Obama Adds Union Steward To List of Duties?
When President Obama says that he’s got alot of things on his plate, I don’t disagree with him. According to this LA Times article, he’s now apparently adding union steward to his list of responsibilities:
The Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget.
Schwarzenegger’s office was advised this week by federal health officials that the wage reduction, which will save California $74 million, violates provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Failure to revoke the scheduled wage cut before it takes effect July 1 could cost California $6.8 billion in stimulus money, according to state officials.
The news comes as state lawmakers are already facing a severe cash crisis, with the state at risk of running out of money in July.
Does anyone think that President Obama would’ve injected himself into this situation if these cuts wouldn’t have affected union workers? I’m betting that he wouldn’t have thought twice about it if non-union workers.
Cutting $6,800,000,000 from California’s stimulus money when the state is on the verge of bankruptcy carries with it a political risk. Republicans could blame President Obama for contributing to California’s collapse. Even if he later puts a different package together to bail California out, the damage will have been done.
Unfortunately, union steward seems to be the job that President Obama is best qualified for.
Technorati Tags: Unions, SEIU, President Obama, Union Steward, Stimulus Bill, California, Financial Collapse
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
May 9th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I don’t know the accuracy, but I just read a post elsewhere stating that the “home health care workers” are not actually health care workers but are family members paid by the state to care for sick family members with virtually no oversight by the state. And of course the “home health care workers” unionized!!! Family member sick, sign up for your 2nd job!!
May 9th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Once a community organizer, always a community organizer?