Unions vs. Republicans...

[boutons_deux]

Indiana Official: "Use Live Ammunition" Against Wisconsin Protesters

JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011...sin-protesters

[boutons_deux]

Gov. Walker Informed That Bill Targeting Unions May Cost State $46 Million In Federal Funds

WASHINGTON -- Budget referees and transportation officials in Wisconsin have informed Gov. Scott Walker (R) that if he were to pass his controversial anti-union legislation into law, he could be forfeiting tens of millions of dollars in federal funds for transportation.

Under an obscure provision of federal labor law, states risk losing federal funds should they eliminate "collective bargaining rights" that existed at the time when federal assistance was first granted. The provision, known as "protective arrangements" or "Section 13C arrangements," is meant as a means of cushioning union (and even some non-union) members who, while working on local projects, are affected by federal grants.

It also could potentially hamstring governors like Walker who want dramatic changes to labor laws in their states. Wisconsin received $74 million in federal transit funds this fiscal year. Of that, $46.6 million would be put at risk should the collective-bargaining bill come to pass -- in the process creating an even more difficult fiscal situation than the one that, ostensibly, compelled Walker to push the legislation in the first place.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...tml?view=print

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[Supergirl]

Also, at the same time Walker pushes this bill down the citizens of Wisconsin's throats, he lobbies to lower taxes for rich people again. Because you know, his state's broke and they need the money. How any one buys this bull is beyond me.

[TeyshaBlue]

I'm about equal parts disgusted with Walker not accepting the union concessions and the Congressmen running away and hiding like little es.

[Marcus Bryant]

True. We only remove our bull detectors for unions, or other nostalgic lefty causes.

[boutons_deux]

What bull have you, O Great Lefty Bull Detector, detected from the WI unions?

[TeyshaBlue]

Oh challenged archer, aim thy bow at the legislature.

[Marcus Bryant]

That this cons utes any great threat to the American labor movement. So collective bargaining for public employees for non-salary compensation is removed after they receive their fat benefits packages, and they will have to contribute a little more towards those benefits. Yes, Hitler has appeared in Madison as the more hyperbolic and ahistorical partisans claim.

[boutons_deux]

"this cons utes any great threat to the American labor movement"

of course it is. The VRWC has been beating up on labor, union and non-union, for decades, that's why household income has stagnated as GNP and productivity rose.

The less you pay labor, the more the VRWC conspiracy can pocket.

The more fragmented and weakened labor unions are, the less they, as the Have-Nots, can focus their contirbutions on the Dems, to fight the Haves.

iow, there is no corrupt clearing house on the Dem side that anywhere matches the corrupt clearing house of, eg, USCoC.

If collective bargaining is so non-threatening, then why is Walker/VRWC so damned intent on killing it?

[Marcus Bryant]

"this cons utes any great threat to the American labor movement"

of course it is. The VRWC has been beating up on labor, union and non-union, for decades, that's why household income has stagnated as GNP and productivity rose.

Globalization was the primary cause of that, something that the Clintons fully embraced. Now the Clintons are in on the "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy." The circle is complete.

The less you pay labor, the more the VRWC conspiracy can pocket.

The more fragmented and weakened labor unions are, the less they, as the Have-Nots, can focus their contirbutions on the Dems, to fight the Haves.

iow, there is no corrupt clearing house on the Dem side that anywhere matches the corrupt clearing house of, eg, USCoC.

If collective bargaining is so non-threatening, then why is Walker/VRWC so damned intent on killing it?

Because it keeps the cost of the fat pedagogue benefits down. And since when is a state government and the taxpaying public a part of some grand conspiracy? That's ing stupid.

[MannyIsGod]

Imagine if we had one term limitations on every office in this country. Politics would play so much less into the governing of our nation.

[boutons_deux]

"Globalization was the primary cause of that"

And it the corps have been pushing for globalization for decades, to their own benefit, not to the benefit of America.

Corporate-pushed globalization is why American foreign trade policy is so ed up, and why America is getting screwed by its trade "partners".

If Walker is so worried about his deficit, why did he give away $120M to the corps last month?

Do you really think I buy the VRWC bull about public union employees as fat cats?

