Wisconsin’s anti-union bill: An “assault” on unions, or a sacrifice for the common good?
No doubt you have heard about what is going on in Wisconsin? The state–like many others in this tough economy–is going broke and needs to make cuts in order to make ends meet. The governor–Scott Walker–has been forced to make some tough decisions in order to bring the problem under control, and one of his solutions is just a little bit controversial (especially to one of the Democrat biggest special interest groups–the unions.)
Governor Scott Walker wants to de-unionize state workers (the notion that state employees are represented by unions for any gain whatsoever is in direct contrast to the founding ideology and the idea that a people can govern themselves and sacrifice a little something to give back to the American people because it is the right thing to do and is not a career opportunity) and that has drawn the ire of the teachers union who have staged a sick in and taken their students to the state house to protest the measure. Barack Obama has even weighed in on this controversy in which the federal government has no legitimate authority interfering in a state’s business when he stated the following:
Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions
In these tough economic times we are constantly being told by Barack Obama and his ilk that we must sacrifice for the common good, but yet is seems as if the working class people who are just barely scraping by is the only group of people to which this idea applies, for as we have seen recently, the federal government certainly doesn’t seem to be sacrificing all that much. And as we have seen with the 700+ healthcare waivers that have been granted to the SEIU and other unions as well as multi-million dollar companies that they are not going to be sacrificing anything in order to help other people gain healthcare insurance.
This economy has hit nearly everyone and many of us are no longer able to enjoy the luxuries that we once did–we are sacrificing to put food on the table and heat in the house and yet we are still asked to do more by the Obama regime. Here we have a Democrat special interest group which is being asked to sacrifice for the common good and what is the president’s response? He calls it an attack on collective bargaining. I would ask the average struggling American this; is this an attack, or are they simply being asked to make the same sacrifices that are already being asked of many people all across America?
The average struggling working class American is already sacrificing, and yet our hard earned dollars are being taken from us and are going towards paying for the salaries of government employees who are earning their money on the backs of those that are still employed. And we are still asked to sacrifice more, when is there going to be just a little bit of the same responsible budgeting that we are making in order to get by going to be applied to the government?!
America's Watchtower 
You’ve definitely read the talking points from the GOP. But this isn’t about money and there is no budget crisis in Wisconsin… it’s made up. The budget office projects a SURPLUS.
It’s about breaking the unions that tend to organize for their opponents. Why do you think the police and firefighters were excluded? Because they supported the governor.
The protesters aren’t opposed to sacrifice. They want to be involved in the process. But limiting their rights to organize is unacceptable.
So do a little reading instead of just parroting what you’re being told. Maybe talk to someone who is affected by these changes. I’m consistently amazed how you people are so willing to believe the load of crap that constantly flows from Fox, Drudge, etc.
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I don’t watch Fox.
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When I worked for a union, as the HR dude in the headquarters, you can be very sure that our own employees were organized – unions rank alongside insurance companies and newspapers as the worst employers.
When our financial situation turned gloomy in the 1980s, we came up with all sorts of ways to reduce our payroll, which was our largest expense, but when worse came to worst, we sat down with our employees’ unions, opened our books and explained the situation. We implemented wage freezes and layoffs in accordance with the contracts and we survived.
The collective bargaining process only leads to deficits if management’s negotiators give away the store. I hear a lot of whimpering about how the UAW destroyed the auto industry, without any recognition of the fact that a) it was union-negotiated wages that gave those union members the money to be able to buy some of the cars they were making, and b) nobody put a gun to anyone’s head to get management to sign those contracts.
Or is the drive to deprive workers of their collective bargaining rights the t-partiers version of the nanny state, where “zero tolerance” rules, term limits, balanced budgets requirements and other mandates make our government more robotic and rigid, and less capable of mercy or real justice unless it’s of the “one size fits all” variety.
What I find hilarious about Walker’s proposal is that it would retain collective bargaining rights only for wages, and then only to the point where wage increases match the cost of living. That is, he’d permit state employees the right to bargain collectively for something the state should be doing as a moral imperative, just to ensure that its workers retain their purchasing power, even if it simultaneously mandates that those who work for the taxpayers can never improve their situation.
Make no mistake – if state workers are deprived of their collective bargaining rights, their contracts will be unilaterally gutted, and count on the grievance procedure being among the first victims. Do you know that the grievance procedure, which mandates that employees be treated with dignity and respect in the owrkplace, ranks higher than wages in their importance to workers voting to form a union in their workplaces?
Let’s also not neglect to point out Walker’s blatant hypocrisy – the law enforcement and firefighting unions that supported him in his election effort are exempted from this POS legislation.
I hope everyone’s doing well. As for me, my wife’s home today for what looks like a week or two of convalescence from very successful surgery. If she worked for the Wisconsin of Scott Walker’s dreams, there’s a very real likelihood that she’d have been fired for having been foolish enough to have caught cancer, so that she’d be facing the surgery and convalescence without health insurance or any means of income replacement.
And may God bless us all!
TGY
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I didn’t know that you wife was sick, but I very happy to hear that she had successful surgery and is doing well!
