27 March 2013

Chilly Morn News

It's -8 at the ol' homestead, thanks to clear skies and that 18" or 20" of fresh snow outside. But AccuHunch continues to promise a warmup over the next few days as clouds and precip move back in.

The Anchorage Assembly voted 6-5 last night to pass a revision to the Muni's labor laws, "that tips the balance of power in negotiations more toward management". That, according to an article in today's Daily News,
...eliminates the power of city government unions to strike or have binding arbitration, forbids performance bonuses or incentives in future contracts and limits raises to a maximum of 1 percent over the five-year average of Anchorage’s inflation rate. It calls for standard health benefits across unions.

It sets up “managed competition” in which city employees would compete with private companies for some jobs."
 Labor leaders are unhappy; go figure.

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The Matanuska-Sustina Borough (to the north of Anchorage, known as "the Mat-Su") School District has moved back to heating its schools with wood-fired boilers. This is in response to rising energy costs.

For you fans of Alaskana, the Mat-Su is some 20,000 square miles in area, or about the size of West Virginia. It's one of our smaller boroughs.  :)

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That's about it for this a.m. Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

And, yet, no boroughs named Brooklyn! Or The Bronx.
Or the Bronx cheer...

:-)

gfa

Rev. Paul said...

You're right, gfa - and there won't be, either. Heh.

PioneerPreppy said...

States like Alaska will be the first to begin reasonable change when dealing with things. Like the union decision and heating you mentioned. I guess they are closer to reality I would say.

Rev. Paul said...

Preppy, I think you're right, despite the recent influx of Left Coast liberals. If we don't take of ourselves, there's no one else who will. And there's increasing irritation with oversight (read intrusion) from a capitol that's 4,000 miles away on the other end of the continent.