I have to wonder how many of these people would have left Oregon to get "better jobs elsewhere" without these raises?

Maybe this is somebody's idea of a sick joke. The Gov.'s new temporary permanent spokesperson is a prime suspect.

AFSCME and the AFL-CIO are making Gov. Kulo more ruggedly popular by staging this (mock) protest! This story has THEIR guy - a former union lawyer - acting like a "Man of the People" standing up to the big bad labor unions. Right.

There must be more to this story than meets the eye. I'm not buying it.

If anyone really wants to sink their teeth into an effective challenge, the retroactivity component, back to July 1, is criminal.

To match the 18 month retroactive raise for Gresham/Barlow school district teachers I guess Ted could even make the raise retroactive back to July 1, 2006, and really make his point that the law means nothing when it comes to offering unearned gifts to friends. The recipients can argue a "safety in numbers" defense that they were not personally singled out for any particular reason for the gift.

Any recipient could, in the interest of integrity notwithstanding Ted's lack of it, individually REJECT the retroactivity part of the raise. Accepting the gift would be like arguing that accepting . . . say . . . a bj outside of marriage is not sex and thus not infidelity.

The challenge here would at least not have to be raised in the context of "organized" labor.

This whole thing just stinks to high heaven. I'd demand that the Governor provide a list of managers and higher echelon employees who post a "flight risk" or who have had genuine offers on the table. I used to advise people who'd try to blackmail me with this strategy: "If you don't give me a raise I'm going to take this job with xxxxx". My standard response was: "Don't ever point an empty gun at me. Show me the beef. I'm not going to fight for you unless you can prove that you have a bonafide offer on the table that we'd have to meet/match." Amazingly, no one ever tried that with me again unless they had a genuine offer that I could truly decide whether it was worth fighting for. This whole thing smacks of cronyism and lame duck Ted is going to be made to pay for it in ways that WE won't like. I'm thinking about Measure 49, 50. People don't always vote rationally. How in god's name do you propose to raise sin taxes when you obviously have the money to fund big fat raises for managers. (I know, it isn't a rational comparison, but many of the less intelligent don't think logically or rationally). Ted may have cooked his own goose (or our children's geese) unless he figures out how to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear he's created (warning: cliche alert!)

This thing is running so true to form. Ted will bump up salaries a bunch since he has the money now, then next downturn the schools will get hit because we don't have enough money.

These guys are out-and-out smarminess.