Iraultzaile Ezkerreko
8th March 2011, 04:36
HB 416: Labor Organizations & Collective Bargaining - 03/03/11 - House Second Readers
"No public employee shall participate in any collective bargaining activity. Participation by any public employee in collective bargaining activity, such as strikes, work stoppages, slowdowns, sick-outs, or other forms of labor activities, shall be prohibited and a basis for terminating such public employee."
SB 159: Economic Secrecy - 02/28/11 - Senate Read and Referred
"No meeting of a government agency discussing matters related to an economic development project of a private person or entity shall be a public meeting or be required to be opened to the public."
SB 161: Partnerships to Help Establish Colleges/Career Academies as Charter Schools - 02/28/11 - Senate Read and Referred
HB 97: Increase in Minimum Wage - 02/01/11 - House Second Readers
" As of the effective date of this Code section, the minimum wage shall be not less than $15.00 per hour for each hour worked in the employment of such employer.... This chapter shall not apply with respect to: Employers with sales of $50,000/year or less, employers with five employees or less, employees who are high school or college students, employed newspaper carriers, and Individuals who are employed by a nonprofit child-caring institution or long-term care facility serving children or mentally disabled adults...."
HB 397: Rewrites the Open Records/Meetings Law - 03/02/11 - House Second Readers
would define public meeting as more than two officials together;
changes requirements on the scope and type of meeting for which the press must be notified and which must be open to the public;
increases penalty provisions for violations of the open meetings and open records law
SB 176: Open and Public Meetings - 03/01/11 - Senate Read and Referred
"All agencies shall be authorized to conduct meetings by telecommunications conference, provided that any such meeting is conducted in compliance with this chapter."
This is what is on the docket for the legislature in Georgia. We are witnessing one of the most incredible attempts to destroy the working-class and rescind what few democratic rights workers and citizens of Georgia do hold. Whether it is outlawing the rights of public workers to oppose government actions, the facilitation of turning Georgias public universities into private universities, the destruction of transparency in meeting between Government officials and private developers, and the attempt to create a heavily exploited under-class out of students. Not only are we watching these bills go through the legislature with no media attention what-so-ever, but we are also witnessing the destruction of a state-funded scholarship which has been the cause celebre of education in Georgia for almost twenty years.
The HOPE scholarship was created in 1993 to help students attend college and to make college more affordable. Currently, it provides full tuition coverage for any student who graduates from a Georgia high school with a 3.0 GPA and maintains at least a 3.0 throughout college. New proposals would alter this from what it is, a program which, while flawed in its redistributive qualities, has done much to close educational gaps, to a purely regressive system in which the poor lottery players subsidize the education of wealthy peoples children. The new requirements would make achieveing full tuition coverage only possible if a person graduates from a Georgia high school with a 3.7 GPA, gets a 1200 on Math/Reading SAT or 26 on ACT and takes "rigourous coursework". The rest of us prole scum would be at the whimsy of the "Student Finance Committee" which is appointed by the Governor and will decide how much of LAST YEARS tuition the HOPE Lite (3.0 GPA) program will cover, not taking into effect expected tuition increases of 16% on average for as long as the recession continues.
The problem with these new requirements is that only 2.8% of black SAT takers get a 1200 or above and that SAT scores are inextricably linked to wealth, with the mean score for families with incomes below $50,000 being ~850 and the mean score for those from families with incomes above $200,000 being ~1150. A marked difference which can not be denied. This only focuses on the issues with the SAT requirement, other problems include the fact that wealthy, suburban school districts are much pore capable of providing their students with tutoring, test prep, and "rigorous coursework" such as AP and IB. Meanwhile in many poor and rural areas, students are often given few opportunities to succeed and AP and IB courses often cost $100 or more per course. What we are witnessing is the re-segregation of our educational system, both along lines of class and race. This, piled on top of the racist immigrant scapegoating of bills like HB59 and HB87 which would remove all undocumented students from the University System of Georgia(including technical and junior colleges) and institute a "papers-please" system similar to Arizona, respectively, is an example of the worst kind of bigotry and tyranny that the supposedly democratic system of the United States is currently capable.
