CALM BEFORE THE STORM...Tampa 8/25/2012

We're living in the calm before the storm here in Tampa... actually the calm(S) before the storm(S).

It's a beautiful day here, but we are severely waterlogged in Tampa... in a summer where we have seen torrents of rain all summer, and slogged thru Tropical Storm Debby (where some areas got 22 inches in 2 days), we are in a flood watch already.

Along comes Isaac. 

First predicted to be parallel with Tampa, off the coast at 2 a.m. Monday morning.  It has now slowed down, looking to reach hurricane status and affecting the keys and the lower east/west coast of Florida, it looks like it will take until 2 a.m. Tuesday to reach us.  Actually, as of right now, the Keys and Southern Florida, along with the Pensacola area are in more danger than we are....but these forecasts, 2-3 days out, change imperceptibly and put the target on the back of different regions momentarily.

One thing is for sure, we are certain to get some sort of a soaking deluge.  And, given our waterlogged status, that is not good.  Water, bread and batteries in place, (along with fresh vegetables and cheese which will last thru at least 24-48 hours before spoiling).. I am prepared to hunker down. 

Our second calm comes as the delegates, press, hanger-on and potential terrorists (?) arrive in Tampa, prepared to party on down next week at the RNC convention.  This week, those who don't follow politics or events, got treated to a look at the high fencing surrounding the convention venues.  They got to watch and see the 3 hotels that are booked fully by FBI and Secret Service.  They learned that if police from other counties signed up to work the convention are needed to cope with the aftermath of the storm, that the governor is prepared to call out the National Guard for the convention.  They learned that there is a ban in mileage for all watercraft from the bridges surrounding us... to try to prevent someone from blowing them up.  They sobered at the knowledge that two school buses were stolen from a lot.... a potential firebombing strategy to send into the RNC zone, packed with explosives.

Finally, these damn local people started to cope with how scary it feels to host an event like this.  Most of them don't remember Chicago in the 60's. 

I have vowed to spend my week elsewhere, but it didn't work out.  So next week, I will be one of those who will wonder how to get to work, now that most of the highways into the city are closed.  I'm lucky, I live in the north, I don't have to go "down there".  Speaking of "down there", the center city is right on the water, both the bay and the swollen Hillsborough river.    Most structures stand about 6 inches above sea level.

It was an incredibly bad choice.... not so much if the convention was in the spring, but in the middle of the storm prone summer.  Ooh baby. 

Wish us luck.

 

 

 

PS, catch my "Olympics Hermit" update below.  I was able to add pictures of the sport I loved the most. 

No Glittering Generalities

Preface: I am the daughter of a lifelong member of the Steelworkers' Union. My dad was not a leader or an organizer for the union, he was a member of the rank and file. He knew that the union was often just as dysfunctional as the managment teams of the steel industries. Some of what they bargained for made sense, some was over the top, sometimes they were right, sometimes wrong. I remember a couple of layoffs and a couple of strikes in the 18 years that the food on my table was based on the results of collective bargaining. Dad was lucky, his brother in law owned a construction firm in So. Dakota, and Dad would go to Uncle Keith during periods of layoff or strike to keep food on the table. And, he'd hunt.

As an adult, I have never worked for a firm that had union labor. I have, in Human Resources, been asked, and have complied in anti-union presentations and measures, informing the workforce, to try and help prevent the roots of union efforts. Had the unions prevailed, I would have complied by following the rules set by collective bargaining.

My dad and I are/were simply people affected (or not) by the organization of labor and collective bargaining. We did what made sense to us, given where we were in our environments.


Today, there is no way to generalize about the situation each company or state has with their unions. I lived in Connecticut and New York, and I was simply amazed at some local levels of the concessions won by unions. In wealthy counties around NYC, the salaries of teachers and the ability to work overtime for policemen resulted in simply astounding 6 figure salaries. Union bargaining, both public and private, results in very different outcomes in states like Florida and Wisconsin. In Florida, when I got here, the teachers were working without a contract, had not had raises in 3 years, and started at $23,000 a year. This was in the 90's. I was appalled at how little power they had.

