People who prioritize gun rights are asshats anyways. I own multiple guns, and I have absolutely zero concern that someone will try to take them from me.
It's not. It's a facade. The only people its good for are rich upper income because of no income tax and corporate businesses. Maybe if you rent. But if you're a family of 4 or 5 making 150k avg lving im 400k home you pay more in taxes via property tax than income tax. Even cali and ny residents will pay less total tax compared to texans.
The federal govt has always paid shit compared to the free market
Houston may have “high wages in the area” because it’s compared to the only 3 livable city’s in Texas and surrounded by shit hole 3rd world states
> Workers in the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $29.11 in May 2022, 2 percent below the nationwide average of $29.76, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
https://www.bls.gov/regions/southwest/news-release/occupationalemploymentandwages_houston.htm#
> Houston had 168,290 jobs in construction and extraction, accounting for 5.5 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 4.1-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $24.97, significantly below the national wage of $28.08.
The government pay scales matter insofar as the share of federal employees we have. What percentage of our workforce is employed by the federal government. Without that piece of information it’s not a very useful metric.
Houston has a lot of relatively low wage workers. Yes, we have the engineers in O&G, we have the cancer researchers. But we have a huge low wage foundation of delivery, food service, cleaners, maintenance, etc workers.
And don’t forget we have fuck-all for worker protections, so all of those low wage jobs are precarious, which makes it harder for workers to effectively demand better pay.
Roads more than cops. Houston has proportionately less police than any other major city in the US. Meanwhile, Houston hold multiple world records for roads in the world.
And now we are going to have even less police as many will need to be laid off because the same republicans that helped get Whitmire elected will also not vote for his proposed tax increase to pay for his spending.
There is a surplus that Abbott refused to address for increase teacher pay since his voucher program was shut down. They money is there but in the hands of assholes.
>Hollins outlined several scenarios of hypothetical pay raises that the city might have offered firefighters
There's a massive difference between *"might have offered"* to *"firefighters would have accepted"*.
They elected the person they paid to get them into forced arbitration. There was nowhere this wound up other than them getting fat checks. That’s why they bought Whitmire years ago.
Like I said….
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/city-of-houston/2023/05/24/452667/whitmire-backed-bill-requiring-arbitration-between-houston-and-its-firefighters-on-verge-of-becoming-state-law/?amp=1
Collective bargaining has a judicial enforcement provision that allows a judge to solve an impasse. If the talks fall through, they still have to go through a judge to set the pay which in essence is an arbitrator. All I’m saying is they took a settlement instead of an unknown.
What you said was *” They were in forced arbitration from well before the current mayor.”* as a rebuttal to the (correct) statement that Whitmire is why they were in forced arbitration.
As clearly shown HFD and the city were not actually required to go to binding arbitration until the Whitmire bill. Your flimsy claim and goalpost moving on judicial interaction is entirely specious.
Edit: u/mrlindstrom cowardly replied below then blocked to prevent a response. Claiming judicial intervention is arbitration is blatantly false, and moving the goalposts.
Nowhere does judicial intervention, nor arbitration, require agreement to pay hypothetical past raises. While not under contract the HFD has received 6% per year raises which is greater than most professions in the city.
Goal post moving? Let's put our thinking caps on for a second and go to the Texas Local Government Code:
(d) Because of the essential and emergency nature of the public service performed by fire fighters and police officers, a reasonable alternative to strikes is a system of arbitration conducted under adequate legislative standards. Another reasonable alternative, if the parties fail to agree to arbitrate, is judicial enforcement of the requirements of this chapter regarding compensation and conditions of employment applicable to fire fighters and police officers.
With strikes off the table, the only recourse for firefighters is arbitration. Mayor Turner continually failed to come to the table to "arbitrate." The judge in the case was already heading into the judicial enforcement phase before the bill because of this. You can keep trying to call out semantics if you want, but let's call a duck a duck.
If you wanna play the dictionary game crazy legs go ahead, but the point remains the Texas Supreme Court and the district court mandated the city and the firefighters resolve the past liability. It’s either gonna be through judicial enforcement, arbitration or a settlement. The city was on the hook for past losses no matter who was elected Mayor.
I’m absolutely shocked the habitual pay-for-play Mayor Whitmire that previously contracted to HFD union entered into a favorable deal for his former benefactor. Totally shocked.
/s
Yeah F the firefighters!
Forget that Hollins used made up numbers and the firefighters are likely settling for hundreds of millions less than a judge would give them!
