Sesame Street non-profit to be hit with layoffs after staff unionize

 

Sesame Street non-profit to be hit with layoffs after staff announce union

CEO to ‘significantly downsize’ Sesame Workshop after more than 200 employees revealed plans to unionize

from the Guardian

Sesame Workshop, the non-profit behind Sesame Street, is cutting staff in an effort to “downsize significantly”, its president and CEO, Sherrie Rollins Westin, told employees this week.
The news of layoffs at the organization came just shortly after more than 200 employees at Sesame Workshop revealed their plans to unionize and comes several months after Warner Bros Discovery decided not to renew the distribution deal for new episodes of Sesame Street, the long-running, beloved children’s program.

In an email to staff on Wednesday, Rollins Westin told employees that Sesame Workshop was not “immune to the current economic challenges inherent to the drastically changing media landscape” and that the end of their distribution deal combined with policy changes affecting their federal funding made them “confronted with a perfect storm”.

“These factors, among others, have left us with a significant budget gap that we must solve as we head into the next fiscal year,” she added.
Rollins Westin said that the company’s largest single expense is people and benefits, and that the company therefore must “downsize significantly and make what we hope will be temporary changes to our benefits and bonus program”.....

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 Did I mention we need to defund PBS ?

Judge Rules Detroit Bankrupt - Unions React

Detroit Retirees Put on Notice in Bankruptcy Ruling

 By Steven Church & Steven Raphael - Dec 3, 2013 1:29 PM CT

Detroit can remain under bankruptcy court protection to shed debt and has the power to impose pension cuts on its employees, a judge said in a ruling that may have implications for distressed cities across the U.S.  
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, in a decision announced today in Detroit, dismissed an argument by unions and pension systems that the bankruptcy, the largest ever for a municipality, should be thrown out because it violated state constitutional contract protections for retiree benefits. 

“The pension people around the country have positioned themselves around that argument,” said attorney Ken Klee, who represented Jefferson County, Alabama, in its bankruptcy. "They really put themselves in a box.”

Rhodes also found that the city was insolvent and had sought bankruptcy protection in good faith, two requirements of the law. Municipal unions had claimed the city always intended to file for bankruptcy and had refused to negotiate with creditors before filing. 

The decision means the city can keep enjoying the protections of Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy code, which limits what creditors of municipalities, including bondholders and labor groups, can do to impede restructuring efforts.

Klee helped rewrite Chapter 9 in the 1970s while working as a lawyer for Congress. His client, Jefferson County, officially ended its bankruptcy today with the closing of a bond issue to raise money to pay creditors. Its $4.2 billion bankruptcy was the biggest ever by a U.S. municipality until Detroit filed on July 18, listing about $18 billion in debt.

Street Lights

Detroit has said it doesn’t have the money to pay bondholders, retirees and employees everything it owes them while still providing basic city services, such as ambulances and streetlights.

“This once proud and prosperous city cannot pay its debts,” Rhodes said. Detroit “has the opportunity for a fresh start.”

With Rhodes’s ruling, the city can now focus on writing a plan to cut the debt. That will mean contending with creditors in court and in confidential mediation, said Dale Ginter, a bankruptcy lawyer who is not involved in the case.

“None of the constituents will regard such a plan as fair or equitable, but that’s not the standard,” said Ginter, who represented retired city workers in the bankruptcy of Vallejo, California. He made the comments in an interview before Rhodes issued his ruling.

Read More  at Bloomberg News

Hope and Changed Detroit....

Shortened and Short of Cash - The Democrat National Convention 2012 is Already a Failure

Greek Columns and Greek Budgets- Dems Fail Again

The nomination of Barack Obama will happen at a shortened and significantly scaled back Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina Sept 4 - 6 2012  The attempt to spin the waning support for the POTUS and the grumbling and withholding of precious cash by Big Labor hasn't gone unnoticed. 

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AP Reports 6/25/2012
Organizers change venue for Democrats’ celebration

Organizers of a celebration scheduled to kick off the Democratic National Convention are moving the Labor Day event from Charlotte Motor Speedway to the city's downtown.
Charlotte In 2012 spokeswoman Suzi Emmerling said late Monday that as the date of the event drew closer, logistics became a challenge. Emmerling said moving the celebration to downtown Charlotte near the convention venue would make it more accessible and family friendly. The speedway is about 18 miles outside the city.
The convention has already been shortened from the traditional four days to three to have a day to celebrate the region.
The convention is being held at Charlotte's Time Warner Arena. President Barack Obama's nomination acceptance speech on Sept. 6 is scheduled for Bank of America Stadium. Both arenas are in downtown Charlotte Organizers change venue for Democrats’ celebration 

