Letters - Thursday

UNFOUNDED ATTACK
Columnist entitled to opinions, but shouldn't make up ‘facts'

As the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously pointed out, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts." Perhaps The Gazette forgot that when it published Robyn Blumner's Aug. 19 column, "Wal-Mart takes on Obama over plan."

Blumner began with three opinions: "Wal-Mart is ... low wage, low benefits and low ethics," all presented as facts. In other words she's saying "I don't need evidence to prove these ‘facts' since everyone knows they're true."

After a series of tendentious statements she moved on to the dishonestly named "Employee Free Choice Act," which, in her opinion "is designed to short-circuit the campaign of intense anti-union intimidation ... employers unleash in the months leading up to a union election." It might be possible to give an example of employer intimidation prior to a union election, but she doesn't need to tell us about one since its another of her "facts" that everyone knows is true; and, of course, it's universal. It happens prior to all union elections.

The real fact is that under the National Labor Relations Act a company that tries to "resist, prevent, impede or interfere" with a secret ballot election is subject to criminal prosecution. Blumner didn't mention the other obvious, real fact that doing away with the secret ballot in union organization leaves a worker open to physical intimidation if he refuses to sign a union certification card.

She also wrote that "Today, one in four private sector employers reportedly fire at least one worker during union organization." Reportedly? How about telling us where the "report" came from? The word, "reportedly" doesn't turn an assertion into a fact.

These are just a few of the personal "facts" to which Blumner felt entitled. Of course, editorials are biased; that's why we call them "editorials" instead of "news," but publishing opinions disguised as facts is more than bias.

Russ Lewis, Manitou Springs

Blumner should get educated on how labor market works

Where did Robyn Blumner get her economics education?? Obviously not from the school of hard knocks.

Very simply, if the people who work for Wal-Mart are not happy with their pay and benefits, they should get a different job. No company should be forced to accept unionized labor.

There might have been a need for unions at one time, but that time has long gone. Our work force is disappearing and there are plenty of decent jobs available for the people who want to work.

Every experience I have had with unionized companies has proven these basic characteristics: underproductive employees and overpriced products/services. I guess that's what Sen. Barack Obama needs to get elected.

We need to think about the results we would get from force-feeding companies with unionized labor before supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

Maybe if all supposedly abused Wal-Mart employees would quit their employment, and all union-supporting consumers would shop elsewhere and not take advantage of the low prices they enjoy at Wal-Mart, the corporation would follow the free-market model and change its policies.

Meanwhile, let's keep the government out of the free-market economic engine as much as possible.

Skip and Eileen Engelbrecht, Colorado Springs

ASKING FOR TROUBLE
Gas exploration would cost county money it doesn't have in budget

As El Paso County struggles with a predicted budget deficit of about $9 million, another threat to our county's financial health is on the horizon. That threat is the proposed gas drilling in the Pike National Forest in northern unincorporated El Paso County.

As other Colorado county governments have found, the required infrastructure construction and repair costs for natural gas drilling operations have far exceeded the taxes paid by the drilling companies.

In a study done for the Associated Governments of Northwest Colorado, findings illustrated the problems of oil and gas development. These problems included dramatically increased labor costs for local governments and rapidly increased costs for street maintenance and repair and for increased utility construction. These capital investments are required far in advance of local revenue increases, sometimes years ahead, since natural gas drillers require streets, bridges and utilities on the day of their arrival. TABOR expenditure limitations require the population be in place before government spending for infrastructure can occur.

For these and other reasons our sister counties across the state have written county oil and gas regulations to protect county coffers from huge expenses related to oil and gas drilling. Our El Paso County commissioners therefore need to act now to write and implement oil and gas regulations in order to protect residents from further subsidizing natural gas drillers from our empty El Paso County purse.

Gloria Lanyon, Monument

HARD WORKER
Employee would have worked 80-hour weeks all winter

The story in the Aug. 19 Gazette about a city audit uncovering overbilling and overtime in the city's Streets Department was interesting ("1 agency overbilled another, audit says"). The part of the article that really got my attention was the 779 hours of overtime paid to a skilled-maintenance supervisor. As the story pointed out, that totals approximately 20 weeks worth of time. City spokeswoman Sue Skifington-Blumberg said "Staff does not doubt that this employee worked the overtime hours." She added that the overtime was due to several snowstorms.

If we assume that the snow season in 2007 ran roughly from mid-November to mid-April, the supervisor would have worked 80-hour weeks during this 20 week period. That's not an 80-hour work week occasionally, but every week.

I would love to be a fly on the wall if someone from the city were concerned enough about this to compare the employee's time card with snow records from the National Weather Service.

Tom Barton, Colorado Springs

AMENDMENT 49
Measure would get government out of fundraising for interests

With a full ballot this year, there are quite a few proposals that are going to sharply divide people based on party affiliation or worldview. But Amendment 49 isn't one of them.

This common-sense idea simply tells government to get out of the business of raising money for political special interests - you know, groups that support candidates and hire lobbyists.

Republicans, Democrats and independents alike benefit by having government officials who focus on the business we elect them to do, instead of helping to line the pocketbooks of groups with agendas that divide us.

Hank Brown, Colorado's former U.S. senator, gets it. He has a track record of statesmanship and bipartisanship. And while he notes that Amendment 49 keeps lobbyists in line, I also think it keeps government on the side of the people.

Lynda Ryan, Colorado Springs

DOESN'T SUPPORT TROOPS
McCain's pre-war slam on military doesn't sit well with this voter

I am an 87-year-old retired military person who served this great nation in two wars. I must say that when I see Sen. John McCain attack his opponent for something he said or did, I cannot help thinking of the un-American statement he made just before we went to war with Iraq: "Our military is in complete disarray, there is no morale among our troops, and we have no leadership."

In wartime, such an outlandish statement would be construed to be aiding and abetting the enemy. I cannot help but think this type of statement played a part in the loss of the lives of our brave young men and women.

Do we want this type of individual as president? I personally don't think so.

Louis L. Manley, Colorado Springs