In the heyday of unionization, unions were representing workers who actually had some skills, workers who could not easily be replaced, because their skills were needed to do their jobs, and it took a long time to develop those skills. Perhaps, just perhaps, pulling a cup of coffee isn’t that difficult a skill to learn?
Well, perhaps being polite is harder to learn than pulling a cup of coffee!
All OCF Coffee House locations close permanently, a week after workers moved to unionize
I know how to save The Washington Post! Just have Jeff Bezos, net worth $196 billion as of June 4, 2024, owner of the newspaper, give it to MacKenzie Scott, net worth $33.3 billion as of June 4, 2024, Mr Bezos’ ex-wife and a noted philanthropist who has no problem in giving away her money. Just a straight-up reassignment! Mr Bezos stops losing $77 to $100 million a year on the Post, and Miss Scott, with five times as much money as Patrick Soon-Shiong, net worth $6.3 billion as of June 4, 2024, and who is finding the Los Angeles Times’ losses too much to bear, can easily handle losing money, because she doesn’t seem to care if she makes money or not. Continue reading
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” — George Orwell, 1984
The official inflation rate has come down from its highs earlier in the Biden Administration, and the Democrats are arguing that inflation has been whipped, that wages are rising just as fast as prices, and even a little bit faster. But Erin McCarthy of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote something that just doesn’t go along with the Democrats’ meme. Continue reading
Last Tuesday, I attended a meet-and-greet presentation held by the Lexington Herald-Leader, listening to Executive Editor Richard Green and Managing Editor Lauren Gorla. It was a decent meeting, and Miss Gorla said one thing which stuck with me. While newspapers used to depend primarily on advertising, she stated that currently what my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal is primarily funded via subscriptions, and occasional donations from philanthropic organizations.
Available was a complete list of newspaper staffers, 32 to them, of which only 17 were listed as reporters, and only 13 of which were not listed as sports reporters.
I was thinking about that when I read a series of tweets from the News Guild of Greater Philadelphia.
We are disgusted and enraged to report that The Inquirer has laid off 5 of our members today.
This is the bulletin we sent to our members a short time ago:
Less than a week after The Inquirer announced a desire to have employees increase their days working in the office in the spirit of “collaboration, inclusion, and sense of urgency about our work” today the company informed five Guild members who have been extraordinary contributors to our mission that they are being laid off. So much for collaboration and inclusion. Continue reading
Caitlin Clark was the top NCAA women’s basketball player this past season, and was the number one draft pick by the Indiana Fever. She was the major reason that the Iowa Hawkeyes’ women’s team got more coverage this year, and that the women’s tournament drew a lot more viewers than the norm. And, as her rookie season begins, the advance television schedule shows that the Indiana Fever will get a lot more national television coverage. Continue reading
Tadej Pogačar, from his UAE Team Emirates bio.
Our family, especially our younger daughter, are fans of professional cycling. Our daughter knows all of the major players, and if my interest is more for the scenery on the European road races, I still know something about the sport.
How fanatic are our family? While watching the Tour of Scotland on television in 2022, my wife and daughter decided, upon seeing a quaint looking hotel in Ballater, Scotland, that they had to go there, which they did in October of that year. I didn’t get to go, but it worked out for me because, when our older daughter called from Kuwait, and said she got four days leave and was going to Jerusalem, I had a perfect excuse to join her there, and no one could object that it cost too much money!
The two best cyclists in the world are Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark and Tadej Pogačar from Slovenia. Mr Vingegaard rides for Team Visma/Lease-a-Bike, while Mr Pogačar is the number one rider for UAE Team Emirates. Mr Pogačar won the Tour de France in 2020 and 2021, while Mr Vingegaard won in 2022 and 2023. Alas! Mr Vingegaard was injured in a serious crash on Stage 4 of the Tour of Basque Country on April 4th, and while it’s not impossible, it is unlikely he’ll be in shape to ride in the Tour this year.
