a role in the process, all I can say is that I am disappointed in its action.

I am disappointed that a majority did not agree that after closing more than $20 million of a $33 million gap with targeted cuts across the board, and a responsible use of fund balance—in order to ensure the quality of life programs and services mandated by the people remain, we needed to propose a small property tax increase to find that last $8 million.

I am disappointed that when it was clear they would not accept any property tax increase—no matter what—instead of proposing real cuts in spending to offset the loss of revenue, they, instead, chose gimmicks that look good on paper but do nothing to reduce our obligated costs—not a single dollar.

Throughout this process, no matter how many times they said it, their math simply doesn’t add up.  And their refusal to present a single piece of data in support of their claims shows me they knew that as well. It sounds eerily similar to the debate we recently witnessed on the national level: it all comes down to arithmetic and their numbers don’t add up.

I can accept that we have different opinions on how we should spend our finite resources.  But, I cannot accept a difference in facts on what we have to pay and what we don’t. 

Instead of doing what is right, though difficult, they chose to do what was easy and wrong.

They chose to adopt a budget that is not balanced—from day one—and a Four Year Plan that isn’t balanced today or in the future.

Throughout this process, we’ve fixated on whether or not there is or is not a property tax increase, on this number or that number but what we need to really ask ourselves about this budget is what have we accomplished?

That’s frankly, what I am most disappointed about of all.  I am disappointed that instead of a budget that builds upon the many great successes we have had already this year, we now have a budget that takes us a step backwards towards the fiscal crises of years past.

Instead of moving forward on the many exciting economic development initiatives we have worked so hard on—and are beginning to come to fruition—we will be forced to shift that focus on correcting the structural issues within this budget and Four Year Plan in an attempt to stave off a hard control board.

This was entirely avoidable.  All it would have taken was one more Legislator to stand up and show the kind of leadership this community deserves from them.

In the coming days and weeks, I will begin to do everything in my power to rebalance this budget and the corresponding Four Year Plan. 

 The only thing missing from this scenario is a deep inhale of one-shot tobacco money.  Happily, Poloncarz will veto every spending increase that the right wing put in place. Yes – increase; almost $200,000 worth. They didn’t just make phony cuts on paper, they also increased spending on some items. Because protect the taxpayer. 

More despicable to me than bullshitting their way into an unbalanced budget is the legislature’s right wing refusing to compromise with Poloncarz. Compromise, as any political science professor will tell you, is what government is all about. Or supposed to, anyway. 

Of course, most local media are simply parroting the notion that your property taxes won’t be going up. Let’s don’t discuss what else is going on. Just keep it stupid and incomplete – the way you perceive your audience to be. 

Welcome back, Failboat. We missed you. 

Main Street in Williamsville

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How Hamburg did it

Will this finally be the time that Williamsville’s Main Street stops being an Autobahn and becomes a more pedestrian-friendly shopping high street? It’s 2012, and there appears at least to be something of a genuine push to make crossing Main Street less horrifying. 

And it’s not just Williamsville – there’s a regional anti-pedestrian mindset at work here. I dare you to find so much as one zebra crossing within Buffalo city limits. There are a few, but otherwise we’re still living in the 50s. I dare you to find so much as one “cars must yield to pedestrians in crosswalk” sign within city limits.

The rule is this: pedestrians must obey mechanical walk/don’t walk signs. (V&TL 1112) But in a crosswalk not governed by such signals, vehicles must yield the right of way to pedestrians. (V&TL 1151).  When is the last time you saw that happen? 

Back when I lived in Boston and had daily bouts of road rage, I would honk wildly at pedestrians crossing the intersection of Congress & North Streets by Faneuil Hall who were crossing against the light, pointing up at the bright red hand, saying loudly: “you don’t even need to be literate to understand that signal.” Or similar.

But I was extremely conscientious about yielding to pedestrians at crosswalks that were not regulated by walk/don’t walk signs. After all, Boston is a driver’s nightmare, but it’s a pedestrian’s dream. Sidewalks, window shopping, and well-marked crosswalks.

