Unions won't budge on Health Care Costs
If you followed what happened at TM last Thursday, you may be as shocked as I was to hear that the Unions won't even let the Town have new employee's be put on a plan by which the employee's will contribute a little more to their own health insurance. As I sat there and listened intently to the well thought motions and frank statements from the Town Manager, it became very clear that the unions have not given any regard to the tax payers and this Towns financial future. And as we left on Thursday night, many around me acknowledged we did NOT vote on that article. Mr. O'Neil has asked for re-consideration of the article, but as I see it, it was never approved. Mr. Vassar will be submitting two motions on Tuesday night, which on the surface, sound very good.
How we got to this point, where Framingham is only one of 6 Towns in the entire State that allows unions to have veto power over employee contributions and insurance plans, can be chalked up to the BOS, way back in 1993, when John Stefanini was one of the two culprits who voted for this.
And as CFO Kelley pointed out, the short term gains will disappear in a few years and the Town will be spending huge amounts of money on health insurance no matter which way we go. It's a terrible spot for the Town and tax payers to be in and the no-guts legislature will never vote to allow Framingham the right to change the insurance. Dammed if we don't, dammed if we do. Public employee's unions win, but at what cost?
It's time to ban all public employee unions, their hazardous to our health.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 12:08 PM
16 Comments
16 Comments:
Hey, the selectmen created the issue, so they have to figure out how to fix it. Right now they are hiding behind the towm manager and letting the taxpayers pay for the mistakes the BOS made years ago. That can not continue. We need to hold them accountable, and they need to find a way to take this burden off Framingham resident’s shoulders. They have to figure out how to reach a compromise with the unions, and then bring that compromise to the tm memebers. Town meeting has no authority to negotiate the contracts themselves. All they can do is vote on approving what has been negotiated and brought before them.
Unions hazardous to our health, that’s a good one. I would like to see you try to defeat the unions. Reagan tried to do that in the 80s and they are still around. What chance do you think you have?
Framingham is heading down a really steep hill in a car with faulty brake lines. You think you are going to attract business to this town when we are one of only 6 municipalities in the state that are stuck with this program? Does not paint a picture of a very well run town. Add to that a ride through our downtown district, and how much chance do you think we have of attracting new business here?
New business to Framingham? What a joke. Who would come here? Previous poster stated bad judgement and a poor downtown. What about a ridiculous sign by-law and a planning board that can not get anything done for months at a time? Why would anyone even consider coming here?
But what's interesting is, if you heard what we all heard last week at TM, TM HAS the authority to negate a contract.... many thought that was a revelation, as I do.
Annon.... I will not defeat unions, they will burn themselves out with the tax payer, who is not a union member, but a voter.
All employee's of the state, towns and cities will face dramatic layoff's in the next two years if they can't even come to the table and be reasonable.
If you can not get the unions to step up to the plate, then you had better get more businesses in here to foot the bill because the wallets of the residents of Framingham are pretty empty already.
This town is going down the drain and the BOS are the ones turning the faucet on to wash us down even faster. I hear them say my property tax is going to go up by 2.5%, but that is ok because the value of my property here in Framingham is going to drop 20%, and they say that like it is good news. My property value continues to drop because Framingham is a poorly run town. Stop expecting me to go along with raising my taxes because the people we elect to run this town don’t know what they are doing.
You are all just jealous because you are not smart enough to be working for a union yourself. I don’t live in Framingham, so my concern is to get as much money as I can get for the work I do so my family can live well. I really don’t give a dam how the town pays for it. I think your town needs better negotiators if you don’t like the deals we are getting. As an employee of the town who lives someplace other than Framingham, I think things are working just fine.
It is not the unions, or the union employees we have an issue with in this town, it is the union contracts. Saying the contract is not reasonable is not saying the employees or the union are not valuable to the town. Lets stay on point. We need to negotiate a contract that reflects the economic times we are living in but is still fair to both sides of the negotiations. Smart, well educated employees (as our cops are given the Quinn bill funding) ought to be able to understand that the town can not pay out more than it takes in, no matter what they may think they are entitled to. If they don’t get that, then the Quinn funding has been a total waste of time as that is a pretty simple principal of economic, accounting, and math.
The town funds the Quinn bill, and cuts teachers. I tell you if I had kids in school, I would be looking to move to another town myself.
Branding Framingham was a waste of our taxpayers dollars. Want to attract business? Get the cost of doing business under control in the town. We are going to be the next town to go bankrupt if we don’t smarten up. Most town meeting members are clueless, Pillsbury you are one of the exceptions. They don’t even listen when the finance committee and/or ways and means tells them we can not afford to do something. TM members vote to do it anyway. What is that all about?
Maybe Tom O’Neil is not sleeping through as much of these meetings as I thought he was. Glad to see someone is raising the question about what was actually voted on last Thursday night. I sure don’t know, and I was there and awake.
Stop complaining about the problem and start suggesting solutions people. We are all in this together. You can point your fingers at whoever you want, but it is you and I, the homeowners in this town, that are paying for all this stuff. So it is you and I, the property owners in town, that need to make sure good decisions are made going forward. This town has made some piss poor decisions in the past, but that is the past. Let’s contact the selectmen and town manager and TM members and let them know we want things to change, and hold them accountable for that change. Complaining ain’t going to fix anything. And how about getting some new blood in the TM seats. Jim says everyone falls asleep that is there now, so lets replace those people with some of the people who come here to complain. Put your money where your mouth is people and start getting involved or we are going to continue to have the same bad decisions made for us by people who just don’t seem to get it.
Unions are not the evil doers here. The town created this situation, and the unions are just making the best of it. Not the unions fault the town is run by a bunch of idiots.
Without unions there would be no police, fire, DPW, or employees at town hall because you would have no contracts in town. Then what would you do?
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