A hearing regarding House Bill H5142 will be held before the House Labor Committee THIS Wednesday, October 21, 2009. It is currently scheduled to begin at 2:00 P.M. in State House Room 313. We need your support!

As we hope you are aware, the Rhode Island General Assembly is scheduled to come back for a “special session” on October 28th and 29th, to consider passage of several pieces of legislation which they left in limbo when they decided to go on their extended summer vacation back in June. Some are quite trivial, but some are very important to the future financial health of the citizens of our state, as well as the state itself.

We want to specifically bring your attention to a very important piece of legislation — H5142 — which will be heard before the House Labor Committee THIS Wednesday, October 21st, at 2:00 P.M., which has to do with so-called “Binding Arbitration” for teacher union contracts, as well as the extension of expired teacher contracts past their stated expiration dates (in perpetuity).

Since there was so much push-back by the public earlier this summer regarding the original proposal to change the law to allow for what would be in effect perpetual teacher union contracts, the “new” way the powers-that-be hope to get what they want, is by passing what is known as “binding arbitration” under the devious guise that it is either taxpayer friendly or would prevent teacher strikes.

NEA-RI President Larry Purtill, in an e-mail sent to teachers all across the state recently stated:

“After over two decades of lobbying for binding arbitration, our time has come.”

NOT IF WE HAVE ANYTHING TO DO ABOUT IT!

If binding arbitration becomes the law, the only thing that will be in a “bind” are the taxpayers of Rhode Island. We will be bound to pay ever higher taxes in perpetuity, regardless of our local communities ability to pay for them. It may leave some local communities with no alternative but to go into receivership or worse. The vast majority of local spending is for education, and the supermajority of that spending pays for the salaries, health care and pension benefits for teachers; not to children or to building maintenance.

Keeping it simple, binding arbitration works something like this: A union wolf and a school committee lamb appoint a “neutral” coyote, and two of the three vote in favor of what will be for dinner. Your tax dollars are the meal.

The whole process is inherently undemocratic, and regardless as to what some propagandists in the media might they to suggest, is always skewed towards labor. Arbitration is always about the rate of increase in spending; never about decreasing it — and in most cases, a community’s “ability to pay” is not even a consideration. Most importantly, it leaves YOUR local spending decisions to three UNELECTED and totally UNACCOUNTABLE bureaucrats. That is simply unAmerican.

A hearing for House Bill H5142 will be held before the R.I. House Labor Committee on Wednesday, October 21, 2009. It is scheduled to begin at 2:00 P.M. in State House Room 313. We understand that like most taxpayers, you likely work during the daytime. The General Assembly knows that, and frankly does not care. However, if you can make it to this hearing to either testify against the legislation or to simply show your opposition to this union power-grab, that would be fantastic. Although the make-up of the House Labor Committee reads like a rogue’s gallery (there is only 1 Republican), it is still extremely important that they hear from all of us right now!

Regardless of your ability to attend the hearing, what we encourage you to do ASAP is to CALL or E-MAIL all members of the House Labor Committee and emphatically tell them to VOTE NO to Binding Arbitration or Perpetual Teacher Union Contract Legislation. Please do this before or on Wednesday prior to the House Labor Committee hearing. Their contact information is down below.

Once you have contacted members of that committee, please contact your own State Representative and State Senator and let them know you will be watching this vote when the legislature returns for the special session next week. Make sure that they know that you, as their constituent, will hold them personally accountable for their vote next election — regardless of their party affiliation.

If you don’t already know who your legislator is, you can use the NEA-RI’s own site to find out!

http://capwiz.com/nea/ri/state/main/?state=RI

Conservatively Yours,
Raymond T. McKay
President, RIRA

ACT NOW TO STOP THIS UNION POWER GRAB!

E-mail or call members of the House Labor Committee:

Representative Elaine A. Coderre Member rep-ecoderre [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 726-1190

Representative Arthur J. Corvese Chairperson rep-corvese [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 353-8695

Representative John G. Edwards Member rep-edwards [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 624-8879

Representative Deborah A. Fellela Member rep-fellela [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 231-2014

Representative Douglas W. Gablinske Member rep-gablinske [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 253-5523

Representative Scott J. Guthrie Member rep-guthrie [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 823-3451

Representative Peter F. Kilmartin Member rep-kilmartin [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 727-2211

Representative John J. Loughlin Jr. Member
HAS PERSONALLY ASSURED US THAT HE IS A DEFINITE “NO” VOTE!
(So, please do not bother contacting him!)

Representative John J. McCauley Jr. Member rep-mccauley [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 421-3331

Representative Mary Ann Shallcross Smith Member rep-shallcrosssmith [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 727-8982

Representative Kenneth A. Vaudreuil Secretary rep-vaudreuil [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 728-1532

Representative Anastasia Williams Vice Chairperson rep-williams [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 272-8135

Representative Thomas Winfield Member rep-winfield [at] rilin [dot] state [dot] ri [dot] us 949-3356

House Speaker William Murphy – 222-2466
House Majority Leader Gordon Fox – 222-2447
Senate President – Teresa Paiva Weed – 222-6655
Senate Majority Leader – Daniel Connors – 222-3310