Laugh of the Day

I work for the state of California. I am emphatically not a member of the California State Employees Association (CSEA). Why should I join such a ludicrously biased organization? Besides, they're affiliated with the AFL/CIO, which is more ridiculously biased. Ugh.

They are also the cause of a good laugh, however.

Gov. Gray "Not My Real Name" Davis gave state employees a 5% raise and now wants to take it back. The deal is we give up that 5% and, in exchange, PERS (the retirement system) waives collecting our retirement contribution, which is roughly 5%. So it's a wash. More, we also get a PLD, Personal Leave Day. One a month. We can take it off, or let it sit in an account and acrue. That's another 5%. So there's a potential net gain despite the pay cut.

Neat, huh? He stole that trick from Pete Wilson, who used it in 1992. Wilson saved a billion or so dollars in the state budget. The state is still paying that back. Figures have it that the $1 billion saved is right now costing around $8 billion.

Neat, huh?

But that's not the joke.

No, the joke is that I received a voting ballot to say yes or no on this contract. Only I can't really vote, because I'm not a CSEA member. Conveniently, they include the form to join with the ballot, so then I can vote, but please, no thank you. The joke is the ballot.

Remember (or learn), that leaders of the CSEA and AFL/CIO were and are some of the louder complainers about the punch-card ballot system. It's terrible. It disenfranchises people. Not all votes get counted. Blah blah blah.

Their ballot is a punch-card.

I have it pegged to my cubicle wall. Whenever they whine I will get a great laugh. Works fine for union votes, but somehow everyone else is too stupid.

Hypocritical fools.