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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) new budget is drawing praise from some and criticism from others. The budget makes public workers, well, the public enemy. It goes after their collective-bargaining abilities and mandates that they ante up for their health care.
“The Wisconsin State AFL-CIO on Sunday launched a major advertising campaign against Gov. Scott Walker's plan that would erase almost all collective bargaining rights for most public workers as a way to shore up the state's finances,” the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes. “The television and radio ads say Walker and other politicians plan to "take away rights of thousands of nurses, teachers and other trusted public employees" and are doing so with almost no public discussion or debate.” More: “The Legislature could act this week on the bill, which would shore up the state's finances through June 30. A public hearing is expected on the bill Tuesday in the Legislature's budget committee. The bill would require the vast majority of state, local and school employees to pay half the costs of their pensions and pay at least 12.6% of their health care premiums.”
And then there’s this: “The bargaining law changes would apply to all public workers except police, firefighters and state troopers. The unions for state troopers, Milwaukee police officers and Milwaukee firefighters all endorsed Walker, while most other unions endorsed his Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.”
The union ad buy was largely in response to this Wisconsin Club for Growth ad in support of the governor's plan. The ad went up on Friday, shortly after Walker announced his plan. The conservative group is run by a former top Walker campaign adviser.
So could it pass the state legislature? While the Republicans have a commanding 57-38 majority (plus one Independent) in the Wisconsin house, they have a much narrower 19-14 majority in the state Senate. The Senate majority leader says he doesn't know when the chamber will take it up, effectively acknowledging he doesn't have the votes yet. Four Republicans were quoted in the Journal-Sentinel saying they weren't ready to commit to support the legislation and another four Republicans whose districts have lots of state workers wouldn't return phone calls.
The Journal-Sentinel’s editorial board largely backs Walker on his moves: “Walker is right to do this. He must insist that state workers pay a bigger share of their benefits. And he's right to take steps to compel them to do so. The governor is overreaching in some respects. And even if he wins the bruising fight to come in the state Capitol, he risks alienating broad swaths of independent voters. But Walker must fill a gaping budget hole of $137 million for the fiscal year that ends June 30 and a much larger imbalance in the next two-year budget. Something has to give.”
And AP had this: “Gov. Scott Walker says the Wisconsin National Guard is prepared to respond if there is any unrest among state employees in the wake of his announcement that he wants to take away nearly all collective bargaining rights. Walker said Friday that he hasn't called the Guard into action, but he has briefed them and other state agencies in preparation of any problems.”
The mention of the National Guard in Walker's Friday news conference was specifically in reference to state prisons. He said he would call out the Guard to take control of prisons if Corrections Officers went on strike or took any other sort of job action. Union officials say they don't have any plans to. One union official said the governor was "baiting" guards. Walker’s bill would maintain the workers' ability to negotiate over pay and only over pay -- it would strip them of their rights to negotiate any other benefits or work rules. Any raises couldn't exceed inflation, all contracts would be limited to one year and employees would be required to vote every year on whether to recertify the union as their bargaining agent.
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Thank goodness wehave Mark Dayton as governeor of Minnesota. In Wisconsin if youback they guy he protects your bak, but if your union supports a Democrat then you're chickenmeat. I thought they had equal protectionofthe law inWisonsin-apparentlynot-the Liberal coalitionwas too busy proeting everyonelese they forgot their own vulerabilty.
But cheer up..this is an object lesson of what happens to people whn you vote Repblican. You lose the righ tto have a basic say on doing your job-and they can work yo to death at their leasiure. Theyhave no regard for your health or health beneifts.
It's almost slavery without the S word.
And they'll use th eNational Gaurd as a glorified goon squad to prevent union organizing. Here in Minnesota in 1934 they did exaclty that and 34 strikers were killed as a result Minneapolis became a union city and the Teamsters the most powerful union because of the backlash. People remeber the bloodshed far longer than the fight.
History rrepeats it self.
Maybe the problem is not that state employees have a pension, but that you don't, but should. Although there is no strong evidence that state workers are over paid, again maybe that's not the problem, but rather that you are under paid. Suzy up above wants to vote on state worker pay. Maybe we should vote on her pay. Why should the state worker take a pay cut to equalize hits within the middle class? The guys at Goldman and Chase didn't take a hit. Did that Senator you just elected take a hit at his plastics business? Many of you who are posting are clueless lemmings willing to fight out a civil war within the middle class. All that personal responsibility stuff is great in theory, but missing from that is that we all have responsibilities to each other. There is such a thing as the common good, but I doubt it's your neighbor the teacher or the state worker who is abusing this. But too many of you are giving a pass to the nameless business owner who must share in this common good. We have gone too far down that slippery slope by saying that a corporation's primary responsibility is to its shareholders. Too many are making it their only duty.