One of the primary goals of the corporate, and in the case of UAE, government, sponsors is publicity, as bike racing is especially popular in Europe, and there’s nothing that the sponsors like more than seeing their emblems featured prominently on television. And with Mr Pogačar, the UAE Team Emirates logo will be very prominently featured on television!
NBA puts logo of anti-gay government’s airline on its referees, including two who are gay and trans
Bill Kennedy and Che Flores are gay and trans NBA referees. The NBA has put Emirates patches on them despite anti-gay laws.
It is no great secret that better looking people are more successful in life. This isn’t just anecdotal: several studies have researched the question and found that that attractive people are more likely to find professional success and are often offered more jobs, higher salaries, and promotions.
So, it was with some amusement that I read this; hat tip to William Teach!
“Pretty Privilege Is A Real Thing”: This Woman Was Seemingly Denied A Job After Showing Up To Her Interview Makeup-Free, And Women Are Sharing Similar Stories
Eclipse Monday, April 8, 2024 | 12:15 PM EDT
The job market today might be bleak, but job seekers everywhere still adhere to “professionalism standards” when interviewing for new roles. Continue reading
We have twice reported on the decisions of Wawa to close down some stores in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia. The late Josh Kruger complained bitterly about such.
This crime is not new, and The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Headhouse Square Wawa “will become the sixth Center City Wawa to shutter since 2020.”
So, you would think that an article in the newspaper on food ‘deserts’ in some Philly neighborhoods would at least mention crime. But, if you did think that, you would be wrong.
About 40 million people in the United States don’t have access to a full-service grocery store
The 2023 update of the Limited Supermarket Access Study examines the lack convenient access to health food options across the nation — and in Philadelphia.
by Lynette Hazleton | Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST
What food is available has everything to do with the food stores that are available.
When the food store is a full-service supermarket, like the ShopRite in Parkside, it usually means you will have the access to a wider variety, higher-quality and lower-cost food, explained Michelle Schmitt, a senior policy analyst at The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) as she walked around the bustling 15-year-old supermarket.
As you can see, the article wasn’t produced by the regular Inquirer staff, but the Leftist Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the non-profit which owns the newspaper. I have previously noted that, as a subscriber, I sometimes receive begging for donations letters from the Leftist Lenfest Institute.
When you don’t have the same access to high quality food as you do to chips, fast food and soda, it can contribute to an unhealthy eating pattern that can ultimately lead to chronic disease.
How is it that Lynette Hazelton, the Philly native who reported this story, couldn’t bring herself to note that the densely-populated rowhouse neighborhoods which make up a significant part of the city’s neighborhoods don’t really have room for a huge Giant Food Mart? Yes, there are corner bodegas in most of the neighborhoods, where you can get those chips, fast foods, soda, beer, lottery tickets, and the occasional bullet in your chest. But the kinds of supermarkets that Miss Hazelton envisions take up around ten acres when parking lots are included.
Schmitt is the main author of the 2023 update to the Limited Supermarket Access (LSA) study which determines who is and is not well served by their grocery store. The official definition for limited supermarket access is 500 people in a low income tract where urban members are more than a mile and rural shoppers are more than 10 miles to a full service store. It is the fourth update since 2010 and the first to include Alaska and Hawaii.
The big take away: about 40 million Americans live without easy access to healthy food options.
Take Parkside, Belmont and Mantua neighborhoods of West Philadelphia. Together they are home to roughly 48,755 residents. Virtually all the blocks are very densely populated, 66% Black and almost half the people had an annual income of $25,000 in 2021, the latest data available.
This was some sloppy writing. Did Miss Hazeltom mean that $25,000 was the median income?
While this is the neighborhood many traditional stores would overlook, it is the type of neighborhood that the LSA study showed was in desperate need of a supermarket.