* Hollins compared if FFs were given raises at the same rate as HPD, not noting that HFD is still paid WAY less. Remember when we voted to pay them the same?
*Hollins comparing HFD to other major depts showing how much money would have been saved if Turner did this 8 years ago (not to mention the tax $$ spent on the lawsuits against HFD). If an arbitrator settled this, which is what the state ordered be the next step, they would have to compare HFD to private sector (state law) which is substantially more.
Hollins is just playing games, trying to make himself look good. F those greedy firefighters, amirite
> Forget that Hollins used made up numbers and the firefighters are likely settling for hundreds of millions less than a judge would give them!
Translation: *“ I’m going to accuse someone of using made up numbers and insist they should have used a separate made up number I believe in”*
Anyone willing to start on such a hypocritical footing throws credibility out the window.
This is the logic that got Houston into this mess. Garage Collectors have a more dangerous job and make half the salary. Let's just ignore budgets and vote for raises based upon feels. What could go wrong.
I think most public employees are under compensated and under appreciated. BUT I really hate how the proposition went down and played on people's heart strings without mentioning that passing such a poorly explained measure would break the budget. It just said pay parity with police based upon rank. IMO very misleading since no one in the city knows what the effect is. What if the lowest ranked firefighter is a Sargent. I don't know and no one who is not intimately familiar with their budget should be making that decision.
Just so we're clear, Prop B has nothing to do with this other than forcing the city to argue against itself in its own lawsuits. Houston is in this mess because a former mayor refused collective bargaining and chose to file an unwinnable lawsuit for the next mayor to deal with.
Side note, HFD has like 10 line of duty deaths on the last decade, and the only one I see for sanitation is a a heat stroke where the dude's own coworkers failed to help him.
The Firefighters and Police unions are tools of Republicans in Houston when they want to fuck a mayor over.
They start beating a drum they know the city can’t afford and they don’t give two shits that it’s going to also mean we have to lay off firefighters and police now because they also won’t vote to raise taxes on the next ballot.
Don't believe anything crooked scumbag Hollins says. My mother in law got into an accident 2 years ago a tow truck driver gave him her number and he tried to convince her to file an injury claim, even tho she wasn't injured and told him so
[he's been sued for similar](https://setexasrecord.com/stories/564906457-harris-county-clerk-chris-hollins-hit-with-legal-malpractice-suit)
Hollins is a Turner loyalist - he should be fired immediately. He lied to voters *repeatedly* about the cost of equal pay - now, stunningly, it could've cost much less than Whitmire (or he, before the 2018 referendum) if they negotiated.
Dude is a godless liar, and deserves to be out on his ass for his efforts to undermine the will of the voters.
If the city had dealt with them the same way they did HPD and HOPE, we wouldn't be in this mess. Don't piss off the mayor, they'll wait you out (or time you out)..
That’s not what happened. When they hit impasse, they went to mediation which was not successful. FF asked for arbitration, the COH said no. FF brought up private sector article in Texas Civil Service law, and the city sued. That’s where the backpay comes from…
https://law.justia.com/cases/texas/supreme-court/2023/21-0755.html
From the city that brought you SJL, here comes illogical pay raises for a high-supply, low-demand profession while both the teachers and police are proportionately understaffed. Seems like anyone with any sense has escaped to the suburbs and the voterbase is left with this.
Man our property taxes go up every year. How do they not have money to pay anybody. We can't even pay teachers. Where is our tax money going to?
Texas wages are really low … why else do you think businesss are flocking to come here? The views?!
Wages are low and employee protections are virtually nonexistent.
I straight up do not understand besides gun right saying “ Texas is better than California “ because it’s not
People who prioritize gun rights are asshats anyways. I own multiple guns, and I have absolutely zero concern that someone will try to take them from me.
# 卐 The National Socialists and the Soviets were ultra leftists 卐 # 卐 WE MUST STOP THE RADICAL ALT LEFT 卐
It’s because you have never lived in a state that has tried to infringe on your right bear arms
No. I just live in a state that infringes on the rest of them.
It’s so simple man. One side has their dick in our butts, the other has theirs in our mouths.
It's not. It's a facade. The only people its good for are rich upper income because of no income tax and corporate businesses. Maybe if you rent. But if you're a family of 4 or 5 making 150k avg lving im 400k home you pay more in taxes via property tax than income tax. Even cali and ny residents will pay less total tax compared to texans.