I agree with you on your point about the autoworkers, the fact is that the companies agreed to contracts that were unsustainable and for that they should pay the price. But the unions are unwilling to give back anything now that it is obvious that the companies can no longer afford it. They have this cut off the nose to spite the face mentality and would rather see some of their “brothers” lose their jobs rather than give anything back. They refuce to admit that their strongarm tactics had anything to do with the current state of the auto manufacturers.
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I don’t think I agree – I know autoworkers and they’re realists. Employers sometimes paint a very biased picture for the press, though, and to combat it, unions paint their own biased picture. When the 2 sides get to the table, though, that facade has to dissolve. Labor unions employ lots of CPAs to help interpret the employer’s financial statements.
When we were gracious enough to bail out some auto companies a while back, you may recall the arrogant manner they chose to exercise their entitlement to that bailout – arriving in private jets to chat with the Congress, whom they seemed to think were their lackeys, for example. Some of these uber-capitalists seem to begrudge every penny spent on anything but them. Yet the propaganda machines of the extreme right are painting their workers who belong to unions as villains for bargaining aggressively. I think there are some on the right who would love to see auto workers paid the same $5 daily that Henry Ford paid them when he started.
When the auto companies agreed to some of the nice things in those contracts, they had no idea the gravy train might ever stop – they agreed to things like training programs and unemployment benefits for circumstances they thought would never arrive – the unions should be thanked for making those proposals and getting them into the contracts, which guaranteed a more orderly transition for displaced auto workers. That training, and those unemployment benefits, helped sustain Michigan’s economy during times it might otherwise have tanked completely.
Take good care, and may God bless us all!
TGY
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I do remember the way the automakers acted when they flew in to Washignton and it was disgusting and I found it disgraceful. I also found it disgusting and disgraceful that we bailed them out in the first place.
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By the way, Walker’s whimpering about collective bargaining making it impossible for the state and localities to manage their budgets is an admission that they have no business being in control of large sums of taxpayer dollars. I’ve seen employers in dire financial straits approach the union in good faith for cutbacks, and the union’s responded productively. The governor’s blaming a $140 budget deficit on overly generous union contracts is ridiculous, especially when he apparently signed a tax cut that cost more than that; his assertion that cancelling the collective bargaining rights of state employee unions that didn’t support him in his election campaign will somehow balance the budget is dangerously disingenuous.
Part of the problem is the idea – held by both sides, unfortunately — that the relationship between management and labor must be adversarial.
As to the rugged individualists out there who claim to be able to bargain on their own for superior wages and benefits, that’s a crock when you’re one of many doing the same job. Collective bargaining give large employee groups, like teachers or toll collectors or whatever, the opportunity to deal with management as equals. Otherwise, you just take what management offers or you walk. The true independent contractor sells his services at his price; the large employer who doesn’t have to deal with a union contract buys employees’ services at a price it dictates. Why so many seem to think this is fair – that the larger the employer, the less the need for honest negotiations as to terms and conditions of employment — is simply a tribute to the ability of the rightwing extremists to keep hammering away at an issue until folks just begin to assume their perspective is the only right one. Remember Harry Truman’s definition of the big lie? “Say it loud enough, and long enough, and sooner or later, people will start to believe you!”
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The GOP and T-Party folks have successfully muddied the waters here. Walker’s bill isn’t about having the union members “comtribute a little more” to their benefits, it’s about abrogating a contract (called “welshing” where I come from) and reducing the status of the workers from equals in an employment arrangement to little more than serfs.
In every employment arrangement, some of the compensation is benefits and deferred compensation (retirement arrangement – pension or savings). Wisconsin already signed a contract to pay its workers X amount of dollars plus y amount of fringes and a z amount of pension contributions.
Any employer with integrity would have called for an emergency renegotiation of the contract. Instead, Walker proposes, in effect, to impose a cut in compensation on the state’s workers (except, apparently, for those who supported his election).
This fellow has a severe anti-union bias, apparently driven by ideological motivations, but not so strong that he doesn’t see the self-interested side – note how he exempts from his draconian measures those unions that supported him! Can you say hypocrisy?
As to depriving the unions of their collective bargaining rights, anyone who thinks that’s s measure designed to close the current budget gap, or prevent next year’s projected gap, is a fool. Collective bargainin is always a two-way street, and a very useful tool for management to discern and address the issues really important to its workers.
No, eliminating bargaining rights is Walker’s admission that the management of Wisconsin isn’t capable of handling this important job – that even when supervised by the Governor’s office and advised of budget constraints, negotiators for the state and its agencies can be counted on to give away the store every time.
So in a classic GOP one-size-fits-all strategy, instead of training Wisconsin’s managers in negotiating and implementing an integrated approach to the next round of collective bargaining with state employees, he’s attempting simply to strip them of their right to bargain over the terms and conditions of their employment.
More and more, Walker’s sounding like a petty tyrant. It’s no surprise that the Wisonsin protests are heppaning at the same time as the Libyan protests. Any day now, I expect to hear Walker proclaiming that the people really love him.
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