Knowledge is Power

reasons ‘n’ dots

Dot:

On Oct. 11, … Labor Department … ["reported"] Jobless claims… had fallen by 30,000 to 339,000, their lowest level since February 2008.

…But within hours, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Labor Department analysts announced that one major state had failed to fully document jobless claims.

…California Employment Development Department director Pam Harris said in a statement last week. “The California Employment Development Department, which administers the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program in the state, has reported all UI claims data and submitted the data on time.”

Early Thursday, the federal government finally revealed that California had, in fact, under-reported jobless data, skewing the national jobless claims results. This week’s updated jobs report corrected the error and showed unemployment claims spiking back up by 46,000 to 388,000.

They just hadn’t caught up from the holiday [Columbus Day] and Furlough Friday yet…

Dot:

Marty Morgenstern, the secretary of the California agency that substantially under-reported unemployment claims last week, contributed to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election campaign, The Daily Caller has learned.

…According to campaign disclosure records, Morgenstern donated $4,600 — the maximum amount allowed by law — to the 2008 Obama camapaign, beginning with a $1,000 contribution to Obama for America in February 2008. Morgenstern followed up that donation with a $1,300 contribution in June, and then a $2,300 payout in early September.

On all three disclosures, Morgenstern indicated that he was either ”not employed” or “retired.”

…According to the Sacramento Business Journal, however, Morgenstern was employed since 2003 as a consultant for the liberal University of California education system.

meh… not a real job job.

Dot:

Jerry Brown appointed Marty Morgenstern secretary of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency in January 2011…

1975, Morgenstern was appointed director of the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations by Governor Jerry Brown …

[He worked for] the welfare department in New York City. Workers went on strike a few weeks later and Morgenstern found himself strike captain. He became a shop steward at the East Harlem Welfare Center in 1964 and rose through union ranks before becoming president of the Social Service Employees Union (SSEU) in April 1968. The SSEU had been formed in 1961 by dissident members of Local 371 within District Council (DC) 37 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO. The SSEU focused on organizing two sectors of welfare workers ignored by Local 371: case workers and welfare centers. After eight years of internal struggles and brutal battles with the city that included a six-week lockout in 1966, Morgenstern helped engineer a hotly-contested remerger with Local 371.

Morgenstern was California director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)…

He switched sides in 1975 when he had the opportunity to join Brown’s first administration as head of the new Governor’s Office of Employee Relations. He held the position until 1981, when he took over as director of the new Department of Personnel Administration. Morgenstern told the Sacramento Bee that he was lured from the labor side of the table by Brown’s commitment to collective bargaining. He helped shape the pioneering legislation that allowed collective bargaining for state employees. Gray Davis told the Bee that Morgenstern “knows his job better than anyone else. Truth be told, he invented it.” …

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