Just a quick note: SEIU had reps outside the gates handing out flyers again last week, and I also got a call from them this weekend. They asked what I wanted to get from the city, then they pushed what they got from San Antonio. (12% raise and no increase in healthcare premiums.)
Whether or not it’s what I wanted. And I turned them down again.
Of course I brought up the lack of cost of living adjustments (I won’t dignify them with the term “raises”), but I also pointed out that we were wasting too much money on parks and “catalyzing downtown development.”
Frankly, if the downtown isn’t catalyzed after two sports venues, a hotel, a convention center, an expansion of the center, a railroad, over 100 blocks of rebuilt streets and two rebuilt freeways, it’s a lost cause. Stop pouring our money down that rat hole and spend it on the basics, like police and fire protection, and hiring enough Public Works employees to keep the water and sewer lines in repair.
I must say that with some interest, your blogs leave me quite perplexed. First of all, it seems that you are (rightfully) tired of being abused by crummy “citizens” and their complaints and such, BUT, on the other hand, you aren’t interested in joining the Union? What’s up with that? You get yours while the gettings good! Understand it this way. We live in a very hierarchical society; a virtual caste system. At the top are the Laniers and Bill Whites who are the “rich” folk; beneath them, the socialite/politico suck ups; from there on down, fecal matter rolls downhill. I work as a peasant worker for an oil company. I’ll never make enough to be rich or even to retire, but as long as I suit up and show up and don’t urinate on the bosses shoes, I’m allowed to collect my beer money and go home at the end of the day.
You, I take it, are a “Government Employee”. Pay can’t be very good, benefits, maybe average and raises pathetic. I think (haven’t really taken the time to study on this), you fit somewhere above me on the ladder, but “below” the “Government’s People”, you know who they are, they are the ENTITLED, and the MEMEBERS OF PROTECTED CLASSES, they rank above us and above “taxpaying citizens” as far as rights and legal protections are concerned.
So………..here’s the deal guy; for folks like me, (taxpaying peasantry), you and your job just aren’t an issue. Particularly for myself because I live out of the city, in “County”. I don’t shop Houston, eat Houston, party Houston, nor can I vote in Houston. Further for the taxpaying peasant who DOES live in Houston, your job and you aren’t an issue because, well, you see, we’ve all come to understand that your employer is an empty suit. The gov’t you work for does only one thing well, and that’s collect taxes, otherwise, Houston “Gov’t” is just a Federal Fiefdom. Every year the city has less money and survives only by periodically dipping into the till of “Empire Metro.” Houston Gov’t can’t really “do” anything and the average taxpaying peasant, not “entitiled” nor a memeber of a “protected class” isn’t even represented in the halls of your gov’t. Bottom line, JOIN THE UNION, SCREW THE CITY, WE DON’T CARE. You’re extra benefits won’t be payed for by even the taxpaying peasant who lives in Houston, it’ll come outa Metro anyway and in case you haven’t noticed, the Houstonian Tax payer ISN’T, paying much in taxes………they are DODGING paying taxes. So, help out the little guy when you can, join the union and get a better life!
First off, thanks for offering your opinion — I may not agree with it, but them’s the breaks. Sorry about the delay in it showing up; didn’t watch the moderation queue close enough due to how I was feeling. Let me see if I can address each of your points. Boiled down, it semes to be:
1. If I want better pay and benefits, I should go join the union.
2. The folks in political power are corrupt
3. You (and others) don’t care about Houston because you don’t live in the corporate limits and can’t vote there.
4. People who do live there probably don’t care about me either.
5. People who do live there aren’t the ones who pay anyway.
6. So quit whining and play the game!
If I missed anything, it’s not an attempt to mistate you, so correct me if I did.
Out of order, on point 2, we’re mostly agreed. Some are more corrupt than others. Occasionally, we get lucky and get someone with a vision and some morals (or a lot more talent at hiding their greed). Sometimes we get unlucky, and get an Outta-Town-Brown.
On point 1, I expect to take a lot of flak and all of it along the lines of “You’re stupid to believe something that’s detrimental to you!” So be it. Under that argument, no one should ever be soldier, a policeman, or a fireman. Nor a doctor, nurse, or even a refinery worker. After all, it’s stupid to do some dangerous job that might get you shot at, burned, exposed to disease, or blown up. Well, I believe that government sector unions are bad things, and I haven’t seen anything since the PATCO strike to convince me otherwise. Yes the current situation sucks, but I’m not selling my convictions for a few dollars more. I’ll leave that to the politicians.
On point three, I think you’re shortsighted. As Houston goes, so goes the region. There are cycles within cycles, and sometimes Houston’s loss is suburbia’s gain, and outside events (Katrina/Rita, war) can mask local trends, but overall, the region can’t prosper without a healthy center. It probably will affect me directly more than you though; certainly as long as we work in our respective fields. FYI: I don’t live or vote in the city either. Neither do a number of my co-workers. We can’t afford it. Anywhere that’s not a high-crime location, that is.
Point four: So true. One of the purposes of this blog is to change that; it’s my tiny little bully pulpit to point out an unhealthy trend in local government. One of the things that makes third-world countries so third-world is their endemic corruption. Everyone’s on the take, from the top to the bottom, and if you want to get anything done, you have to pay what amounts to extortion money to every petty clerk. We don’t want that here, but one way to guarantee we get it is to keep squeezing people until they crack, and decide that maybe their convictions are for sale after all. (I just don’t draw a line between doing it solo and doing it collectively as part of a union.)
Point five: A detailed analysis of the ebb and flow of public funding through the insane number of authorities in Harris County alone is far beyond the skills of this writer. I think your summation isn’t entirely inaccurate, though it’s a bit simplistic. There’s far more at work here than Metro, COH, and HC. And the state plays a role too. But it’s also the biggest argument against (your) point three: Metro’s transfers (in kind, the cash ones have been toned way down) have to come from somewhere; somewhere=county and other towns, and that means there’s less room for taxes by and for those authorities. Additional pressure on city budgets means a more desperate city grasping for income from anywhere. Which means you are impacted by my salary and benefits in the long run.
And point six just takes us back to point four: but let me parse it a bit more finely, in case I’m not being clear: I might “get more” from the union. But it will come at the expense of the general public. The public that, in the end, I work for. Bill White isn’t my master, he’s just the guy who sets the rules down I have to work within. The _public_ is my master. I’d just be happier if they’d tighten up their management of their hirelings next election, so some more money could be found for us.
Or to put it closer to home, if you’d worked for Enron, would you rather have made all the money you could as an employee and then said “So long, suckers” when the crash came, or would you rather have seen the top dogs clean up their act and continue providing paychecks to everyone?
Actually, I think that sums up my entire philosophy in a nutshell, now that I’ve written it. I always was too longwinded.
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