Union Goons Archives - Page 41 of 47 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 14, 2011May 14, 2011Education Uber Alles

Dealing with Denial: A Test for Teachers

We fielded all sorts of bitter accusations from teachers when FFFF handed out our list of teacher and administrator pay at this week’s teacher rallies. Responses ranged from the simple “the list is garbage” and “my brother does not make that kind of money” all the way to “the District distorted the figures because they’re against us.”

Yes, we explained that the numbers came straight from district HQ (Here are details, in case you’ve missed it: FJUHSD Salaries over $90,000 and FSD Salaries over $90,000.) But some of the chanting unioneers could not be swayed.

Teachers of the list, here is your challenge:

Show us your pay stubs from the 2009-2010 school year! If you can prove that your salary was overstated in our flier, we’ll go back to district HQ and take them to task on your behalf.

Otherwise, we’ll just go with what we already know: this list is 100% true and correct.

May 13, 2011May 13, 2011Boohooism

Bread and Circus. The Return of Pam Keller

by Joe Sipowicz60 Comments

Yesterday teachers launched another demonstration along Harbor Boulevard to promote higher taxes (yours) to pay for higher pay and bennies (theirs). FFFF was once again on hand to remind folks of the hundreds of teachers in Fullerton pulling down more than 90K for nine month’s employment.

KellerMouth1 — Yes, my jaw is retractable.

KFIs John and Ken were there too to engage in an intelligent conversation with the protesters as only they know how to do. And guess who was there to defend the indefensible? That’s right – Pam Keller – the prototypical Fullerton Boohoo out of whose mouth hardly anything intelligent has tumbled in living memory. But that has never kept her from opening it. Wide.

KellerMouth3 — Hey Pam, your'e on the clock collaboratin', right?

KellerMouth2 — It's all about the kids you idiot!

Photos by OC Register.

May 12, 2011May 11, 2011Education Uber Alles

Tax-Cheering Teachers Get Mad

by Travis17 Comments

In the midst of a teachers’ union protest for higher taxes the other day, we handed out a list of 585 Fullerton teachers and administrators who make over $90,000. Our camera captured their reaction:

This afternoon the teachers’ union will be at it again, this time on Harbor Blvd. in Downtown Fullerton. John and Ken will be there too, and so will FFFF.

I also heard that the teachers’ unions are planning some kind of “surprise” in response to the conservative radio duo. Come on down, it might be fun.

May 11, 2011Behind Closed Doors

Quint Says Goodbye. We Say Good Riddance. But We’ll Miss the Horrendous Judgement

by Joe Sipowicz25 Comments

We found out today that Wayne Quint, the head boss of the Deputy Sheriff’s union is quitting – supposedly to take a job at the State. Well the State is so effed-up it’s hard to imagine anybody making it any worse, even somebody with no identifiable job skills.

Or judgment. Consider Quint’s ill-conceived plan to spent hundreds of thousands of bucks to support the carpetbagging assclown, Harry Sidhu. Apparently Quint was so scared of Shawn Nelson that he was willing to squander a fortune of his member’s dues on the boob Sidhu.

Come to think of it, maybe his members will be glad to see him go, too.

May 10, 2011May 12, 2011Downtown Fullerton

John and Ken Returning to Fullerton to Protest Teachers’ Union Tax Hikes

by Travis58 Comments

Political talk radio hosts John and Ken announced that they will be coming to Fullerton on Thursday to counter the demonstration for higher taxes put on by the Fullerton teachers’ unions.

Apparently they were egged on by the receipt of a flyer listing five hundred and eighty five Fullerton teachers and administrators who make a lot of money.

We have here a copy of that flyer:

View the teacher/administrator salaries

Update:

The raw data supporting this flyer is located here: Fullerton School District Salary Data and Fullerton Joint Union High School District Salary Data.

April 27, 2011April 27, 2011Orange County Government

The Great Pension Debate: Greenhut vs. Berardino

by Travis50 Comments

Here’s a fun match up between pension watchdog Steven Greenhut and the head of the OCEA public employees’ union, Nick Berardino. The subject of yesterday’s debate was “Can pensions be reformed co-operatively?”

Who won?

