ED SHULTZ & SHEP SMITH

MONDAY'S MARATHON BUDGET MEETING

As you are all aware, the Common Council is still having meetings during most evenings up until Tuesday nights vote. The Council must vote on our own version of the 2010 budget on Tuesday to reserve the right to override the possible VETO by the Mayor at the regular scheduled meeting Dec 15th.

One of the last budget meetings we had at City Hall was no less tense than the previous meetings. The chief negotiators for the three Unions and some commentary by DPW Super, Mike Schupp provided little in the way of altering the expected lay-offs.

What was intriguing was the progress being made in the KPBA regarding their offerings to the Council and the Mayor. If all goes according to planned, the police department is set to lose less personnel than expected.

The issue of merging dispatchers came up again as did the suggestion of turning one of the Fire Houses over to volunteers. There has been little follow-up on either of those ideas. (to my knowledge anyway)

Many of you are aware that Charlie Landi has been a constant reminder of the financial crisis that we face, he does so while reminding everyone of the possible option of Municipal Bankruptcy. To the level that we now have copies on what that process is...in detail.

We also had quite the conversation regarding City Bus. What the revenue/expense numbers are, how it's funded, whether to purchase the large buses every year and if we should turn the whole operation over to UCAT.
Alderman Hoffay took the charge, backed up by Bill Reynolds, pressing the issue that City Bus is a no win situation, with less funding offered by the Fed to cover costs. The loss in 2010 and 2011 will only deepen and truly warrants further discussion.
Should we offer our bus service to the County? Raise the fares from $1 to $2?

Another point that hadn't been addressed is the non-aligned staff and the expected pay increases slated for next year. I think we should ask for the same pound of flesh from that group as we are asking of the union membership. I've got that list with me and plan on asking John Tuey (who is on that list) to put those numbers together for Monday night's meeting.

Question for my readers: What do you think about giving the Civil Service and Human Rights duties to the County? I'm sure they could find room in that huge office building on Fair Street.

MADE IN AMERICA: NOT LIKELY

Richard Trumka, the President of the AFL-CIO, couldn't help but pre-empt his own Washington DC speech with a press release. He states: To our nation’s peril, the free trade orthodoxy continues to ignore a fundamental economic fact: It matters where things are made. Over the past decade, the U.S. industrial base has suffered an unprecedented decline. The loss of more than 5 million manufacturing jobs and the closure of over 50,000 manufacturing facilities have undermined our nation’s technical capacity to innovate and to make things, while at the same time decimating our middle class.

I would have to agree whole heartedly on this one. The way the rules of trade are laid out currently, large corporate short-term profits drive good jobs offshore while stock traders reward corporate leadership for their efforts with inflated worth and stock options. It's spelled GREED.

Richard points out that: Outside of the US, governments see manufacturing as key to long-term growth, and they target investment in industries and technology. In contrast, the U.S. government abandoned strategy to market forces and left workers and communities hanging without a safety net.

Have any of you bothered to check where the products you buy are made or assembled? I'll give you three guesses...Tick - times up! Just venture uptown Kingston... Pick any novelty gift shop and start your research. You'll see plenty of Chinese and Indonesian made goods right on Wall St.

The owners of these shops plea for the locals to buy locally, yet they don't practice their own rhetoric. Isn't that a drag? If Trumka had his way, everything uptown would be made in America but with a 20% mark up. I would look for and pay the extra for just that reason.

A few years ago, I went on a scouting mission. I checked out some of the big box stores. One of which was Bed Bath & Beyond in Ulster. Checked the selection and found the only product made in USA was the Kitchen Aid mixer. Come to find out, their biggest assembly site is a mile across and strattles the Texas/Mexico border. Guess where the majority of the assembly is done?

So Trumka has a point. Until we address where we make stuff, alter our free trade structure, and make the effort to buy American made products, we are never going to get out of the economic hole we are in. He states: Governments must restructure and regulate financial systems so that long-term investment is rewarded and gambling is not subsidized. We must use our financial resources to develop and deploy domestically-produced technology and, if there is better technology overseas, use our financial leverage to get those production systems located here.

So, you all have a homework assignment; Go out there, hit the stores and find the American made products that remain. Consider the slightly higher cost and then think about the dwindling workforce here in our country. I for one, still think where something is made matters.

TRUMKA HEADS AFL-CIO

Interesting news in the world of union leadership. Richard Trumka, second in command to retiring President John Sweeney, has taken over the AFL-CIO Presidency. [almost in a coronation manner]
I'm reading in several accounts that it was pretty much pre-ordained.
In the recent past, the AFL-CIO has spent most of their war chest on candidates that have been friendly to labor. That is not expected to change.

What's interesting is, I got this email about UNITE coming back to the big family at AFL-CIO and walking away from SEIU. Any of us who get such emails and twitters, know there has been a move to leave SEIU for quite some time. Maybe UNITE shouldn't have left in the first place, But I don't know all the details. With a few friends in the hotel business, I would get to hear some of the in-fighting that their representation was going through, but not to this extent.

What I did see in the New York Times, was that Arlen Specter has made a complete turnaround on the Employee Free Choice Act. Shocking isn't it? What got into him? Well the opportunity to insert some stipulations of his own of course. That's the Specter we remember.

To close: I say congrats to Richard Trumka in leading the troops back to the home team. Its only a matter of time before those you left behind rejoin as well.