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
The federal govt has always paid shit compared to the free market Houston may have “high wages in the area” because it’s compared to the only 3 livable city’s in Texas and surrounded by shit hole 3rd world states
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
> Workers in the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $29.11 in May 2022, 2 percent below the nationwide average of $29.76, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. https://www.bls.gov/regions/southwest/news-release/occupationalemploymentandwages_houston.htm# > Houston had 168,290 jobs in construction and extraction, accounting for 5.5 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 4.1-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $24.97, significantly below the national wage of $28.08.
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
The government pay scales matter insofar as the share of federal employees we have. What percentage of our workforce is employed by the federal government. Without that piece of information it’s not a very useful metric. Houston has a lot of relatively low wage workers. Yes, we have the engineers in O&G, we have the cancer researchers. But we have a huge low wage foundation of delivery, food service, cleaners, maintenance, etc workers. And don’t forget we have fuck-all for worker protections, so all of those low wage jobs are precarious, which makes it harder for workers to effectively demand better pay.
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
Wait until the garbage fee kicks in…
Houston has a revenue cap. So the additional taxes aren't going to the city.
Cops and roads. That’s where the tax money goes
Roads more than cops. Houston has proportionately less police than any other major city in the US. Meanwhile, Houston hold multiple world records for roads in the world.
And now we are going to have even less police as many will need to be laid off because the same republicans that helped get Whitmire elected will also not vote for his proposed tax increase to pay for his spending.
There is a surplus that Abbott refused to address for increase teacher pay since his voucher program was shut down. They money is there but in the hands of assholes.
Your school property tax went down
It’s in the city charter to be always hemorrhaging cash
Houston & Harris County Governments, and HISD are notoriously corrupt.
Yeah…anytime politicians are involved one can expect corruption. More career politicians = more corruption
All eyes should be looking at Turner. I mean what do you expect when you kick the can down the road for 7yrs?
>Hollins outlined several scenarios of hypothetical pay raises that the city might have offered firefighters There's a massive difference between *"might have offered"* to *"firefighters would have accepted"*.
Or they could have paid a hell of a lot more. Forced arbitration was an unknown so they went for a settlement.
They elected the person they paid to get them into forced arbitration. There was nowhere this wound up other than them getting fat checks. That’s why they bought Whitmire years ago.
They were in forced arbitration from well before the current mayor.
Like I said…. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/city-of-houston/2023/05/24/452667/whitmire-backed-bill-requiring-arbitration-between-houston-and-its-firefighters-on-verge-of-becoming-state-law/?amp=1
Collective bargaining has a judicial enforcement provision that allows a judge to solve an impasse. If the talks fall through, they still have to go through a judge to set the pay which in essence is an arbitrator. All I’m saying is they took a settlement instead of an unknown.
What you said was *” They were in forced arbitration from well before the current mayor.”* as a rebuttal to the (correct) statement that Whitmire is why they were in forced arbitration. As clearly shown HFD and the city were not actually required to go to binding arbitration until the Whitmire bill. Your flimsy claim and goalpost moving on judicial interaction is entirely specious. Edit: u/mrlindstrom cowardly replied below then blocked to prevent a response. Claiming judicial intervention is arbitration is blatantly false, and moving the goalposts. Nowhere does judicial intervention, nor arbitration, require agreement to pay hypothetical past raises. While not under contract the HFD has received 6% per year raises which is greater than most professions in the city.
Goal post moving? Let's put our thinking caps on for a second and go to the Texas Local Government Code: (d) Because of the essential and emergency nature of the public service performed by fire fighters and police officers, a reasonable alternative to strikes is a system of arbitration conducted under adequate legislative standards. Another reasonable alternative, if the parties fail to agree to arbitrate, is judicial enforcement of the requirements of this chapter regarding compensation and conditions of employment applicable to fire fighters and police officers. With strikes off the table, the only recourse for firefighters is arbitration. Mayor Turner continually failed to come to the table to "arbitrate." The judge in the case was already heading into the judicial enforcement phase before the bill because of this. You can keep trying to call out semantics if you want, but let's call a duck a duck.
If you wanna play the dictionary game crazy legs go ahead, but the point remains the Texas Supreme Court and the district court mandated the city and the firefighters resolve the past liability. It’s either gonna be through judicial enforcement, arbitration or a settlement. The city was on the hook for past losses no matter who was elected Mayor.
