The Wisconsin Governor does not like unions.

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I'm surprised there hasn't been a topic on this yet:

Gov. Scott Walker wants to help fix state finances by cutting benefits for union workers and wiping away their ability to negotiate over anything but their wages, setting up a potentially explosive battle in the Capitol.

That would mean public worker unions would not have any say on benefits and work rules and would face a new restriction on salary increases as well.

Walker's bill also would allow public employees to avoid making payments to unions if they don't join those unions. Now, workers can choose not to join unions, but they must make "fair share" payments similar to dues - a requirement that unions say is needed because all workers benefit from their work at the bargaining table.

But the measure would exempt law enforcement and firefighters - groups that supported Walker in the November election - from those bargaining changes.

Also:

Gov. Scott Walker says the Wisconsin National Guard is prepared to respond wherever is necessary in the wake of his announcement that he wants to take away nearly all collective bargaining rights from state employees.

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 that could result in a disruption of state services, like staffing at prisons.

I admit I'm only an outsider looking in, but get the feeling that if the Pinkertons were still around, Gov. Walker would have called them in to start busting some heads by now. Not that the National Guard's involvement always ends well either.

Unsurprisingly, it appears the governor's antics have not gone over well.

I know there's some peeps from Wisconsin around here. Any local perspectives?

There's been reports that, in a old school show of solidarity, private business workers have been joining the protests. Wasn't expecting that.

It's always my first thought that instead of tearing down the rights unions have fought for, it would make more sense to boost the rights of those lacking them. If there's a wage discrepency between public workers and employees of huge corporations, it should be the corporations that adjust, not vice versa.

For teachers unions in Wisconsin, this is old hat. There have been fights for years. That said, aside from the public schools, Wisconsin is a nice place to live.

No. He doesn't like non-police unions. Hypocrite.

I work just a block off the capitol square in Madison. Certainly exciting seeing all of this unfold!

Apparently, all of the Democratic state senators have left the state so there can't be a vote on the bill.

Wisconsin is an interesting state. It's produced some of our country's best progressives (Robert LaFollette and Russ Feingold immediately come to mind), as well as Joseph "Red Menace" McCarthy.

Governor Walker got voted into office this past fall with 52% of the vote, and immediately blocked an almost $800mil federal grant for high-speed rail which had been allocated to our state (you can see my thoughts on that in this thread). Earlier this week he declared that he would push through legislation that would eliminate the right of public employees to organize or bargain collectively, and would include effective pay cuts by hiking healthcare premiums and dramatically cutting retirement benefits.

This is a good writeup on Gov. Walker's current power grab that I'd linked to earlier on Twitter.

Right now, the Democratic members of the State Senate have left town, so the Republicans can't have a quorum to pass the bill without discussion. There have been thousands of people packing the capitol building and the square around it for days now. I don't think folks are staying overnight, though the public hearing the Democrats were able to force ran almost until sunup and still had to turn folks away.

The demonstrators are across the spectrum: students (college and high-school), teachers, unionized employees of private business, ordinary citizens who are neither unionized nor public employees. Firefighters and police have shown up to show support - they're public employees but would be exempted from Gov. Walker's union-busting provisions. I saw some reports on Twitter that members of the Green Bay Packers showed up on the square this afternoon, too.

I may end up taking tomorrow off to go downtown. If I do, I'll be sure to post a link to any pictures I upload.

[Edit because I forgot to mention: part of why this has become such a lightning-rod is that Gov. Walker announced this law more or less as fiat, and mentioned that he'd alerted the National Guard in case of any unrest. Turns out my fellow Badgers don't take kindly to threats. ]

This whole thing isn't going to end well, I don't think. Not Wisconsin specifically, but unions vs. the govt. States are over-budget and broke for the most part. States face real problems that do require real solutions. *Someone* has to give a little. Otherwise states could declare bankruptcy and bust all unions.

And because the Democrats have been so business friendly the obvious thing to do would have been to tie the financial crisis to the people who caused it and force them to foot the bill and take more of the pain on. Instead we're going to have citizens fighting against citizens while meanwhile Wall Street does backstrokes in their money pools.

Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, is also trying to break the Indiana teacher's union but he's leaving all the dirty work to the head of the Indiana DOE, Tony Bennett.

