Public Sector Employment Under Siege
This article was prepared for a symposium at Indiana University Maurer School of Law on Labor and Employment Law under the Obama Administration. The article analyzes the current spate of attacks on public employees with particular reference to three sub-topics: teacher tenure and evaluation “reform,” the periodic cycles of public sector fiscal crises, and the unilateral modification of public sector collective bargaining agreements. The article concludes with the assessment that cyclical attacks on public sector workers reflect a skewed viewpoint that public employees owe first-class obligations but possess only second-class rights.
The Politics of Austerity and the Conservative Offensive Against US Public Sector Unions, 2008-2012
Since the onset of the Great Recession, anti-union conservatives have been hammering out an arguably bogus yet politically potent argument: collective bargaining with government workers is unaffordable as their wages, health benefits, and pensions are driving states into deficits. Whilst evidence does not support the politically motivated attacks on public sector workers and their unions, a confluence of political-economic factors has been abetting efforts to scapegoat public employees and their unions. The first section of this essay places the 2011 wave of anti-public-sector-collective-bargaining statutes in its broad political and economic context. Whilst resulting from a longstanding hostility of the USA’s conservative movement to unionism and collective bargaining, recent anti-public-sector-collective-bargaining statutes are also the outcome of three political-economic developments galvanising anti-union GOPers—first, the fact that most US union members are now government workers, which makes it easier for anti-unionists to characterize them as a “privileged” elite; second, the Great Recession and ensuing deficit crisis; and third, the rousing of the conservative movement that led to the 2010 electoral “shellacking” of the Democrats. The second section focuses specifically on Wisconsin and argues that what is going on there ought to be seen for what it is: an attempt to exploit the economic crisis to win an eminently political victory over organised labour and allied Democrats.
Effects of the mineral phase and valence of vanadium on vanadium extraction from stone coal
The influence of roasting on the leaching rate and valence of vanadium was evaluated during vanadium extraction from stone coal. Vanadium in stone coal is hard to be leached and the leaching rate is less than 10% when the raw ore is leached by 4 mol/L H2SO4 at 90°C for 2 h. After the sample is roasted at 900°C for 2 h, the leaching rate of vanadium reaches the maximum, and more than 70% of vanadium can be leached. The crystal of vanadium-bearing mica minerals decomposes and the content of V(V) increases with the rise of roasting temperature from 600 to 900°C, therefore the leaching rate of vanadium increases significantly with the decomposition of the mica minerals. Some new phases, anorthite for example, form when the roasting temperature reaches 1000°C. A part of vanadium may be enwrapped in the sintered materials and newly formed phases, which may impede the oxidation of low valent vanadium and make the leaching rate of vanadium drop dramatically. The leaching rate of vanadium is not only determined by the valence state of vanadium but also controlled by the decomposition of vanadium-bearing minerals and the existence state of vanadium to a large extent.