We're still keeping an eye on this

Collective bargaining back in the news in Nevada (see TSF blog here):

Fight over collective bargaining looming in Legislature

But Sandoval’s newly unveiled education reform package might bring the collective bargaining fight to him.

Under the legislation, teachers unions couldn’t bargain for higher pay based on educational attainment or years of service. They would also be limited in bargaining on the processes for layoffs, other workforce reductions and termination.

The Nevada State Education Association sees Sandoval’s bill, Assembly Bill 555, as an end run around its collective bargaining rights.

“We certainly didn’t take the governor at his word that he was not going to mess with collective bargaining,” association President Lynn Warne said. “He said he wasn’t going to move to eliminate collective bargaining, but there’s lots of mischief to be made within the statute of 288. And he’s picked on two very important issues to us.”

I wonder why no mention of Legislative Republicans issuing a list of demands, including derailing collective bargaining.

Is it due to lack of resources or lack of will that no one is pointing out what Governor Sandoval and legislative Republicans are doing in Carson is happening in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and other states?

Conservative think-tanks and news services have been slithering around Carson for almost two months as part of a string of "non profit" franchise-type operations that have popped up in states with new Republican governors.

This is not all just a coincidence.

Revisiting SB41

By far the most controversial blog on The Sausage Factory was this one about holes in Governor Brian Sandoval's position on collective bargaining and lack of reporting on SB41. It's always funny to hear that people are calling around just to tattle on you over a blog. Man up!



This is a brief update/basic timeline:

Feb 4: Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval's adviser Dale Erquiaga says the Gov wants nothing to do with former Governor Jim Gibbons bill that would eliminate collective bargaining.

Feb 7: SB41, a bill that would eliminate collective bargaining in Nevada, finds its way to the state senate. Other bills left over from the Gibbons administration have yet to see the light of day. Somehow, despite the Governor's supposed lack of interest, SB41 is drafted and makes it to committee.

Feb 11: Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin introduces his budget that includes eliminating collective bargaining for public employees.

Feb 14: In Wisconsin, Labor Unions and members of the public begin to protest Governor Walker's union-busting budget.

Feb 19: In Wisconsin almost 70,000 people protest Governor Walker's union-busting budget.

Feb 21: Governor Sandoval attends the Churchill County Central Republican Committee's Lincoln Day Dinner and tells attendees he has Governor Walker's back
“We are all working together,” Sandoval told Walker. “No one is going to buckle, no one is going to blink.”

Feb 22: Governor Walker falls for a prank phone call and tells "David Koch" that Governor Sandoval says there is support for what Walker is doing in WI (busting unions) in the state of NV.

Feb 23: Republican governors in Ohio and Florida back off of collective bargaining.

Feb 24: Governor Sandoval tells the Las Vegas Sun “In regard to collective bargaining, there may be a bill,” Sandoval said. “I’ve not seen that bill. I’m watching the progress of such bills and waiting to see if they arrive here at the Capitol.”

Feb 27: The Las Vegas Review Journal reports there is no push by Governor Sandoval or Nevada Republicans to bother collective bargaining.

Mar 2: Assembly Republicans issue a list of demands, including "Strengthen management’s position in public employee collective bargaining rules."


updated to add gif, fix sentence
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Laura
laurakmmartin@gmail.com

Governor Brian Sandoval wants to end collective bargaining

On February 24, 2011 Governor Sandoval told Anjeanette Damon of the Las Vegas Sun:

“In regard to collective bargaining, there may be a bill,” Sandoval said. “I’ve not seen that bill. I’m watching the progress of such bills and waiting to see if they arrive here at the Capitol.”

On February 27, 2011 Laura Myers of the Review Journal, in one of her infamous rambling opuses declared Governor Sandoval and the Nevada republican party are not going after public employees or unions.

And today, Jon Ralston published a missive and he too fell into line claiming Governor Sandoval had no intentions (no stomach?) to mess with collective bargaining rights.

But over in Humbolt County, our friend Desert Beacon finds this:

In case citizens of Nevada were thinking that what happens in Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin would stay in Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin -- please see SB 41 (pdf), introduced into the Nevada State Legislature by the Legislative Committee on Operations and Elections at the request of the Governor.

What does it do?

In other words, if the local government doesn't "deem" collective bargaining "desirable" then all bets are off and there will be no collective bargaining. Period.

