By Site Editor on May 3, 2011
Join Tom at No Exit Cafe tomorrow as he speaks at Laughing Liberally Chicago! The beer is cheap, the lineup insanely awesome. What more could you ask for?
Laughing Liberally Chicago With Author And Labor Lawyer Tom Geoghegan
Hey everyone, it is nearly the 1st Wednesday of the month, which means that it’s time for Laughing Liberally Chicago!
Our lineup this week is insanely awesome. Check it out.
Adam Burke- Standup
Thom Britton- Freak Show
Lauren Maul- Standup
Bob Rok- Hip Hop
Mike Lee- Standup
Our special guest this month is labor lawyer and author of Were You Born On The Wrong Continent, Tom Geoghegan!
Tom was supposed to be here in January, but the show got snowed out!
This is also Mike Lee’s last show before he moves to Los Angeles, so come out and see Mike one last time!
Hosted, as always, by the Accountants of Homeland Security.
No Exit Cafe, 6970 N Glenwood Ave
Wednesday, May 4th, 8pm, Free
Food and drinks available for purchase
Including $2 PBRs and $5 Burgers!
Posted in News
By Site Editor on April 11, 2011
My letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, published over the weekend.
Regarding John Fund’s “As Wisconsin’s Battle Heads to Court, Unions Try to Oust a Judge” (Cross Country, April 2): Mr. Fund says that I believe paying union dues should be voluntary. Sure, a membership that pays dues voluntarily will be more committed to its union and make it more effective. Besides, most people do want to pay. Even in right-to-work states, the large majority in bargaining units voluntarily pays dues, though it’s easy to opt out. But there should be a condition: Those who opt out in the right-to-work states give up all free union services, including the union’s obligation to protect them from discharge and unfairness of any kind. Right-to-work states make unions pay for these services to freeloaders. If we fixed the laws to be fair, more freeloaders would “voluntarily” pay dues. In our Chainsaw Al economy, who would take the risk of not doing so?
Here’s an offer to conservatives—let every American have the right to be free of any discrimination for support of a union under the Civil Rights Act of 1991, with all its legal remedies against employers. Then, after we guarantee the right to organize, let people decide if they will voluntarily pay dues.
Posted in News
By Site Editor on March 31, 2011
New opinion piece published in Politico today:
When the House membership read the Constitution aloud in January, where did it find the part that gives Congress the power to default on the nation’s debts?
Nothing justifies the claim that Congress has the power to cause a default on the national debt — or put a cap on expenditures that Congress duly authorized.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52235.html#ixzz1IByc0100
Posted in News
By Site Editor on March 30, 2011
Progress Illinois has a good write up on the issue:
A federal court ruled that Chicago Public School teachers laid off last summer for budgetary reasons have the right under the U.S. Constitution to show they are qualified to fill new vacancies within the district as they arise. In the ruling, the judges affirmed a lower-court injunction that required CPS administrators to establish a recall procedure for current and future laid-off educators.
…
The legal battle began soon after the Board of Ed laid of 1,289 teachers before the start of the current school year; approximately 715 tenured teachers were then hired backed last August. Some of the educators CPS hired back were not tenured teachers, however. CPS did not list all job vacancies on their website and the laid-off teachers were not given preference for other teaching jobs, today’s court ruling says. The judges took issue with that. “[T]here could be no conceivable harm to the public resulting from the consideration of tenured teachers for existing vacancies,” the ruling reads.
Full article here.
Posted in News
By Site Editor on March 29, 2011
From the Chicago Teachers Union:
03/29/2011
Teachers won an important battle in the war for quality schools today. The right for teachers to due process in terminations–tenure–has been restored. President Lewis urged CPS to take this opportunity to begin building trust with its teachers and PSRPs by implementing a fair recall policy immediately as ordered by the court today. CPS fired 1,300 teachers and 500 PSRPs last summer.
“We hope that the nation is watching,” said President Lewis. “The concerted efforts in Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana and here in Illinois to turn teaching into a low-wage, high-turnover job cheats students and only serves business interests that want education on the cheap. Experience counts and we must value the expert knowledge that comes with that experience once again. All students deserve the most highly-qualified, experienced teachers available.”
Today’s decision upholds the October ruling by the U.S. District Court which ordered the Board to:
(1) rescind the discharge of tenured teachers, giving fired teachers the opportunity to be part of the recall process once established,
(2) develop a recall policy, and
(3) forbid the Board from any similar unlawful discharges in the future.
According to CTU lawyer Tom Geoghegan, “This is the second court in a little over five months to rule that the Board of Education has fired hundreds of teachers in violation of their constitutional rights. We think the Board should end this litigation now and establish a recall policy consistent with the weighted criteria in the Illinois School Code and return these unlawfully fired teachers to their jobs.”