This is where we find ourselves. The public sector unions in Wisconsin that we have learned about, are very different than those that will negotiate in say, New Jersey. In Wisconsin, without the police, firemen and troopers, the unions (most of whose members are women), make slightly less than the average worker in Wisconsin. Their benefits are better. Overwhelmingly, they have degrees, but have accepted lesser pay as a trade-off for better benefits. Now they are faced with austerity measures, and yes, they need to "pony up". And, they were willing to, just not under the gun of a 5 day deadline, where the proposal called not only for benefits cuts but also for loss of collective bargaining. They balked.

The governor, who has been in power for less than 60 days, is Scott Walker. He is an anti-abortion Republican who did not finish college. He is a fiscal conservative, and has been all of his political career. He has had somewhat minor roles in politics, serving as a small-city Wisconsin state assemblyman for 4 terms, and as an elected county official as the county manager for Milwaukee for 8 years. While with the county, he cut headcount by 20%, but overall spending increased by 35%. He made no bones about the need to address public sector union benefits during his campaign, but alluded to cuts in collective bargaining, as well. The voters knew what they were getting, however, he ascended to the governorship with less than a stunning mandate, winning by 52% to his opponent;s 46%. He has accepted over $100,000 in camaign funding from the Koch brothers.

What Walker did is characteristic of people who don't have experience on the broader stage of politics. He assumed that his win, and the Republican majority in both houses meant that he could pass every measure he wanted. Some would say Obama did the same. However, Walker did not study what the big boys were doing in other states, building consensus, reaching out to voters from the other side. He immediately passed a bill that would guarantee corporations 0% tax rates to enter Wisconsin. This made the impending deficit much worse. He moved from there to budget balancing, but his bill not only called for deep concessions, but effectively for abandoning collective bargaining in all instances in the future, except for base wages. . He had a small surplus when he entered the position, but was facing a 2 year future deficit that he is trying to head off. The anti-union political forces in the nation thought that Wisconsin would be a great test case, and urged fast action. Walker complied, giving the state/legislature only 5 days to consider his bill. He claims it is all about the budget. If it is, why are firefighters, police and state trooper unions exempt? Their benefit to wage ratio is even higher than those in play right now.

And the public unions, later rallying a majority of the voters (estimates are at the 60%) level, have refused. They have made concessions on budgetary matters, Walker has refused to budge. The unions he protected, the firefighters, police and state troopers...can read between the lines. They, for the most part, are supporting the backlash. Given what we've seen of his personality and his inability to back down or build concensus to move forward, it is my guess that he will lay off workers and the bill will remain in stalemate for some time. If he does this, he will lose even more of voter support. He is more articulate than Sarah Palin, but just as misguided when it comes to leadership and communication. He is a man with a plan.

And, in taking these actions so sophomorically, so out of tune with what the middle class backlash is trying to tell him, Scott Walker will inflame the progressive movement, the unions in all states, much of middle class independent voters in a way not seen since the tea party came on site. And, in some states, where the unions are being intractable or where they have won mind-blowing concessions (71% of total compensation for police workers in Camden, NJ is benefits, not salary), they will be more successful in not "giving their fair share" because Scott Walker is a ninny.

And all of this crap does not create jobs.

Healthcare

I haven't sounded off about reform... like most, I am tired of the Congressional charades that have proven it is more about being afraid to vote for your constituency while still gathering political contributions, and less about being a political leader and doing what helps the country.

The bill is not perfect. It will not reform the system. It is a beginning. The best way for me to illustrate where we are today is to go back in time, just coming out of Michael Moore's 2007 film, "Sicko". My review from back then:

"Sicko"

In Michael Moore's past films,he spent too much time on himself and his sarcasm in the films, substituting his political beliefs sometimes for his judgement as a filmmaker. Thus, he was destined to polarize a lot of potential viewers.