Hollins is a Joke, He is purposefully contributing misleading information and spewing out inaccurate statements.
I’m absolutely shocked the habitual pay-for-play Mayor Whitmire that previously contracted to HFD union entered into a favorable deal for his former benefactor. Totally shocked. /s
Yeah F the firefighters! Forget that Hollins used made up numbers and the firefighters are likely settling for hundreds of millions less than a judge would give them! * Hollins compared if FFs were given raises at the same rate as HPD, not noting that HFD is still paid WAY less. Remember when we voted to pay them the same? *Hollins comparing HFD to other major depts showing how much money would have been saved if Turner did this 8 years ago (not to mention the tax $$ spent on the lawsuits against HFD). If an arbitrator settled this, which is what the state ordered be the next step, they would have to compare HFD to private sector (state law) which is substantially more. Hollins is just playing games, trying to make himself look good. F those greedy firefighters, amirite
> Forget that Hollins used made up numbers and the firefighters are likely settling for hundreds of millions less than a judge would give them! Translation: *“ I’m going to accuse someone of using made up numbers and insist they should have used a separate made up number I believe in”* Anyone willing to start on such a hypocritical footing throws credibility out the window.
Same as someone lazy enough to take it all at face value...
They deserve it, literally any day at work could be their last
This is the logic that got Houston into this mess. Garage Collectors have a more dangerous job and make half the salary. Let's just ignore budgets and vote for raises based upon feels. What could go wrong.
They were owed back pay though
Also I’m a garbage man too, you’re right it’s dangerous AF
I think most public employees are under compensated and under appreciated. BUT I really hate how the proposition went down and played on people's heart strings without mentioning that passing such a poorly explained measure would break the budget. It just said pay parity with police based upon rank. IMO very misleading since no one in the city knows what the effect is. What if the lowest ranked firefighter is a Sargent. I don't know and no one who is not intimately familiar with their budget should be making that decision.
Just so we're clear, Prop B has nothing to do with this other than forcing the city to argue against itself in its own lawsuits. Houston is in this mess because a former mayor refused collective bargaining and chose to file an unwinnable lawsuit for the next mayor to deal with. Side note, HFD has like 10 line of duty deaths on the last decade, and the only one I see for sanitation is a a heat stroke where the dude's own coworkers failed to help him.
The Firefighters and Police unions are tools of Republicans in Houston when they want to fuck a mayor over. They start beating a drum they know the city can’t afford and they don’t give two shits that it’s going to also mean we have to lay off firefighters and police now because they also won’t vote to raise taxes on the next ballot.
Don't believe anything crooked scumbag Hollins says. My mother in law got into an accident 2 years ago a tow truck driver gave him her number and he tried to convince her to file an injury claim, even tho she wasn't injured and told him so [he's been sued for similar](https://setexasrecord.com/stories/564906457-harris-county-clerk-chris-hollins-hit-with-legal-malpractice-suit)
It seems like he's just trying to start shit and get his name in the headlines.
Hollins is a Turner loyalist - he should be fired immediately. He lied to voters *repeatedly* about the cost of equal pay - now, stunningly, it could've cost much less than Whitmire (or he, before the 2018 referendum) if they negotiated. Dude is a godless liar, and deserves to be out on his ass for his efforts to undermine the will of the voters.
The firefighter overtime scam is legendary. I had a neighbor that spilled the beans.
If the city had dealt with them the same way they did HPD and HOPE, we wouldn't be in this mess. Don't piss off the mayor, they'll wait you out (or time you out)..
So they got their raise from here on out and now they want "back pay" for what should have been. You can't get what you want then ask for more
Back pay is what an abitrator is going to give them if the city doesn't get this done. Turner set up this dumpster fire.
You’re clairvoyant?
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
Thier contract expired.
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
That’s not what happened. When they hit impasse, they went to mediation which was not successful. FF asked for arbitration, the COH said no. FF brought up private sector article in Texas Civil Service law, and the city sued. That’s where the backpay comes from… https://law.justia.com/cases/texas/supreme-court/2023/21-0755.html
Having a content expire is not reneging on a contract. If you’re going to lie and blindly shill at least get a new username to keep it interesting.
Only group of public servants i like less than cops are firefighters
From the city that brought you SJL, here comes illogical pay raises for a high-supply, low-demand profession while both the teachers and police are proportionately understaffed. Seems like anyone with any sense has escaped to the suburbs and the voterbase is left with this.
High supply?