"No public employee shall participate in any collective bargaining activity. Participation by any public employee in collective bargaining activity, such as strikes, work stoppages, slowdowns, sick-outs, or other forms of labor activities, shall be prohibited and a basis for terminating such public employee."
SB 159: Economic Secrecy - 02/28/11 - Senate Read and Referred
"No meeting of a government agency discussing matters related to an economic development project of a private person or entity shall be a public meeting or be required to be opened to the public."
SB 161: Partnerships to Help Establish Colleges/Career Academies as Charter Schools - 02/28/11 - Senate Read and Referred
HB 97: Increase in Minimum Wage - 02/01/11 - House Second Readers
" As of the effective date of this Code section, the minimum wage shall be not less than $15.00 per hour for each hour worked in the employment of such employer.... This chapter shall not apply with respect to: Employers with sales of $50,000/year or less, employers with five employees or less, employees who are high school or college students, employed newspaper carriers, and Individuals who are employed by a nonprofit child-caring institution or long-term care facility serving children or mentally disabled adults...."
HB 397: Rewrites the Open Records/Meetings Law - 03/02/11 - House Second Readers
would define public meeting as more than two officials together;
changes requirements on the scope and type of meeting for which the press must be notified and which must be open to the public;
increases penalty provisions for violations of the open meetings and open records law
SB 176: Open and Public Meetings - 03/01/11 - Senate Read and Referred
"All agencies shall be authorized to conduct meetings by telecommunications conference, provided that any such meeting is conducted in compliance with this chapter."
This is what is on the docket for the legislature in Georgia. We are witnessing one of the most incredible attempts to destroy the working-class and rescind what few democratic rights workers and citizens of Georgia do hold. Whether it is outlawing the rights of public workers to oppose government actions, the facilitation of turning Georgias public universities into private universities, the destruction of transparency in meeting between Government officials and private developers, and the attempt to create a heavily exploited under-class out of students. Not only are we watching these bills go through the legislature with no media attention what-so-ever, but we are also witnessing the destruction of a state-funded scholarship which has been the cause celebre of education in Georgia for almost twenty years.
The HOPE scholarship was created in 1993 to help students attend college and to make college more affordable. Currently, it provides full tuition coverage for any student who graduates from a Georgia high school with a 3.0 GPA and maintains at least a 3.0 throughout college. New proposals would alter this from what it is, a program which, while flawed in its redistributive qualities, has done much to close educational gaps, to a purely regressive system in which the poor lottery players subsidize the education of wealthy peoples children. The new requirements would make achieveing full tuition coverage only possible if a person graduates from a Georgia high school with a 3.7 GPA, gets a 1200 on Math/Reading SAT or 26 on ACT and takes "rigourous coursework". The rest of us prole scum would be at the whimsy of the "Student Finance Committee" which is appointed by the Governor and will decide how much of LAST YEARS tuition the HOPE Lite (3.0 GPA) program will cover, not taking into effect expected tuition increases of 16% on average for as long as the recession continues.
The problem with these new requirements is that only 2.8% of black SAT takers get a 1200 or above and that SAT scores are inextricably linked to wealth, with the mean score for families with incomes below $50,000 being ~850 and the mean score for those from families with incomes above $200,000 being ~1150. A marked difference which can not be denied. This only focuses on the issues with the SAT requirement, other problems include the fact that wealthy, suburban school districts are much pore capable of providing their students with tutoring, test prep, and "rigorous coursework" such as AP and IB. Meanwhile in many poor and rural areas, students are often given few opportunities to succeed and AP and IB courses often cost $100 or more per course. What we are witnessing is the re-segregation of our educational system, both along lines of class and race. This, piled on top of the racist immigrant scapegoating of bills like HB59 and HB87 which would remove all undocumented students from the University System of Georgia(including technical and junior colleges) and institute a "papers-please" system similar to Arizona, respectively, is an example of the worst kind of bigotry and tyranny that the supposedly democratic system of the United States is currently capable.