Philly Mayor Michael Nutter: Scumbag
By Wyatt Earp | November 3, 2009
Remember when the Democrats claimed to be for the working man? Remember when the Democrats claimed to be for the unions? Those days are gone forever, and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has been trying to break the city’s white collar and blue collar unions since he took office. He’s doing the same for the city’s police and fire department unions. All four unions have been working without a contract for three months now.
Watch this video and tell me that Mayor Squidward is not a piece of garbage:
Despicable? Are you friggin’ kidding me? SEPTA wanted to strike before the Phillies game yesterday, but agreed not to after Squidward and bloated Governor Ed Rendell’s pleading. It would have been a disaster – and a major embarrassment to the city – if SEPTA had done so. Mayor Squidward should thank his lucky stars they showed this much restraint. I wouldn’t have.
Maybe now he’ll take the unions seriously.
Topics: Philly, Politics | 20 Comments »
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:49 pm
You aren’t actually taking the side of the Septa union are you? Now I’m not fan of Nutter but…
They were offered:
$1,250 cash bonus for signing the contract!
2.5% increase the 2nd year.
3% increase for the 3rd through 5th years.
An Increase in the pension contribution.
ZERO increase in health care contribution.
If half of the above is true, I wish they could fire them all and start over. Unions are soooo bad; nothing like protecting the weak and making the common man pay for it.
And it was a total scumbag move to strike in the middle of the night. With a little luck, Willie Brown will get hit by a
bustruck tonight.November 3rd, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Randal – I hate unions, but I despise Nutter. The union could have gone on strike during the Phillies game. That would have been a dick move. They didn’t, because Nutter and Rendell buttered them up to make themselves look good. When they realized Nutter and Rendell were going to try and screw them, they screwed first. Darwin wins.
Both are wrong, but Nutter has kept four city unions on hold for three months while the budget goes further and further into the red. He is part of the problem here, and instead of trying to collect back taxes from his deadbeat constituents or trying to lure businesses back into town, he dicks around with Phillies rallies and other nonsense. Screw that guy!
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I never thought it possible to agree with both of you.
It must be a sign of the apocalypse.
I’m going to fix myself a big drink.
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Mrs. Crankipants – If you’re buying, I like Captain Morgan. A LOT!!!
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Yeah, but it’s got to be a double.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Wyatt is right. The SEPTA union is fighting for their people. We may disagree with that but everyone who works somehow sees the other guy as a bum if they are out of work. That’s just class envy and jealousy. F- Nutter & F-Rendell. 3% is B.S. when the cost of living is 6-7%. Plus a cash bonus doesn’t go into your pension.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Wyatt, can you please just collect and post all the Philly cheese steak recipes and let the rest of your town swirl down the bowl?
Sorry, but after reading your blog for awhile, I’m starting to think that Philly is now a third world city unworthy of saving.
Unless “saving” involves tarring and feathering every politico inside your state, then I might burn some vacation time and chime in with my own boiling oil.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Go Phils! Screw Septa, its generally uncourteous, unmotivated workers, overrated Mayor Nutter and tax & spend Fat Eddie Rendell.
Wyatt, you and fireman have to start fighting against other city unions who are mostly drones. They are effectively taking money off the table that could be paid to cops and firemen.
Oh and goodbye to Governor Corzine. I wonder what elected office he will try to buy next?
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Hey Captain, first of all, inflation for a SEPTA employee is no where near 6-7%. In this economy, a 3% raise is HUGE. Not to mention the fact that they have ZERO increase in health care costs. Much of the inflation this year is being blamed on increased health care costs, something that wouldn’t have affected Septa workers.
My health care premiums are going up 51.1% for 2010 and I don’t get a guaranteed raise over the next 5 years.
That greedy bitch Willie Brown should have signed on the dotted line last night. As much as I can’t stand Nutter and Rendell, I hope they pull back most of the raises, cut the pensions to nothing, and make them contribute triple to their health care. Then maybe the union employees will wisen up.
Wyatt, the unions didn’t screw Nutter, they screwed the people of the city who have jobs and have to go to school. Brown’s an idiot for not striking during the World Series. He probably would have gotten what he wanted, and really quickly. And a strike on a Friday night would have probably been over by Monday and would have affected a tiny percentage of Philadelphians trying to get to the stadiums.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:14 am
It’s hard to sympathize with a union wanting more in a city with 10% unemployment and a school system that relies on public transportation.
These assholes got a sweetheart deal that will come at the expense of higher SEPTA costs for the rest of us and they still wanted more.
Fire them all and get some of those 10% unemployed folks who’d be more than happy to take less.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:53 am
….two or more men forming a union is an unnatural act in the eyes of G*D….