[Marcus Bryant]

Further, organized labor has suffered at the hands of the consuming public and its own excesses, at least in the private sector. You want to know who's behind the conspiracy? Everyone who buys . That's your great Satan. Who else? Everyone who's invested in the great Satan's equity markets.

[boutons_deux]

As if pro-employee facts would make any difference to the VRWC shills here:


Why Americans Need Unions Now More Than Ever


How often do you hear someone say, "Oh, at one time unions were a good thing, but not anymore"?

The premise of this argument is that once upon a time there were robber barons stalking the land, and it was a fine thing that workers organized into unions to prevent them from hiring children and paying employees a pittance as they labored in sweatshops working fifteen-hour days.

Now, goes the narrative, in the age of high-tech industrial campuses and "information" workers, unions are "obsolete."

Next time you hear that argument from an otherwise rational person, give them a good shake and insist that they wake up from their dream world.

The central problem facing the American economy -- and our society -- is the collapse of the American middle class. The incomes of the middle class Americans, and those who aspire to be middle class -- 90% of Americans -- have been stagnant for almost three decades. This trend, which was briefly interrupted during the Clinton Administration, is the chief defining characteristic of our recent economic history.

This stagnation of middle class incomes has not happened because our economy has failed to grow over this period. In fact, real (adjusted for inflation) per capita gross domestic product (GDP) increased more than 80% over the period between 1975 and 2005. In the last ten years, before the Great Recession, it increased at an average rate of 1.8% per year. That means that if the benefits of economic growth were equally spread throughout our society, everyone should have been almost 20% better off (with compounding) in 2008 than they were in 1998.

But they weren't better off. In fact, median family income actually dropped in the years before the recession. It went from $52,301 (in 2009 dollars) in 2000 to $50,112 in 2008. And, of course it continued to drop as the recession set in.

How is that possible?

Was it -- as the Right likes to believe -- because of the growth of the Federal Government? Nope. In fact, the percentage of GDP going to federal spending actually dropped during the last four years of the Clinton Administration. When Bush took office it began to increase again as the Republicans increased spending on wars. Over the last 28 years, federal spending has averaged about 20.9% of the GDP and varied within a range of only about 5%, with the high being in 1983 (in the middle of the Reagan years) and the low in 2000 before Bush took office. It has never even come close to the 43.6% of GDP that it consumed during World War II in 1943 and 1944, or the 41.9% it consumed in 1945. The percent of GDP that goes to Federal spending went up in 2009 and 2010 -- but that was mainly because the economy shrunk on the one hand, and a major, temporary stimulus bill was need on the other to prevent another Great Depression.

Was it because taxes have skyrocketed? No again. In fact, according to the Census Bureau, the median household tax burden actually dropped from 24.9% in 2000 to 22.4% in 2009.

Was it that labor became less productive? No. In fact, there has been a major gap between the increase in the productivity of our workforce and the increase in their wages. Even when wages were improving at the end of the Clinton years, productivity went up 2.5% per year and median hourly wages went up only 1.5%.

From 2000 to 2004 worker productivity exploded by an annual rate of 3.8% but hourly wages went up only 1% and median family income actually dropped .9%.

The bottom line is that people who work for a living (most of us) are getting a smaller and smaller share of the nation's economic pie.

In August of 2006, the New York Times reported that Federal Reserve study showed that, "Wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross national product since the government began recording data in 1947; while corporate profits have climbed to their highest shares since the 1960."

So the answer to the question is simple. Virtually all of the increase in our gross domestic product over the ten years before the Great Recession went to the wealthiest 2% of the population.

These changes in income distribution are not the result of "natural laws." They are the result of systems set up by human beings that differentially benefit different groups in the society.

Economist Paul Krugman has summarized the history of income distribution in America.

At the beginning of the Great Depression, income inequality, and inequality in the control of wealth, was very high. Then came the great compression between 1929 and 1947. Real wages for workers in manufacturing rose 67% while real income for the richest 1% of Americans fell 17%. This period marked the birth of the American middle class. Two major forces drove these trends -- unionization of major manufacturing sectors, and the public policies of the New Deal.

Then came the postwar boom, 1947 to 1973. Real wages rose 81% and the income of the richest 1% rose 38%. Growth was widely shared, but income inequality continued to drop.

