The PennDot Plan

The latest Wendell Young IV press release.*

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming.  Today I would like to propose a new plan and direction for the state stores.  I call this plan the PennDot plan in honor of our union brothers who originated it.

For too long we have been trying to act like a business, be as efficient as a business and react like a business.  While we haven't failed at this it has not been as successful as we would have liked.  Today I propose we go back to doing what we do best - act like a union and not a business. Starting this week I will be working with the Board and legislature to triple the amount of  employees in each store. Where ever a customer goes they will now find at least one employee standing around waiting for them. There will now be employees guiding customers around the dangerous areas for the 6-10 months it will take to redo the floors between each of the shelving units.  Every customer will get a handout when they come in the door so they will know exactly who can help them based on one of the 50 color coded aprons.  The customers will soon learn that a blue with green stripe apron is an expert in TableLeaf Chardonnay while one in green with blue stripes is a Franzia red specialist. This will make their shopping experience that much greater by knowing exactly who they can talk to.World class aprons make for world class stores and world class shopping and we are proud to expand this fine initiative!

Stores will be cleaner and brighter than ever with a Board authorized person for each assignment to get the bucket, fill the bucket, move the bucket and finally mop the floor. This kind of specialization will make each member of the mopping team an expert in the task ready to take on the duties of the next in line provided there is a written request from the district manager at least 2 weeks in advance and that the shop steward approves. With over 9,000 PLCB paid employees the PA economy will flourish and it will be impossible to consider privatization again. These new employees will increase the total contribution into retirement and medical to make them solvent again for the current generation of PLCB employees and will give us time to figure out how to fix the PLCB pension system before they start retiring in 25 years.

All those new employees will have the time to read the labels of everything in stock and pass that expert knowledge onto the customer as long as the customer doesn't want to know how it tastes. Can't have clerks tasting the products, that would be promoting alcoholism and the PLCB won't allow that. New spirits specialists with intricate knowledge of all 14 different orange flavored vodkas will be placed at every store as soon as we can get them to buy all 14 different orange flavored vodkas and try them. Local economies will benefit as Courtesy Training centers are expanded to all counties with more friends and relatives employed truly making the PLCB one big happy family. 

I am also proposing a Wine Kiosk Museum to showcase the technological innovations the PLCB has done over the years. This will have a staff of at least a dozen and be headed by Joe Conti the foremost expert in Wine Kiosks in the state. All profits from the $20 admission fee will go to the state general fund further improving the lives of all Pennsylvanians.

These 6,000 new members will see the need for a strong union, a union they can be proud of and a union that will do everything it it's power to keep things exactly how your parents remembered because a link to the past is part of the chain that holds the FUTURE!


*(Taken from notes found in the parking lot of  the PLCB and inspired by an actual union representative so who knows....it may be coming soon)

Privatization as the 800 pound gorilla

The Morning Call's John Micek posted in his Capitol Ideas blog today about the PLCB's annual budget presentation to the Legislature, and noted that "...more than one lawmaker on the panel said they didn’t want to dwell on the potential privatization of the 70-year-old agency. But here’s the thing about 800-pound gorillas: They’re awfully hard to ignore."

Seems that the legislators said they didn't want to dwell on it, and then did just that, including this beautiful sentiment:

“I hear you saying that you want to be more like a private business. That begs the question of why not just privatize like 31 other states,” Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman, R-Centre, told agency officials as they wrapped up their appearance.

Kinda reminds you of the PLCB's argument that their wine kiosks are soooo convenient...until you compare them to just picking a bottle off the shelf at the grocery store and putting in in the cart with your pork chops and eggplant.

Then came the "we'd be great if you'd just give us the freedom to really swing" plea from PJ Stapleton:

The board’s chairman, Patrick J. Stapleton, told lawmakers that the agency is seeking legislative remedies that would give it greater flexibility on pricing and hiring practices.
Right now, the agency is constrained in the discounts it can offer on certain products and civil service rules have hamstrung its ability to “put the right person in the right job,” Stapleton told legislators. [Of course, those civil service rules are mostly in place to prevent rampant patronage; why's the PLCB so hot to circumvent them?]
“We’ve endeavored to create a world-class business operation,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’re limited in certain respects by [state law].”

Call me crazy, but I have a strong feeling that it would be much easier to simply do away with The State Store System than to tweak hell out of The Almighty Liquor Code to allow "a world-class business operation." But if you don't believe me, here's the PLCB's 'secret plan' to fix things so we'll never ever see privatization rear its ugly head again. Please note the bond issue, which would borrow against the next 20 years of PLCB "profits" to blow a chunk of bucks into the state's budget now...effectively guaranteeing that no legislator would bring up privatization for 20 years, because then they'd have to pay off the bond: brilliant!

Why is the State Store System so resilient, why does it still hang on? 

• The unionized staff comes out en masse against privatization, always has (and brags about it), and is joined by their union brothers and sisters. They're just getting warmed up this time around.
• The personally offensive state monopoly (you're not allowed to buy booze anywhere else and bring it into PA) is a lot easier to maintain with a state system.
• It brings in a buncha bucks, because the state's Leaning Tower of Booze Taxes is so much more oppressive than in other states (tip of the hat to PLCB Users Group creator Nathan Lutchansky for pointing that out (not, of course, in the form of a "diatribe," like I do here) and actually doing a better job than I did: turns out I missed some charges), and the PLCB and the union have done a fantastic job in convincing you that they bring in all that money, when it's really the state's tax laws that bring in most of it...and would continue to do so in a private system.
• People (voters) still believe that it's actually effective in making the state safer, despite evidence to the contrary; hell, the PLCB's own bi-annual report admits that PA is not really that different from other states in negative drinking issues. 

This is our best shot in years. Don't blow it. This is not about Wisconsin, this is not union-busting, this is not about Republicans vs. Democrats. This is about a patronizing system of state control, a Stalinist system of government-owned retail that never should have started, and should have died a relatively natural death decades ago. It's a zombie, and it's long past time to shoot it in the head.