Wrestlin' in Wisconsin

Interesting to note rather plaintive calls from leaders of the teacher's union and others in Wisconsin noting that they have already agreed to the benefit cost adjustments needed to address the looming budget issues and want only to negotiate with the state government to avoid the legislation on the table.

The real issue behind that is the union bosses dread the requirement in the draft legislation that they renew their standing as bargainers for state employees in periodic secret ballots of the employees themselves. This is a normal provision, required by existing Federal law for the unionization of companies or industries. In the case of Wisconsin and most Federal and state governments the process of unionizing them bypassed all existing Federal law and was simply enacted by incumbent government officials. The state employees were NEVER given a chance to vote on the matter - it was decided for them by government officila in the pay of the unions themselves.

Amusing to observe the willingness of the union bosses to sell out the interests of their members over the benefit cost sharing, in a doomed attempt to stafe off having to actually win the loyalty and endorsement of their members in a democratic process.

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@georgeob1,

The "whining complaints of a legislator?" Let us evaluate them:

1) Not being notified of the bill's appearance on the agenda until a week out from vote.

2) Being given a 144 page bill (Not 50. Do details interest you?) on Tuesday to read and comprehend the impact of.

3) No public forum. People are cut off.

4) No time to make amendments.

5) Notification of a move to vote on Friday at 5:00PM. Vote takes place 5 minutes prior to time.

This isn't "whining." This is calling out the Republicans for their attempt to force this through with no critical review. The GOP is not abiding by the will of the citizens of WI. They are being dishonest.

You're defending them out of blind loyalty. You get a life.

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@failures art,

Hardly a different scenario than what occurred when the HCB passed in the Federal Congress. That one was 2,000+ pages and no one read it.

You (and the guy in WI) are whining about the same stuff you did on a much larger scale. Hypocrisy makes you look foolish.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Hardly a different scenario than the HCB passed in the Federal Congress. That one was 2,000+ pages and no one read it.

Plenty of people read it. What a absurd assertion. What makes you say nobody read it? If nobody read it, then how did so many GOP concessions get made? 2,000+ pages, cool. At least people had input after months of public interaction. Months and months of public forums where the majority of the time was spent clarifying misinformation spread by conservative pundits. Please please please compare the two events. They only drive the knife into your argument. You are only impaling yourself here.

georgeob1 wrote:

You (and the guy in WI) are whining about the same stuff you did on a much larger scale. Hypocrisy makes you look foolish.

Since you have failed to support anything you've said, you're just talking out of your ass. Something that I've been enjoying watching you get taken to town on in the Obama08 thread.

Details and evidence aren't important to you are they? I've got very little to worry about with you as a critic.

HCR was much larger and for it, it let in a huge amount of public participation. The end product was dramatically different than the original. It didn't even have a public option, and yet in the end, the GOP sold it as socialism. On top of that, they pretend like it was rammed through without Republican input. Give me a break. What a con job. Don't lecture about hypocrisy george. Get serious.

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@failures art,

Don't blame the Republicans for the gastly folly of the HCB. The fact is they had no real imput into its drafting - apartfrom failed attempts in the last round to lure a couple of Republican senators to vote for the Senate version. That didn't work and they had to resort to blatant payoffs to Democrat senators to even get them to go along with their bill.

Most of the negotiation and outreach was among the Democrats themselves, with many (correctly) fearing they were ending their political careers by voting for it.

I note that you didn't offer any "proof" of your assertions either, so don't try that childish game with me. Most of this stuff is both well-known and obvious. (However, I suppose it is hard to think when you are hyperventillating with such contrived indignation.)

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@georgeob1,

Revisionist bullshit, George. The GOP had huge influence on the HCB. They were invited to publicly aired discussions, things were removed to appease them, and Obama even threw in some tax cuts (cause that seems to be the only thing Republicans care about).

Get a grip dude.

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@edgarblythe,

I think the WI protest is the first step in a nation-wide movement, a movement against the over-arching control of the right.

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@failures art,

failures art wrote:

The GOP had huge influence on the HCB.