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As Bloomburg Reports: 6/25/2012

Democrats May Drop Speedway Event at Charlotte Convention

Democrats are considering canceling their political convention’s kick-off event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, as party planners grapple with a roughly $27 million fundraising deficit, according to two people familiar with matter.
Convention and campaign officials will make a final decision later this week after Steve Kerrigan, the chief executive officer of the Charlotte, North Carolina convention committee, discusses the matter with President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, based in Chicago, said the two people, who requested anonymity to discuss internal party politics.
Mayor Anthony Foxx and Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) CEO Jim Rogers are co-chairmen of the Committee for Charlotte 2012, which said that it was committed to the event.
“The Host Committee is not canceling CarolinaFest,” said Suzi Emmerling, a spokeswoman for the host committee.
Kristie Greco, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Convention Committee, which plans the convention while leaving the fundraising to the host committee, declined to comment on whether the DNCC was still dedicated to the NASCAR-themed day.
In January, Kerrigan said that Democrats were shortening their convention from four days to three, “to make room for a day to organize and celebrate the Carolinas, Virginia and the South and kick off the convention at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Labor Day,” Sept. 3.

Stadium Speech

Kerrigan also announced that Obama would accept his party’s nomination at the almost 74,000-seat Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers professional football team. The outdoor finale would echo Obama’s convention speech at Invesco Field in Denver four years ago.
While the Democrats will receive a $50 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security to defray police costs for the Sept 4-6 convention, security for the Speedway festival may not be eligible because the event isn’t part of the official convention proceedings. With a party ban on direct contributions from corporations, the host committee has raised less than $10 million, well short of its $36.6 million goal, said one of the people.
Republicans will also receive a $50 million grant for their four-day convention in Tampa, Florida, August 27-30.
Last week, the U.S. Senate voted 95-4 to end public funding for the both party’s national nominating conventions, adopting an amendment from Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn.

Public Money

Coburn has argued that it’s hypocritical for lawmakers to spend public money on their party conventions after criticizing the General Services Administration for spending $823,000 on a 2010 conference near Las Vegas.
The nominating conventions are funded through a combination of public and private money. Congress has appropriated $100 million for security at the conventions with an additional $36 million going to the two parties for other convention expenses.
Republicans have not placed any restrictions on where they raise money and have secured corporate contributions from companies including AT&T Inc. (T), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Coca-Cola Co. (KO), to meet their $55 million target.
Four years ago, corporate entities accounted for more than $33 million of the amount Democrats raised for the Denver convention, according to campaign finance reports. Democrats in Charlotte have a second committee, New American City Inc., that does accept corporate contributions and will help pay for some of the convention’s costs.

Labor Reluctant

In April, representatives of the major U.S. unions, including the AFL-CIO, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Auto Workers, were given a tour of the convention sites in Charlotte, as Democratic officials prepared to ask them to help cover their funding shortfall.

Labor organizations have been reluctant to contribute to the convention because Charlotte lacks unionized hotels and is in a state where compulsory union membership or the payment of dues is prohibited as an employment condition.

North Carolina is one of about a dozen states that Democratic and Republican strategists say are likely to determine the outcome of the presidential election. Democrats May Drop Speedway Event at Charlotte Convention

Public Unions are Antithetical to the concept of public service

Union jobs are on the decline for decades now, all the while productivity per worker has continually increased in this country. So the unions cant be productive enough to justify the higher wage. If an auto company opens a factory down south in a non union shop, the workers pay seems in line with their high productivity to actually benefit the company and the worker. Instead of the emotional appeal of buy American, make the best in terms of cost and quality and I will naturally seek it out as a consumer.



The private sector is the only side to compete,however, required to continually innovate or boost productivity or cease to exist. So a public sector "industry" that is controlled by unions, with no measure of efficiency, no need to compete in price or productivity and still uses a benefit system that failed and bankrupted more than a few companies in the private sector is contemptible  to a private sector employee earning less in the same job but competes for their job everyday.


F.D.R. Warned Us “It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
Pattern Bargaining  Pattern bargaining is a process in labour relations, where a trade union gains a new and superior entitlement from one employer and then uses that agreement as a precedent to demand the same entitlement or a superior one from other employers

  Public workers pay to add work time, costing state pensions      "Air Time"  The practice, called buying "air time," lets state, municipal and school employees pay to add up to five years to their work history so they are eligible to retire and collect a lifetime pension. Workers already eligible for retirement can buy extra years to boost a pension by up to 25%.



#scottwalker #wiunion #monopoly #corruption #graft #publicpensions