As far as pedestrians are concerned, Buffalo is stuck in the mid-70s. There are no zebra crosswalks. It’s as if they built the abysmal failure of a pedestrian mall on Main Street and figured that was enough.

Zebra crosswalk ca. 1969

And most suburbanites with whom I’ve spoken always complain about the lack of parking downtown. There is no lack of parking downtown. When parking costs $5.00/day or less, there is a veritable parking glut.

Instead, we have a Benderson mentality. Under Bendersonization, you have no problem parking for free within eyesight of your destination. Buffalo is a city. You can’t do that here. Sometimes, you might have to walk a few blocks, or park around the corner, so you can’t see your destination. If you park illegally (check the signs posted along the roadway for clues), you might get a ticket. Which you’ll have to pay. Shock horror. 

What Buffalo needs is smart parking, so that people who need a spot know where to go. Signs pointing the way to ramps, showing how many spots are available. Lights within the ramps glowing red for occupied and green for available. Signs within the ramps indicating how many spots are currently available on each level. 

If Batavia can undertake traffic calming measures on its Main Street, bringing it into the 21st century, Williamsville and Buffalo are capable of doing the same. Hamburg’s downtown is the model for everybody. It’s walkable and the roundabouts make it easy to navigate. These are changes that many cities made a decade ago. It’s as if our civic leaders never leave town. 

Main Street in Williamsville, Delaware Avenue north from the Scajaquada, Elmwood north from the Scajaquada, Transit, Southwestern: they all might as well be turned into limited-access parkways like the Taconic, Robert Moses, or Bronx River.

When I see the sidewalks on Main in Williamsville expanded; when I see roundabouts at the major intersections; when I see crosswalks at every corner, then I’ll know that walkability and aesthetics are being taken seriously. When I see a landscaped medium on Transit, I’ll know that our town fathers and mothers don’t want our area to look any more like Anaheim, CA than it already does. When I see curb extensions at crosswalks on Delaware, and real zoning that limits the construction of set-back plazas with ample streetfront parking, I’ll know that someone with a brain is in charge.

I wrote pretty much the same thing in 2005. Here’s something I wrote in 2006: 

I once read somewhere (damned if I can find it now) that large malls generally build their corridors at angles, because people will balk at walking a long distance if they can see the entire length. Main Street in Williamsville could be a shopping and stroller’s mecca.

Instead, it represents the 5th through 9th lanes of the New York State Thruway.

My dry cleaner used to be on Main Street, and I fully expected that one day my car door would get ripped off by a tractor-trailer racing by westbound at 70 miles per hour. There are few walk/don’t walk signs. There are poor crosswalks. The traffic lights are out of sequence, especially between North Union and Park Lane. The sidewalks are far too narrow; the street wide enough to be a Thruway extension.

I also think that several key intersections should have landscaped roundabouts, and the road should have a landscaped median, similar to what the City’s done on Main between Hertel and Bailey.

The hope is that some of the traffic would get on the Thruway when the toll barriers are shifted back from Williamsville to Newstead or Pembroke. Also, the News article mentions that Wehrle Drive, which is bumper-to-bumper at rush hour, is set to be expanded.

Could Williamsville be the next Niagara-on-the-Lake? Not without a Shaw Theater. Or a lake. But traffic calming combined with making the stretch between Evans and Union more pedestrian-friendly would certainly bring us closer to that ideal. Furthermore, the Village has to start getting smart about zoning. The Walgreen’s/Panera plaza at the corner of Union next to DiCamillo’s is idiotic. Who allowed that? It should have had parking in the back and abutted the sidewalk – yes, yes make all the jokes about “build it to the curb”, but even Carl Paladino’s new hotel project does that. 

You don’t see many parking lots fronting Queen Street in NOTL, do you? Mostly, traffic parks behind the buildings or on side streets. At least Williamsville is talking about it. Again.

 

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