I saw "Sicko" today, Moore's film about healthcare in America. As for pointing a political finger, he chose not to blame one political party or another ... oh, there are a couple of Bush jokes and one poke at Hillary, but for the most part, what Moore was trying to express was, with our deep-seated fear of socialism, we have allowed a corrupt and ineffective system of healthcare and health insurance to permeate (and in many families' cases, nearly destroy) our country's way of life. The plight of many who have suffered in the American healthcare system is staggering, and sad.

Moore tells his story through a series of vignettes, and chooses NOT to discuss the most obvious issue - those who have NO healthcare insurance. Instead, he focuses on the issues faced by those who DO, or who can apply. Most of the issues, portrayed in the first half of the film deal with those who cannot get a policy because of pre-existing conditions (e.g., those who are the sickest, those who have the most debilitating diseases, who need healthcare the most) and cannot get covered. I'm lucky. My employer takes all employees and their dependents into the policy on the first day of employment. That's right, the first day. No pre-existing conditions. My employer also allows an HRA plan for those who want to spend less on their healthcare. It provides major medical, and a high deductible ($1500 for singles). The company pays the first 1/2, or $750, of your deductible. Some, of course, never even use the $750, yet have the safety net of major medical. An excellent choice for workers. My employer is a health insurer. Think about that.

Then there is the matter of what is covered, and what is not covered. Moore shows the plight of a 50 something couple (he's had three heart surgeries, she's a cancer survivor). They've been bankrupted just by co-pays and deductibles and are forced to live in a small room with their daughter. He shows the fate of a man who is the spouse of a healthcare worker at a large Midwestern hospital....his brother has been diagnosed as a perfect candidate to donate bone marrow to prevent his death from kidney cancer, but the hospitalization policy won't pay for the surgery. You can guess what happens to the man with cancer.

Throughout this series, he points out the issues with the big insurance companies (also including some very difficult to deal with situations where their employees who have to deny care try to cope with the blame they lay on themselves), the big pharmaceutical companies, the employers who are trying to cut costs and specify the terms of the plans, the legislature, the past attempts by executives to do something about it, and the general malaise in government about the situation. This is strong stuff. It is nothing we don't know, but to see it assembled here, in essay format, is to feel some of the shame and sense of hopelessness we have all faced when friends, relatives or we, ourselves, struggle with healthcare and its costs. To wonder where America took the wrong turn, the wrong fork in the road.

Moore moves into the danger of socialized medicine by showing some of the rhetoric we have been subjected to in the US about how bad the system is. He points out that our healthcare system is ranked 37th in the world, just above Slovenia's. He lets us visit the healthcare system in Canada, Britain and France, to make the contrast between their government systems and our startlingly inept private system. The biggest laugh in the film is found here, when we learn why the British hospital has a cashier's desk. (No spoiler, watch the DVD!) It is at this point that the realization hits home. In contrast to those in friendly democratic and quasi-friendly, quasi-socialist western companies..... well, we suck at this.

And that, my friends, is the message. Through our shame and our ineptitude, we have allowed the most important elements of our society, our people, to suffer. We have used our tax dollars unwisely, we have had the wrong social priorities, and we must change it. NOW. Even imperfect change is better than the spiral downward we are experiencing.

Moore's film is not without its stunt. And even if you recognize it for the stunt it is, even if you know that what you see on camera was somewhat staged, you can't help but break down. This is the controversial scene where Moore learns that we have universal healthcare for the inmates at Guantanamo, so he takes some EMT volunteers from the 911 cleanup effort, who have become very sick, and a few others from the film, by boat, to Guantanamo. They can't get in to get free healthcare. So, he takes them to a free clinic/hospital in Cuba, and everyone receives some of the help they needed that they couldn't get in America. And a tribute is made by Cuban firefighters to some of these unsung heroes of 911.

The film is grainy, has some inserts of scenes from the 40's and 50's that are hokey, there is still too much Michael Moore. I'm sure there are things that are inaccurate. I'm told that the wait times to see doctors in many universal healthcare systems are appalling, but by and large, you can see that we have allowed our own system to erode appallingly, in this film.....but it is much more than just a film. It is a wake up call. So join me, go see it. Wake up. This is one of the greatest countries in the world. It's time we got our priorities straight and started acting like it.