Cram Down in Your Town
‘Puter smiles.
Why, you ask? Because a federal bankruptcy court has held that Vallejo, California, in the context of a Chapter 9 filing (municipal bankruptcy), can void union contracts. Not renegotiate. Void.
The Court’s reasoning is a matter of statuory construction. That is, Congress chose not to offer municipal unions in Chapter 9 proceedings the same protections that private unions are afforded under Chapter 11 reorganizations. Congress inserted a provision protecting union workers into Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code (11 U.S.C § 1331), but did not insert an analog into Chapter 9. As such, the Court reasoned, he could not make such a requirement up out of whole cloth. Or thin air, if you prefer. Therefore, Vallejo was free to reject the union contracts in their entirety, including contractual pension benefits. ‘Puter’s betting the judge is a Republican appointee.
This is fantastic news for taxpayers everywhere. It now gives taxpayers leverage over public unions hostile to any sort of reality-based compensation structure. Now public unions must weigh the consequences of their spiraling wage and benefit demands against inciting taxpayer anger. If unions overreach and endanger the municipality, they can lose their jobs and their pensions.
Admittedly, as the linked article notes, when a municipality files bankruptcy, the filing will negatively impact its bond rating. However, when balanced against the union cancer slowly eating away at the municipality’s future prospects, a junk grade bond rating may be a small price to pay for freedom.
Going forward, ‘Puter expects that the bankruptcy court’s holding will be affirmed on appeal, but that the Democrat controlled Congress will quickly amend Chapter 9 to include language similar to 11 U.S.C. § 1331 in order to appease its union masters.
H/t The Corner.
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.