{"id":3272,"date":"2018-02-28T07:34:07","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T12:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3272"},"modified":"2018-02-28T11:00:11","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T16:00:11","slug":"senator-ojeda-says-five-percent-an-empty-promise-designed-to-get-national-press-to-leave-west-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3272","title":{"rendered":"Senator Ojeda Says Five Percent an Empty Promise Designed to Get National Press to Leave West Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice\u2019s proposal to give striking teachers a five percent raise next year will end the strike \u2013 for now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Schools are scheduled to reopen Thursday after a five day strike.<\/span><\/p>\n

But teachers and service workers unhappy with the proposed deal began gathering at the capitol building in Charleston this morning.<\/p>\n

And Senator Richard Ojeda (D-Logan) called the Governor\u2019s proposal \u201can empty promise\u201d<\/a> that was designed to drive the national press out of West Virginia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFive percent in one year is an empty promise,\u201d Ojeda said yesterday after the Governor made his proposal late yesterday. \u201cUntil I see a bill that is on paper that is going through the House and the Senate, it\u2019s an empty promise.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJim Justice starts every conversation with \u2013 I promise you I\u2019m going to tell you the truth. And people who say that usually are the ones that are lying to you first.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt just amazes me how all of a sudden you can have five percent when it wasn\u2019t a couple of days ago where we could barely afford two percent,\u201d Ojeda said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if we can handle it. Two percent \u2013 we are going to struggle, but we will give you guys your two percent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow all of a sudden, national eyes are upon them and they don\u2019t like it. When you\u2019ve got NBC\u2019s van parked outside the capitol, they are starting to realize that everybody in America is paying attention to the way they treat the working class citizens.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow, all of a sudden, he finds this pot of money with five percent that he can now give to the teachers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nothing more than political games. And that\u2019s exactly what has happened.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Senator Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael (R-Jackson) told reporters yesterday \u201cit would be completely ridiculous and frivolous to embrace this proposal this far down the session.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the national eyes are gone, I have a fear that the five percent will also go,\u201d Ojeda said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of the Governor\u2019s package that union leaders embraced was a task force that includes union representation, to study a long term fix to Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA). <\/span><\/p>\n

Ojeda doesn\u2019t like the idea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a shame that we are talking about putting together a board to fix PEIA when we have two bills — one in the House and my bill in the Senate — that both were tabled,\u201d Ojeda said. \u201cAnd these were bills that were going to raise the natural gas severance tax 2.5 percent and dedicate all of that to PEIA. And they tabled those bills.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy? Because they don\u2019t want to take anything from big energy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis right here is Jim Justice\u2019s plan to try to get the cameras to leave. That\u2019s exactly what this is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have to go to a special session and the teachers are still at it, make no mistake. I will donate my pay for special session either to a teacher\u2019s strike fund or something in education. If you will take no pay, I will take no pay. That\u2019s how we will do this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI stand in your corner. And I want you all to continue to stand strong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ojeda said that he\u2019s heard from Republicans that \u201cthe biggest fight that\u2019s going on\u201d right now is a fight between the Senate Republicans and the House Republicans. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRight now you have Tim Armstead, Carmichael and the Governor. And I don\u2019t think any one of them are seeing eye to eye. And I don\u2019t think either one of them want to see anything happen that will help either one of the other two.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice\u2019s proposal to give striking teachers a five percent raise next year will end the strike \u2013 for now. Schools are scheduled to reopen Thursday after a five day strike. But teachers and service workers unhappy … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3272"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3280,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272\/revisions\/3280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}