But surely it was introduced AFTER all those media reports claiming Governor Sandoval had no interesting in collective bargaining, right?

The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Operations and Elections on February 7, 2011.

You have to wonder why our press corps intentionally led the public to believe our governor was staying away from the collective bargaining fight while at the same time that same governor had requested a bill that would essentially do away with with those bargaining rights.

Maybe if SB41 included something about prostitutes they would have noticed


UPDATE:
Desert Beacon provides a SB41 timeline

UPDATE 2:
These questions still stand: if Brian Sandoval was not interested in a collective bargaining bill and wanted it ignored, why was the bill still drafted? Why is it in a senate committee? Why waste valuable legislative time to work on a bill the governor has indicated he has no intentions of passing (and there is not enough legislative support to override a veto)? Who brought Governor Gibbons bill back to life? Sure, the bill will not go anywhere, but why did everyone just roll over and accept Governor Sandoval's word? Especially since he was caught twice praising union-busting Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. Sandoval may think a bill would never go anywhere, but either he and/or the Nevada republican party may think they have a chance to win an ideological fight in the process.

Check our Desert Beacon (here and here) and Nevada State Employee Focus for more analysis

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Laura

Halseth seeks to deny voters access to elected officials by banning them from public hearings

Over 1,000 parents, students, administrators, staff and teachers made their way to Green Valley High School in Henderson to testify in front of their elected officials about Nevada's education budget. This did not please freshman senator Elizabeth Halseth: she has called for all Nevadans without student identification to be banned from future public hearings.



In Halseth's defense, she might not have actually authored that tweet herself. As seen in her Face to Face interview, she is usually not that coherent, and its widely known that the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity chapter of Nevada assists with her blog and sends her questions to ask and comments to make during her committee hearings in Carson City.

Despite who was behind the tweet, Halseth or AFP Nevada, you have to wonder why they were so upset by the testimony they heard that they feel government must step in and prevent voters from speaking and having access to their elected officials.

Was it the 3rd grader with type 1 diabetes who didn't want his school nurse to be fired because he'd have no one to give him his insulin shot? The bus driver who faithfully performed her duties for Clark County School District for 30 years? The young man from Nevada Policy Research Institute who said Nevada's education system didn't need more money, the money we have needs to be spent wisely? Or the mother of three who wanted her kids education to mean something when they graduate and go out into the world?

And to further darken an otherwise uplifting evening of civic engagement and parental involvement, Halseth and freshman assemblyman Scott Hammond lied via their twitter accounts by claiming parents were shut out of the public hearing because the auditorium was full of union members.





Anyone who actually attended the open hearing knows there was not one person wearing union paraphernalia in attendance. This may be news to Halseth and Hammond: members of Nevada's labor unions have children who attend public schools, and they care about the budget too.

Halseth and Hammond are the types to be first in line to lie about and demonize members of Nevada's labor unions then whine and cry that those same union members they want to ban from public hearings overwhelmingly support Democrats.

I doubt little Christopher Hughes, the 3rd grader with diabetes, is a union member, but Halseth and Hammond have dismissed his testimony just the same. They have to look past their conservative talking points and push politics to the side to help children in CCSD like Christopher.

All people who provided testimony had great ideas. Lets hope their words didn't fall or deaf, or even worse, partisan ears.

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Laura

Governor Sandoval supports his Koch-head friend in Wisconsin

Oliver Willis has the audio and transcript up on his blog as the original source, Buffalo Beast, appears to be down. Hopefully due to traffic.

Here is what Buffalo Beast had on their website to describe the call, before the site went down:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker answers his master’s call

“David Koch”: We’ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that—because we thought about that…

***

WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO WITNESS IS REAL. NO NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT. THERE ARE NO INNOCENT.
-MURPHY

***

“He’s just hard-lined—will not talk, will not communicate, will not return phone calls.”
-Wisconsin state Sen. Tim Carpenter (D) on Gov. Walker (source)

Carpenter’s quote made me wonder: who could get through to Gov. Walker? Well, what do we know about Walker and his proposed union-busting, no-bid budget? The obvious candidate was David Koch.

I first called at 11:30 am CST, and eventually got through to a young, male receptionist who, upon hearing the magic name Koch, immediately transferred me to Executive Assistant Governor Dorothy Moore.