OK, why would “many traditional stores” overlook those neighborhoods? The author noted that “Virtually all the blocks are very densely populated,” which means less available area to put in a ten-acre supermarket. The neighborhoods are mostly poor, and grocery stores “operate on razor-thin profit margins. The industry average is between one and three percent, far below other retail sectors. With such lean margins, grocery stores rely on high sales volume and inventory turnover to thrive.” Then you throw in Philly’s crime rate, and the obvious question is easy to determine: how could a supermarket make a profit there?
Supermarkets were once associated with suburbs, and by the 1970s seven out of every ten food dollars were spent there. But also supermarkets did not place their businesses in low-income communities which lead to real consequences.
This paragraph alone tells you just how poor Miss Hazelton’s article was. The source she hyperlinked told her that grocery stores in Philly were mostly the ‘corner grocery store’ type, operating in the rowhouse neighborhoods, yet somehow, she couldn’t figure out that those neighborhood structures dictated the kinds of grocery stores that were there. In more rural areas, we had “general stores” before supermarkets were developed, and many lament that so few of those old general stores exist. Alas! The old general store that was near where I now live went out of business, became someone’s auto repair shop for a while, and is now a small volunteer fire station. Kroger and Giant and Aldi forced those old country general stores out of business, but in the suburbs and rural areas, there was the physical room for supermarkets.
Perhaps it’s as simple as the reporter having more of an agenda than an understanding of economics and business.
I’ve seen the forms before. In an employee evaluation form from the University of Kentucky, when I was in grad school, there was an attendance section which had four different possible selections, one of which was “Uses sick days as fast/almost as fast as they are accumulated.” And no, that box was not checked in my case; I almost never missed work, and yes, I went to work even when I was not feeling 100%.
I did have a few instances of missing time when I was hospitalized due to Crohn’s Disease, something I have but which is almost completely in remission. My last serious flare-up was in 2012.
However, in an article in Wednesday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, on the use of sick days in the city’s public schools, there was one line which told subscribers — yes, it’s another of those “subscribers Only” articles — which encapsulated the problem very succinctly:
“The days were meant for us to take,” said Cristina Gutierrez, a kindergarten teacher at Elkin Elementary in Kensington.
No, Miss Gutierrez, the sick days are not some sort of personal time off that employees are “meant” to take; they are there for employees to use when they are actually sick! Perhaps the Inquirer’s school system reporter, Kristen A Graham, or an editor was as appalled by that statement as I was, given that someone made it the lead photograph, complete with that abysmal quotation, in the online version of the article!
Sick days come with their contract. But Philly teachers get punished for taking them.
10 are allowed each year, but after accumulating a few, instructors are expected to meet with the boss. Then things intensify.
by Kristen A Graham | Wednesday, February 28, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST
Philadelphia teachers’ contract allows them 10 sick days a year. But they are progressively penalized just for taking them.
No, the teachers are not being punished for using sick days; they are being held to account for abusing sick days.
That means when a teacher comes down with a virus or has a family member with a medical emergency, there’s a constant calculus in the heads of many: Can I afford to take the day off? Will there be consequences for doing so?
The policy, known informally as “3-5-7-9,” works this way: After a teacher’s third “occurrence,” whether a single sick day or the third in a consecutive stretch of days, principals are instructed to have an informal conversation with the instructor and write a memo documenting the episode. After the fifth occurrence, the teacher gets a warning memo in the permanent file; after the seventh, the teacher gets an “unsatisfactory incident” memo in the file and a formal conference. A teacher who reaches nine occurrences gets a second unsatisfactory incident report, a recommended suspension, and conferences with the principal and assistant superintendent.
The policy seems kind of bulky and overly documentarian, but I suppose that’s something that’s required in a large, unionized environment.
My far too expensive Philadelphia Inquirer subscription. I could use a senior citizen’s discount right about now!
Much further down:
The policy stems from a case dating 40 years, when a district secretary was fired for poor attendance. The PFT (Philadelphia Federation of Teachers) challenged the termination and ultimately lost; the arbitrator wrote that management can “require reasonably steady attendance as a condition of employment, regardless of the reasons for the absences, since otherwise the employee is of no practical value to the enterprise.”