November 4th, 2009 at 9:58 am
First of all, the TWU Local 234 is in for good reason. How many of you would go to work for 3-4 hours @ 3 AM and sit for those hours with NO PAY, eventhough you’re at work and waiting for a work assignment to be handed to you? Then be given a run (morning shift), and then have 4 hr split shifts (no pay) and then return to work for another 4-5 hrs, making your work day 15 hrs but 6 of them are not paid? NOBODY, is the answer but that’s what the AUTHORITY did to the drivers for MANY YEARS until the union put a stop to it. The list goes on and the public has no clue what those drivers put up with because of SEPTA! I ride busses every single day and I see what those drivers put up with, threats, being punched, faces slashed with razor blades, drunks that vomit on them, eggs being thrown at the bus drivers when the open the doors for commuters on Mischief Night, crazies standing over the drivers yammering on and on, etc. …Those guys DESERVE COMBAT PAY AT THE VERY LEAST! You people sit in your ivory towers and have no clue. Ride a bus and get a clue or shut your mouths!
November 4th, 2009 at 10:09 am
…One more thing. The union contract was up last March. the union has tried to negotiate with SEPTA since then. SEPTA refused to even talk. They had no interest whatsoever. Whose fault is that…the union’s? I think not. Blame SEPTA and the big fat cats for this entire ordeal. Michael Nutter should stay out of it. It’s not HIS contract. He can barely manage the city and always chooses to side with the wealthy and powerful. Remember, he wanted to close the city pools, he wanted to close the library, he wanted to cut the police and fire forces back. He’s anti-union, period and he’s out to screw the little guy. This is just another opportunity for him to do just that. I voted for him and I regret it every day; my bad. Also remember who he was before he became Mayor. He was with City Council…another bunch of corrupt individuals who have summers off WITH PAY. Oh, they’re ’supposed’ to work but none do. He’s a political scum bag and he needs to worry about his own camp and stay the heck out of the union/SEPTA issue.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Alison, if the bus drivers don’t like their jobs, they can do what anyone else in this country can do: quit and find a better job. They were offered a much more than fair contract and crapped on it.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
The notion that we must “give” to the poor downtrodden people who drive a bus is absurd. It’s a bus, not a space shuttle.
A free market compensates those who take the most risk and have the highest skill sets at a rate higher than those who loaf. If you engage in a job of menial labor for your entire life then you should expect to receive menial wages. If you continually better yourself through formal and informal education then you can reasonably expect to command a higher wage with more attractive benefits.
“Leveling the playing field” and “living wage” are communist terms.
A communist reads Marx and Lennon. An anti-communist understands Marx and Lennon (Ronald Reagan).
November 4th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Get off of it Allison. I’m now having to walk 40 minutes each way to work and back because the subway is down, and I have it easy.
the union is screwing the public at the worst possible time (i.e. shitty employment rate, colder weather approaching) and they want my sympathy after they rejected a pay increase?!?!
The only people screwing the little guy right now are the SEPTA workers on strike.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
I have no time for unions, the mayor of Philly and the governor. Almost every service union in the country is just a bunch of closet marxists in my view, which is the same suit the Mayor and Governor wear.
Look what the UAW did, first they sucked the blood from the domestic auto industry (accomplices included almost every CEO and board of directors of the auto cos.) and when they completed that task they finally got the government (taxpayers actually) to pony up more dollars to keep them afloat.
There is zero sympathy here for these extortionists.
Wyatt, make no mistake about it, I support the local gunfighters. The legal ones that is.
November 4th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Those of you crying about what you DON”T have, probably do not have a union fighting for you. EVERY working man and woman in our Country should earn a decent wage, and have good health and pension benefits. The 401K was originally designed to be a pension supplement. But because of the loss of strength of unions, and more non-union workers in the last couple decades, 401Ks are solely the retirement benefit for many. But what incentives do employers have to give their workers these benefits? If workers aren’t organized, none.
So… Stop crying about what others have, and start fighting for what you should have.
This fight is not over wages or benefits. It is over pensions. SEPTA, like the City of Philadelphia, has mismanaged the EMPLOYEES’ pension fund for years. As a result of SEPTA’s mismanagement, the pension is funded at less than 50%. Now SEPTA want to put the costs of their incompetence, or perhaps illegal actions, on the workers. Screw that. They should walk.
The demise of unions is decreasing the size of the ‘Middle Class’, and increasing the gap between the have’s and have nots.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
They got a better offer than my last contract go-around. (Btw., folks, just a little FYI…teachers pay into their pension (a fund that has been robbed blind by the politicians to pay for pet projects) and the percentage amount you hear attached to a raise in the contract is actually an amount that is shared…think of a huge pot divided. My actual raises are 1-2 percent, with one year being just a little above. (I know folks think we get 4 or more percent a year, so I just wanted to be informative is all.)
You have to admit that it was a bit of a d-move to announce the strike at midnight, when folks didn’t have time to make other plans.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
may they both rot.