“We’ve met before, Dorothy,” I nudged. “I really need to talk to Scott—Governor Walker.” She said that, yes, she thought she had met Koch, and that the name was “familiar.” But she insisted that Walker was detained in a meeting and couldn’t get away. She asked about the nature of my call. I balked, “I just needed to speak with the Governor. He knows what this is about,” I said. She told me to call back at noon, and she’d have a better idea of when he would be free.

I called at noon and was quickly transferred to Moore, who then transferred me to Walker’s Chief of Staff Keith Gilkes. He was “expecting my call.”

“David!” he said with an audible smile.

I politely said hello, not knowing how friendly Gilkes and Koch may be. He was eager to help. “I was really hoping to talk directly to Scott,” I said. He said that could be arranged and that I should just leave my number. I explained to Gilkes, “My goddamn maid, Maria, put my phone in the washer. I’d have her deported, but she works for next to nothing.” Gilkes found this amusing. “I’m calling from the VOID—with the VOID, or whatever it’s called. You know, the Snype!”

“Gotcha,” Gilkes said. “Let me check the schedule here…OK, there’s an opening at 2 o’clock Central Standard Time. Just call this same number and we’ll put you through.”

Could it really be that easy? Yes. What follows is a rushed, abridged transcript of my—I mean, David Koch’s conversation with Gov. Walker.

Here is the portion about Nevada's governor Brian Sandoval:

Walker: [blah about his press conferences, attacking Obama, and all the great press he's getting.] Brian [Sadoval], the new Governor of Nevada, called me the last night he said—he was out in the Lincoln Day Circuit in the last two weekends and he was kidding me, he said, “Scott, don’t come to Nevada because I’d be afraid you beat me running for governor.” That’s all they want to talk about is what are you doing to help the governor of Wisconsin. I talk to Kasich every day—John’s gotta stand firm in Ohio. I think we could do the same thing with Vic Scott in Florida. I think, uh, Snyder—if he got a little more support—probably could do that in Michigan. You start going down the list there’s a lot of us new governors that got elected to do something big.

Koch: You’re the first domino.

Walker: Yep. This is our moment.

Koch: Now what else could we do for you down there?

Walker: Well the biggest thing would be—and your guy on the ground [Americans For Prosperity president Tim Phillips] is probably seeing this [stuff about all the people protesting, and some of them flip him off].

Audio starts at 1:15


UPDATE:
Governor Walker's office confirms, that's him on this call talking about union-busting to a fake David Koch

Jodi Stephens takes a break from disenfranchising voters and attacks unions

Having not been satisfied with going after the poor and people of color with voter suppression tactics, executive director of the republican senate caucus went after working Nevadans.

In a RT of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce, Jodi Stephens belittles Nevada's Labor Unions by suggesting (re: lying) they do not organize for education.



Thanks to republicans like Stephens, Labor Unions in Nevada *have* organized on behalf of education. If she took a break from supporting voter suppression (re: not creating jobs for Nevadans) she could Google and see many examples of unions having to lobby, march, rally, phone bank, canvass and organize because of her party.

Here are just two examples of union organizing I was apart of as a member of AFCSME Local 4041

UNLV students walk out

Let the protests begin: College students and teachers rally against budget cuts

And there are more to come. Former governor Jim Gibbons nearly choked the life our of our education system with drastic cuts. Current governor Brian Sandoval seems intent on finishing the job.

I am no longer a member, but I know AFSCME and other Labor Unions in Nevada will continue to organize, assist students and parents in organizing and partnering with the teacher's union and others to fight back against Jodi Stephens and the Senate Republican's attempt to gut our education system.

UPDATE

Someone sent this tip to me. They said she was Governor Gibbons Secretary, which is what I tweeted. Actually, she was his "executive assistant" then was promoted to "legislative director".

The story is on the Las Vegas Review Journal's website; I can't link/quote for obvious reasons. But, do a search for "jodi stephens" + "gibbons" + "salary" and its the first result (I could not find a Sun article).

Apparently, within the same year Ms. Stephens was feverishly working to take funding from education and cut the salaries of working Nevadans by 6%, she managed to DOUBLE her own salary to $103,382.

No wonder she was rejected by the voters of assembly district 32.

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Laura
laurakmmartin@gmail.com