The PFT contract sets the number of sick days at 10 (plus three personal days), but the arbitration decision gives the district the right to set the 3-5-7-9 policy. The district’s employee relations department tells principals that “progressive discipline uses increasingly more severe penalties to bring about positive change in employee behavior. The goals of progressive discipline are to improve employee output, correct inappropriate behavior, or terminate recalcitrant employees.”
Under the union contract, full-time teachers, referred to as ten-month employees, have a work year defined as 188 days[1]Article XVII, §A and a work day set at 7 hours and 4 minutes, including a duty-free lunch our of 30 minutes in secondary schools, and 45 minutes in elementary schools.[2]Article XVII, §B(1)(a) How many employees in the private sector, who normally have a 244-day work year plus two weeks of vacation, would love to have ten sick days plus three ‘personal’ days? Yet here we have teachers, who get a solid two months off a year, combitching that they can’t use sick days just willy-nilly. I can guarantee you that, if I had taken ten unscheduled says off a year, I’d have been fired in any job I ever had!
The union contract has the sick day provisions in place not to be [insert plural slang term for the anus here], but due to teachers with an attitude as expressed by Miss Gutierrez[3]Perhaps Miss Gutierrez simply expressed herself poorly; I do not know her, so I cannot really judge. But I have been proceeding as though she meant exactly what she said., that sick days are things simply granted to teachers to take off for whatever reasons they have. If the employees had a decent employee attitude, they’d come to work every day they were scheduled to work, do their f(ornicating) jobs, and the Inquirer would have had no story on the subject.
What about Lewis Elkin Elementary School, where Miss Gutierrez teaches? According to US News & World Report, only 5% of students tested at or above grade-level proficiency in reading and 5% scored at or above grade-level proficiency in math. Niche.com gives the school a C- in overall performance, a C- in academics, and a C for quality of teachers.[4]US News & World Report mistakenly called the school Elkin Lewis Elementary, while Niche.com got it right as Lewis Elkin Elementary. Perhaps Miss Gutierrez’s expressed attitude has been shaped by working in a poor school in Kensington, or perhaps the poor school in Kensington has been shaped by her attitude.
Shortly after he started teaching at Building 21, a district high school in West Oak Lane, Julian Prados Franks explained his new employer’s sick time policy to his family. His father, a casino worker, was mystified.
He said, “‘They do what?’” said Prados Franks, who has not incurred consequences for using his sick time — yet. “This policy just demonstrates a fundamental distrust between the district and the teachers; that level of control makes it feel like we’re not adults, like we don’t deserve to be treated with dignity.”
It’s simple: the Philadelphia Public Schools are unionized, and the union contract has to specify how teachers who do not act like adults have to be treated and subjected to discipline. Mr Prados Franks may very well be one of the good guys, but the School District has to have the policies in place for everyone — and Miss Graham’s article noted that there have been complaints that the policy has not been enforced evenly — good and bad. If some teachers believe that they are not “treated with dignity,” it is because some teachers have not been worthy of dignified treatment.
You know, we used to have a pretty strong work ethic in this country, and some of us still do. We go to work and do our jobs, every day we are scheduled to work. I’ve had to work many Saturdays in my career, and not a few Sundays as well. I’ve worked 19 full days in a row before, and one year, because another worker had a heart attack, I had only two work days off all year, no vacations, nothing.
But now we have a generation of whiners, and I find it sickening.
References
| ↑1 | Article XVII, §A |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Article XVII, §B(1)(a) |
| ↑3 | Perhaps Miss Gutierrez simply expressed herself poorly; I do not know her, so I cannot really judge. But I have been proceeding as though she meant exactly what she said. |
| ↑4 | US News & World Report mistakenly called the school Elkin Lewis Elementary, while Niche.com got it right as Lewis Elkin Elementary. |