What's better is that the governor is pitching this as a necessary part of austerity measures. However, the state's fiscal bureau reports that they'd have a budget surplus if he hadn't have pushed through tax cuts and $140 million in new spending for special interests right at the start of his term. Nice.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

What's better is that the governor is pitching this as a necessary part of austerity measures. However, the state's fiscal bureau reports that they'd have a budget surplus if he hadn't have pushed through tax cuts and $140 million in new spending for special interests right at the start of his term. Nice.

What a douche.

So, who's going to start the petition to rename the area around the Wisconsin capital building "Tahrir Square"?

I never understood the "OMG Unions are teh evilz" logic. Unions seem like nice people to me.

boogle wrote:

I never understood the "OMG Unions are teh evilz" logic. Unions seem like nice people to me.

I think that's simplifying things. As someone who has worked as a contractor in both private companies and in the public sector I can tell you I've seen far more waste and inefficiency in the public sector. Much of it having to do with union workers who have such staunch protection from the union against getting fired or disciplined that they basically regress into being as minimally productive as is required. The most depressing jobs I've ever worked on have been through the public schools or the state government. Mostly because I could see that the contractors were going to be banging into the brick wall of inaction on the part of their unionized co-workers until the contract ended and the project was left for someone else to pickup until it eventually failed.

Now that's my view from my profession. I know unions are different depending on the field and location, etc. I have huge respect for many of my teachers growing up and my mother is a teacher as well. So I know unions aren't evil. And I know unionized workers are often quite productive. However, I've also had some terrible experiences, as I'm sure others have.

Even if I just think about how terrible most TSA screeners are and how much I loathe that experience, or going to the DMV (or post office) and having someone close down their line because it's time to take a break and being snarky about it, I cringe. Union workers who face the public don't do their cause any favors as they often act in a way that makes their customers dislike them and assume all union workers are like this. You'd think unions would want to change this perception.

boogle wrote:

I never understood the "OMG Unions are teh evilz" logic. Unions seem like nice people to me.

I think a lot of people feel that unions protect bad employees in addition to providing nice benefits to good employees. And if that isn't it, I don't know what it is. Having been in a union myself before becoming a 100% virtual employee, and thus not covered by the union, I have nothing but positive feelings towards the union (other than the fact that they'll no longer cover me). My health plan was better, my yearly raise was higher, the employer matched my 401k contributions, etc. I fail to see anything positive about being dropped.

boogle wrote:

I never understood the "OMG Unions are teh evilz" logic. Unions seem like nice people to me.

Remember that when Republican legislatures and their families are being threatened with physical violence and the legislatures are not able to discuss when they are coming and going do to their own safety.

Ulairi wrote:
boogle wrote:

I never understood the "OMG Unions are teh evilz" logic. Unions seem like nice people to me.

Remember that when Republican legislatures and their families are being threatened with physical violence and the legislatures are not able to discuss when they are coming and going do to their own safety.

And if they manage that, they still have to worry about the alligators in the sewer and the escaped mental patient with the hook hand.

Ulairi wrote:
boogle wrote:

I never understood the "OMG Unions are teh evilz" logic. Unions seem like nice people to me.

Remember that when Republican legislatures and their families are being threatened with physical violence and the legislatures are not able to discuss when they are coming and going do to their own safety.

Seriously. They should leave the threatening legislatures and their families with violence to the professionals...the Tea Partiers.

Ulairi wrote:

Remember that when Republican legislatures and their families are being threatened with physical violence and the legislatures are not able to discuss when they are coming and going do to their own safety.

They're just following the Palin model. They're staying "on target" and they're "not retreating, they're just reloading".

Seriously Ulairi, you walked right into that one. The Wobblies would be disappointed you didn't try harder to tarnish their rep.

Yeah, my first thought was, when did he support the insurance reforms?

Anyhoo. I have a bigger problem here. Anyone else noticing we are treading down a similar path that led us to the Depression? 10 year recession, busting unions, turtling in spending, and so on?

KingGorilla wrote:

Anyone else noticing we are treading down a similar path that led us to the Depression? 10 year recession, busting unions, turtling in spending, and so on?

Can you clarify? I thought the 20s were a growth period. Weren't they roaring?

Bear wrote:
Ulairi wrote:

Remember that when Republican legislatures and their families are being threatened with physical violence and the legislatures are not able to discuss when they are coming and going do to their own safety.

They're just following the Palin model. They're staying "on target" and they're "not retreating, they're just reloading".