Words to remember. Laughing

However, in the long run your statement is likely to become true, as the Republicans dismantle it piece by piece.

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@georgeob1,

There over 100 Republican amendments in the HCB, George. How many votes from the GOP? It seems that the Dems should have left the bill in its original form.

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@failures art,

Do you believe the Rebublicans were somehow obliged to vote for it? If so then you have established a rather curious principle that would quickly lead to absurd conclusions.

They were opposed to both the single payer and mandated insurance schemes as matters of principle. Moreover they didn't accept the trickery built into the bill to create the illusion that it wouldn't increase deficits in the long term (early taxes and delayed benefits in an artificial 10 year budget period, plus the truly absurd notion that forcing everyone to submit 1099s to the IRS for every transaction over approx. $450 was feasible in the real world or that it would yield $30 billion/year in new tax collections. Finally, given the track record for the real cost of government entitlements compared to the estimates when they were enacted, they just didn't buy the notion that our government could actually "bend the cost curve" - it never has done so for anything.

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@plainoldme,

Quote:

I think the WI protest is the first step in a nation-wide movement, a movement against the over-arching control of the right.

Americans are pretty solid anti union and very solid anti paying taxes, making a run to bust up government unions to drive down cost of government is likely a smart move. I say that as a long time union man, but you can't argue with multiple decades of American citizen behaviour.

I have seen zero data but I have a suspicion that this is going to go the way of the Arizona immigration law and the ground zero mosque, were a bunch of people run around yelling about how radical this is....how unfair this is...how unamerican this is...only come to find out that the majority of Americans dont agree. Then the minority will call the majority a bunch of unsavoury names....

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Americans are pretty solid anti union and very solid anti paying taxes, making a run to bust up government unions to drive down cost of government is likely a smart move. I say that as a long time union man, but you can't argue with multiple decades of American citizen behaviour.

I do not think so Hawkeye when you are talking about teachers and firefighter and police who are regarded fairly highly and they are not all that well pay compare to the skills and the risks involved.

Why risk your life and health in the case of the public safety branches if you can get as good benefits by far less stressful employment in the public sector?

As far as teachers are concerns if you wish to demand ever raising abilities once more why take a job at the low to middle end of the middle class range that require a college degree without the extra benefits that now go with the job?

Maybe the tea parties wish to home school all their children and wish mall security guards type people protecting them and their properties.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

The converse of this observation is that Democratic politicians, increasingly dependent on money and votes from SEIU, AFSCME, NEA, and so forth, fear they will reap the electoral whirlwind if they stand up to the unions—even when union-negotiated benefits packages threaten to wreak fiscal devastation upon state and municipal budgets. The partial transformation of the Democratic Party into the political arm of the public-sector unions threatens to remake the party into something like the organised antagonist of all those who pay taxes or benefit from taxpayer-financed government programmes, but who do not themselves work for the government—an anti-everyone-but-public-employees union. That it is to the GOP's undeniable electoral advantage to weaken the Democrats' main source of money and voter mobilisation turns the Republican Party into something like the everyone-but-public-employees union, whether they care about everyone but public employees or not. It doesn't matter if Republicans give a damn about subsidised school lunches for poor kids. When it comes down to zero-sum distributive conflict over a shrinking pool of money, the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/02/public-sector_unions

Yep, the left has over the last two years been very consistently wrong about where the American people are, and this is likely another example.

Quote:

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The state’s largest school district has joined those that have canceled classes due to teacher shortages caused by union protests at the state Capitol.

Officials say more than 600 of the 5,400 teachers in Milwaukee Public Schools called in sick today to attend the protests over Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill. The district has more than 82,000 students at 184 schools

http://www.sheboyganpress.com/article/20110218/SHE0101/110218006/1062&located=rss

This is not going to help....closing school with no notice is a huge burden on families, who are not likely to feel compassionate about the reason being that teachers would rather whine about their rights then show up to work.