April 26, 2011April 26, 2011Local Media

Those Nutty Californians Want to Roll Back Public Pensions

by Travis18 Comments

Here’s something unexpected: the progressive collective of California voters appears to be sick and tired of supporting the exorbitant retirement schemes of our public servants.

A new poll by the Los Angeles Times and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences found that pension reform is supported in this state by a wide margin. Specifically…

70% want to cap pensions for current and future public employees;
68% say public workers must contribute more to their own retirement funds;
52% support hiking the retirement age of government workers.

I wonder how that poll would go over in Fullerton?

April 22, 2011April 22, 2011Setting The Bar Low

That’s A Lotta Pasta

by Travis11 Comments

Today the Register is reporting that Union officials for the Fullerton-based Teamsters Local 747 are taking heat for wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of union money on luxurious junkets and personal expenses. Even International Teamsters leader James P. Hoffa called the expenses “excessive.”

Amongst other abuses, union officials and employees were exposed for blowing $102,399 at Spadra, an Italian restaurant on Commonwealth in Fullerton (formerly Il Ghiotto, now closed).

Wow, a hundred grand sure will get ya a big pile of spaghetti. I’ll bet there was a little booze involved, too.

spaghetti-shovel — Your diet coke will be out in a moment.

Alright, so this fiasco doesn’t involve any public employee unions. But fraud, abuse and excess has plagued the leadership of public and private collective bargaining organizations since the glory days of union thuggery. Maybe this is just just a good reminder to union members: you ought to be checking up to make sure that your glorious leaders aren’t living high on the collective supply.

March 31, 2011March 31, 2011Don Bankhead

Who Does Don Bankhead Blame for Fullerton’s Pension Crisis?

by Travis15 Comments

The other day someone remarked that Don Bankhead has never accepted the blame for any of the bad votes he’s made since the beginning of his 23 year reign on the city council.

Twenty-three years at the helm…surely there must be at least one single thing that even the most narcissistic of government officials would accept partial blame for, right? Well, how about Fullerton’s pension crisis? Don Bankhead voted for every single pension and salary spike put in front of him over the last 23 years, and has done absolutely nothing to curb the excesses that have brought hundreds of millions in debt upon the shoulders of Fullerton Taxpayers.

Let’s see what he has to say for himself:

Who’s fault is it? Oh, it’s the stock market’s fault!

Nobody could have possibly predicted that stock investments carry an inherent risk, and that their value may not increase forever, and that by boosting these pension commitments, Bankhead was dumping ever-increasing chunks of risk onto future generations of Fullerton taxpayers. And of course the unions would never try to talk an unsuspecting buffoon into boosting their benefits at the very peak of a cycle, where smooth sailing into a rich eternity seems practically guaranteed.

Economic Cycle — Up and down? That theory is old fashioned.

Nope, none of this is evident to the dim bulb who went along with the biggest series of heists in Fullerton history. It’s all somebody else’s fault, and there’s nothing that he can do about it now.

Sadly, nobody has had the heart to tell Don Bankhead that the pain of nearly two hundred million dollars in pension debt will be shared by his very own children and grandchildren.

How’s that for a legacy?

March 30, 2011March 30, 2011Fullerton City Council

Some Numbers

by Travis68 Comments

It’s almost April. Our wise and courageous city council is already wading through wage negotiations with the city employee unions for the upcoming budget year. How did we get this far without adding up Fullerton’s total unfunded pension obligation? Oh well, here it goes…

Pension Plan	Total Liability	Market Value of Assets	Unfunded Liability
Fullerton Public Safety	$324,288,070	$197,444,920	$126,843,150
Fullerton Miscellaneous	$202,257,209	$136,167,010	$66,090,199

That’s a grand total of $192 million in what is essentially “pension debt” for which we have no foreseeable plan to pay, even when we include all of our future contributions and expected market gains.

The pension plans are already paying out $9 million more per year to retirees than they are taking in via contributions, so there’s no help there. But our required contributions are increasing significantly, starting this year.

With no perceivable way out of this hole, maybe it’s time to hit the road and put it all on black.

Las Vegas — I think I'm getting the fear.

All of these numbers came from the 2010 CalPERS reports for Fullerton’s Public Safety and Miscellaneous pension plans.