Posted in News
By Site Editor on March 22, 2011
On Tuesday, March 29 on the IUPUI campus, Labor Studies and West European Studies will co-sponsor a panel discussion featuring Tom Geoghegan, a Chicago labor lawyer and author of many books, including his latest: Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life.
Tom will be joined by Maurice Davison, Director of UAW District 3, Indiana and Kentucky; and Nicholas Strout, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing at Novalung in Germany and an IU graduate. Both will talk about alternatives to the American model, which seeks the elimination of unions.
This event will meet at: IUPUI Campus Center Room 405 420 University Blvd. Indianapolis, Indiana March 29, 2011 12:00 – 1:30 pm.
Posted in News
By Site Editor on March 21, 2011
In an interview with Wisconsin’s Politifact, Tom argues that the Wisconsin 14 walkout was a legal tactic contained within the state’s constitution.
Wisconsin state Senator Chris Larson says Democrats who left the state to delay a vote were exercising a “Wisconsin filibuster” provided by the state’s constitution
In the fall of 2010, Chris Larson was serving in relative obscurity as a member of the Milwaukee County Board.
By March 2011, he was a political celebrity, lauded by some — and vilified by others — as one of 14 Democratic state senators who fled to Illinois for more than three weeks to thwart a quick vote on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to curtail collective bargaining rights for public employees.
“Today’s Heroes: the Wisconsin 14″ trumpeted the national AFL-CIO website.
“When are they going to come back? Are they coming back from somewhere downstate? This seems ludicrous,” MSNBC host and political commentator Chris Matthews said on his March 9 show, 21 days after the Democrats left. “This is something that happens in a banana republic. When are we going to have a Legislature meeting in Wisconsin and decide this?”
As senators on both sides face possible recall elections, Larson is now defending leaving the state not only as the right thing to do — but as a matter of the lawmakers exercising their state constitutional rights.
The Democrats returned March 12 after Republicans removed fiscal items from the bill, allowing them to vote without needing 20 members present — the 3/5ths quorum requirement that allowed for the departure. There are 19 Republicans in the Senate.
Interviewed March 11 at an Illinois rest stop on his way home, Larson told a WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) television reporter he would do it all again to stall moves by the GOP majority in Madison.
”
That’s a tool that our constitution gives us,” Larson said. “It’s a little bit different than the U.S. filibuster, but it’s the Wisconsin filibuster and that’s how it works.”
The reporter followed up: “Leaving the state is the new Wisconsin filibuster?”
Larson, cracking a brief smile, responded: “It is.”
Click here for full PolitiFact story.
Posted in News
By Site Editor on February 9, 2011
Posted in News
By Site Editor on February 9, 2011
The New York Times Op-Ed pages asks the question: In the depths of the recession, we were supposed to be in a new era of thrift. So why are Americans spending again?
My answer is simple: No Pension, No Chance
Sure: scoff at us for not saving. But let’s get real: even in countries with high savings rates, the poor of the country don’t save. Even in Germany that’s true: the poor are poor!
In the U.S., the over 43 million people living in poverty aren’t going to save. We have an inequality index that can go head to head with Egypt’s. Of course food’s cheaper here, so no one’s in the streets. As for the middle class, the collapse of unions explains the rest.
In 1980, two out of three American workers were in defined benefit pension plans with guaranteed lifetime benefits. Now it’s one in five and falling. I know, personally. When plants closed in Chicago, I used to file suits to get pieces of pensions for the older workers. But now in the current collapse, there are no bits and pieces to get.
Read the whole article, including other writers’ responses, at Room for Debate.
Posted in News
By Site Editor on February 3, 2011
From Chicago Magazine… a Regular Chicago Guy Who Wants to Be Mayor
Miguel del Valle doesn’t have much money—peanuts compared to Rahm Emanuel and Gery Chico, and way less even than Patricia Watkins and Carol Moseley Braun.
When I asked him yesterday afternoon if there would be runoff on February 22nd, he answered, “My guess is Rahm is going to buy one of the spots; as for the second, I hope I’m that person.”
Were del Valle to win—he hit seven percent in the last poll—it would count as one of the upsets of any election anywhere. Should the inevitable occur and he’s out on the 22nd—the former state Senator (20 years in Springfield and the first Latino in the Illinois General Assembly) and the current City Clerk (the first Latino there, too)—will surely pop up soon in another election. He is the preferred candidate of progressives, winning endorsements from the likes of Quentin Young and Tom Geoghegan.
Our Tuesday conversation focused first on politics, but then on his four children and his wife.
Read the whole Chicago Magazine article here.
Posted in News