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@hawkeye10,

For an idea of the scope of the problem for unions see here
http://www.gallup.com/poll/122744/labor-unions-sharp-slide-public-support.aspx

This data is a year and a half old, but as it has since that time become clear to most Americans that our economy will not bounce back from the Great Recession these numbers have almost certainly gotten worse. I assume that the Gov of Wisconsin is looking at current polling data that show that when push comes to shove the majority of citizens will support him. He will also be a hero on the national stage.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

States have shied away from making unpopular cuts in core services and state workforces beyond what they have already done. They sowed the dragon seeds in the fat years by buying off service unions with generous pensions, employee contracts, healthcare, pay, and benefits. According to a study by Daniel DiSalvo, a political scientist at City College in New York, state and local workers now earn an average of $14 more per hour in wages and benefits than their private sector counterparts. In general, the average state government worker reaps retirement benefits several times richer than a counterpart in the private sector, a critical reason why public pension costs have become unsustainable. For example, state and local governments contributed $3.04 per hour toward each employee's retirement in 2007, according to U.S. Labor Department figures, while private employers paid 92 cents an hour

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2011/01/21/public-employee-union-benefits-are-a-fiscal-disaster?PageNr=1

If these numbers stack up they are a no-go for stressed out and financially stressed taxpayers. Me thinks Dems will find out that they are on the wrong side, again.

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Government workers are also better educated than the work force as a whole, because the jobs tend to require a higher skill level. Governments don't require short order cooks or burger flippers or retail sales help, or assembly line workers. When economists look at comparable job levels, it turns out that the private sector and the public sector are in fact just about the same. And at the the highest job levels, NO ONE in government is getting the 2 or 10 or 50 million dollar bonuses that the private sector was giving out before they crashed the economy (and while it was crashing).

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

This is not going to help....closing school with no notice is a huge burden on families, who are not likely to feel compassionate about the reason being that teachers would rather whine about their rights then show up to work.

They voted for these assholes that cause this problem and I am sure if their livelihoods and futures was at risk they would be out in the streets also.

One nice thing is if the GOP get it wish we should be able to bribe our ways out of traffic tickets and such in the same manner as you now can do in Mexico.

Having a minimum wage police force is not all bad.

Second note the public better get used to their schools being shut down from time to time as if you take away the right to bargain then the only way to go is illegal strikes.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

The union is really concerned about the provision of the law that requires them to get a majority vote of the employees they represent (and whose pay they get to skim). With good reason they fear that they will lose these elections. They much prefer the simpler process of buying off previous Democrat legislatures and getting a permanent, uncontestable, monopoly in return. It is interesting that the public service employees of Wisconsin were NEVER asked to vote on the question of union representation - instead the legislature simply mandated that these unions had a perpetual right to 1-2% of their salaries.

Have you actually looked at the bill in question? (He asks, knowing the answer first)

The bill requires this vote to take place on a recurring basis EVERY YEAR. If in any one year the vote failed, the union would be dissolved. This is nothing more than a stealth plan for dissolving the union over time, once the gov. figured out he didn't have the right to de-certify them by fiat - which was the original plan.

To claim that such a requirement is anything else beggars belief.

Little details. Sure screw your narrative, don't they?

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Typically the union was voted in by over 50% of employees. They then continue to represent the employees until a vote is called for and they are voted out. George claims to have intimate knowledge of unions but he doesn't seem to know the first thing about how a group starts being represented by a union or how they continue to be represented. There are instances of employees voting out a union.

I wonder who will have to pay for the vote each year under this legislation? I wonder if they will allow the vote to happen during working hours. The legislation doesn't say but since it is MANDATED by government can we count this as an unfunded mandate? Or will the government pay for what it is forcing on people?

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The Wisconsin Police union is pretty pissed.

Quote:

"I am going to make an effort to speak for myself, and every member of the Wisconsin State Patrol when I say this … I specifically regret the endorsement of the Wisconsin Trooper's Association for Gov. Scott Walker. I regret the governor's decision to 'endorse' the troopers and inspectors of the Wisconsin State Patrol. I regret being the recipient of any of the perceived benefits provided by the governor's anointing. I think everyone's job and career is just as significant as

Yep, the police endorsed Walker and now want to take it back.

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Wrestlin' in Wisconsin

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