OG_slinger wrote:
Ulairi wrote:
boogle wrote:

I never understood the "OMG Unions are teh evilz" logic. Unions seem like nice people to me.

Remember that when Republican legislatures and their families are being threatened with physical violence and the legislatures are not able to discuss when they are coming and going do to their own safety.

Seriously. They should leave the threatening legislatures and their families with violence to the professionals...the Tea Partiers.

You all say this like members of Unions haven't known this approach for decades.

Good for Walker. It's about time the unsustainable gravy train (lefties love trains, even the gravy kind) came to a halt.

The bill still gives them *much* better benefits than anyone I know of in the private sector. They still have rights, just not the green light to walk all over the taxpayers for more, more more. We have a 3.6 billion dollar shortfall, not a few million. This problem is not due to anything Walker has done in the last month, but rather the previous Governor Doyle, who spent way more than we had. We cannont afford this. If everyone was unionized, then we'd already be at the stage Greece is.

The unions were lucky enough to get a free lunch (i.e. healthcare and pensions they pay nothing for) for a while. If everyone had gotten that, the money would have run out long ago.

People had signs with Walker's picture and a gunsight on his forehead. Others held signs calling him Hitler. People went to the homes of some lawmakers and threatened them and their familes. Some of the Walker supporters on site were verbally abused and literally slapped in the face on occassion.

The Dems made a noble move (not!) and fled the state to hide. Kinda hard to debate your side when you won't even show up.

Multiple school districts have been forced to close due to the blue flu. Way to think of the kids and endear yourselves to parents who pay your salaries (and golden benefits). These parents now have to take off work themselves or scramble to find someone to watch their kids. This is why Walker left Police and Firefighters out of this bill, at least for now. On Tuesday, some teachers even took their students out of class to protest. The ones interviewed didn't even know why they were there, other than to say "Whee! No school today" and "We're here to stop some dude from doing something". Nice, take the kids out of class in order to attend your protest. These are the types of acts that lose the support of the general public.

Sure there are some private, non-union supporters out there, but it's not representative of the majority. It should also be noted that the vast majority of the people actually affected by this bill are still reporting to work.

Didn't Pelosi say a couple of years ago something along the lines of: "Too bad, you lost". They sure loved using that excuse then, but can't take it when they are the ones who lost.

One of your best trolls yet.

Seth the 20's was another bubble. There was personal wealth growth, but the gap between rich and poor, between industrialist and worker widened. Those involved in the stock trade saw huge influx of personal wealth. But life for farmers, factory workers, miners was pretty miserable. Federal troops and police were often used in the teens and 20's and 30's to break unions.

boogle wrote:

I never understood the "OMG Unions are teh evilz" logic. Unions seem like nice people to me.

My grandfather wouldn't have been able to survive nearly as long as he did if he wasn't a member of his metalworker's union. There are a lot of good unions out there and a lot of good people in them. Apparently, because a few people in charge were bad, then all unions must be a blight upon on country. It makes no sense to me either.

Seth wrote:

One of your best trolls yet. :)

You're just too busy riding the gravy train to notice the truth, friend!

Union busting for sake of profit. That is what it boils down to. Is that what you guys, Ulari and MattDaddy, are for? Middle class worker rights busted for more corporate and private sector profits? Or is it just a game for you?

I think the problem people have with unions is not that they have raised the quality of life for middle class workers, but that they have gone too far, demanded too much, and now States and companies are going broke trying to pay for everything negotiated over the years. It's a straw-camel-back scenario. Unions aren't bad, and these scenarios weren't created overnight, but now they have to be dealt with due to economics.

There was a regulation once, agreed upon by bosses and a union (can't remember which) that limited the amount of weight in pounds a union member could lift in a day.

It was made in good faith -- to keep laborers from dangerously heavy loads -- but in practice it caused the "sit around and read the newspaper" mentality that people hate, because workers would just power their allotted lifting in the first few hours, then sit around because the contract let them.

Now, is that the fault of dumb corporate bosses, shrewd union negotiators, or lazy folks? I would put it on the first choice, myself.

goman wrote:

Union busting for sake of profit. That is what it boils down to. Is that what you guys, Ulari and MattDaddy, are for? Middle class worker rights busted for more corporate and private sector profits? Or is it just a game for you?

We're talking about public unions here. There is no corporate CEO running this. The only "profit" to be made here is less taxes to be paid by the public.

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