I think Suzy's posts remind us all exactly why unions are still necessary and will be more necessary in the future.
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Hey Gov you dont have a pair big enough to pull a stunt like this!
It's time for a REVOLITION of our own. While other countries are standing up for their rights, Americans are sitting by letting the worst happen. It;s time to take to the streets WISCONSIN. Don't wait! The National guard are middle class too1 Get rid of these REPUBLICAN EVIL DOERS!!
"Maybe we all should have went to college and got our degrees."
- All you old people.
"Maybe we all should have gone to college and obtained our degrees."
-All you old people.
One factor that nobody has posted yet is that unions in this day/age constitute very large and powerful companies in their own right. Very few groups can boast the lobby and political power that unions do. As for the current discussion, yes the unions were instrumental in developing workers' rights. However, ALL people should have a chance at an open position. Unions have a monopoly and control hiring in all closed shop unionized companies. My father worked as union man for 50 years-after his death, a kind union rep came to our home to help my mother with death benefit paperwork. He also told her, "sorry, but his death benefits were cut in half because of administrative problems with the pension fund". In my case several decades later, Our union negotiated with the company a deal that forced people with family health care/benefits to accept the union health package-no choice, just do it! My wife passed away before I could search for new life insurance and I ended up with a $10,000 policy instead of the $100,000 policy that I paid for with the companies benefit package. Don't kid yourself--the rich and powerful from both private companies and unions stick it to the workers any chance they can. Only a small number of people in a union are allowed to control the majority. If you don't believe that, just try to change union leadership without getting harassed/threatened!!
A few of these posts made me think I should call up my son to keep the peace, but he's rather busy doing that over in the Sinai with the Illinois National Guard. Wonder if the state is late with the soldiers' paychecks as they have been in the past?
Suzy - You need to understand that there are two different issues here. The increase in state worker contributions and the removal of the ability for unions to negotiate. Unfortunately, Walker has determined that in order to get one, he needs to do the other and that's not true. I'm a state worker and everyone I talk to accepts that we need to pitch in during this budget crisis. Why can't Walker just sit down with the unions and work with them? He has an agenda to get rid of unions in the state. That's what we're fighting for.
I live in Madison, ground zero for the showdown between Walker and the folks he should've known better than to mix it up with. Inn nearby Stoughton, high school students walked out of class in protest. State workers and college students are marching on the state capital building today, as they have for several days now. Many of us here have a feeling the National Guard troops Walker is threatening to call up will not be used to take over prison duties if the union prison guards walk off the job. No, those troops will be used for crowd control and arrest and detainment.
In two months I will emigrate to Israel. Good luck to the rest of you. It's a democracy here and you have to fight to defend it. You know what to do.
I am one of those hateful WI state employees that are being vilified by the right and Gov. Walker. I worked in IT (Information Technology) for 15+ years before deciding to teach. When I left the private sector, I took a 20% cut in pay & benefits but received in return the benefit of no longer being on call 24/7, and of course, having summers off. For my pay, I usually average 50-60 hours per week, when you factor in prep time, grading, and all the other projects and extra duties that go with being a teacher. By the way, last time I looked, if I were to return to the private sector, I would probably realize a 25-30% increase in compensation.
Now Gov. Walker is proposing that I and my fellow state employees realize an almost 20% CUT in pay, as well as removing our ability to negotiate everything except mediocre raises tied to the inflation rate. Taken to its extreme, this could change everything from my teaching methods in the classroom to requiring that I reach year-round. With options like that, I might as well return to the private sector, and take that 25% increase and put it towards my retirement. I’d be so much more ahead, and any one of those poor unemployed can come take my job, provided they are qualified (masters degree in IT or Computer Science or related field and 4+ years experience.)
This may seem like an exception to the rule, but almost all state employees have the same story – negotiated lower wages in return for better health and pension benefits. So, to make things fair, if Gov Walker wants us to pay for our health and pension benefits, can we have that pay raise that we gave up?
frankly, all the protests and possible strike are not going to change the fact that we will get a big haircut in salary.
For those of you who can vote, make sure don't vote republicon next time around. Maybe, just maybe, in 4 years, we might get some of the benefits back with the next governor.
Public employees should have a looooooooooooong memory. Please make sure you tell your family and friends what happened to us this lousy week in the lousy month of the lousy year.
I am not particularly pro democrat but I definitely will NOT vote for anyone republicon ever again.