From 1973 to 1980, everyone lost ground. Real wages fell 3% and income for the richest 1% fell 4%. The oil shocks, and the dramatic slowdown in economic growth in developing nations, took their toll on America and the world economy.

Then came what Krugman calls "the New Gilded Age." Beginning in 1980, there were big gains at the very top. The tax policies of the Reagan administration magnified income redistribution. Between 1980 and 2004, real wages in manufacturing fell 1%, while real income of the richest one percent rose 135%.

The single largest contributor to this stagnation of middle class incomes has been the corporate attack on organized labor. The percentage of private sector workers in unions has shrunk from 35 percent to 7%. The exception has been the public sector, where 35% of teachers, firemen and public service workers now have access to collective bargaining.

The last thirty years shows conclusively that the "compe ive market" -- absent collective bargaining -- simply does not assure that everyday employees share in the fruits of increased productivity or economic growth. Left to their own devices, CEO's will pad their own massive incomes and seek higher returns for the stockholders that hire them. That is especially true in an economic world that is globalized -- where CEO's can often hire labor at pennies on the dollar of what they would have to pay in the U.S. -- if it were not for union contracts.

Collective bargaining is the only way to level the playing field -- to assure that increases in American productivity are widely shared throughout the economy.

And when they are not shared, that is not only bad for the everyday family. It is horrible for the economy. Economies are in balance if productivity gains result in commensurately higher salaries for employees that allow them to buy the larger number of products and services that the productivity increases allow corporations to manufacture and sell. If they don't have increased buying power -- if all of the income growth goes to the top 2% -- then a demand deficit will inevitably develop that will lead to a recession -- or depression. That gap in buying power can be filled for a while -- as it was in the early 2000's -- with greater consumer debt. But after while the bubble bursts and the house of cards comes tumbling down.

We saw that movie -- we know the ending. And it was mainly a result of the disparity between increased worker productivity and increased worker income. It was the direct consequence of the corporate attack on the right to join a union.

American workers -- and the American economy -- need unions now more than ever. They are the only means by which we can guarantee widely-shared economic growth. And as it turns out, sustained, long-term economic growth requires widely-shared economic growth. Unions are the only way to prevent the collapse of the American middle class.

That's why the fight in Wisconsin is so fundamental. Governor Scott Walker and his corporate supporters want to destroy labor unions -- to eliminate the right to choose a union. They want a low wage economy. They want the freedom to pay people as little as possible at their companies -- and in the government.

They believe if they can break public employee unions, that they can ultimately eliminate organized labor as a meaningful force in the American economy -- and in American politics.

Walker's action are a case study in right wing philosophy. He cut state taxes on corporations and then demanded that middle class state workers take cuts in wages and benefits in order to pay for the corporate tax cuts.

Luckily regular voters have begun to smell the coffee. Nationally a new poll shows that 61% of voters reject the kind of proposals that Walker is trying to cram down the throats of the people of Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin itself a new poll by Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research found that a majority of Wisconsin voters disapprove of Walker's job performance and give him a negative favorability of 39 percent favorable and 49 percent unfavorable. In contrast 62 percent of voters offer a favorable view of public employees and only 11 percent unfavorable. And 53 percent rate labor unions favorably with only 31 percent unfavorable.

Over half of the voters oppose the agenda offered by Walker and Republicans in the legislature. Only 43 percent favor it. There is a major intensity gap as well, with 39 percent strongly opposing their proposals and only 28 percent strongly supporting them.

In the end, the Republican attack on the right to choose a union completely ignores what is good for everyday Americans -- and for the American economy. It is only concerned with what is good for the narrow economic and political interests of a tiny fraction of our population. That's why they must be defeated. That's why the battle of Wisconsin is really a battle for the survival of the American middle class.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert...tml?view=print

[Marcus Bryant]

Plenty of speculation and confusion of correlation with causation. A 35% decline in private sector unionization to 7% of the total working pubic was not the primary culprit.

The American consumer is your primary enemy. That's the great bogeyman, the backbone of the "VRWC." It is what it is, columns from labor organizers to the contrary.

[boutons_deux]

"American consumer is your primary enemy."

No, where the jobs and consumer products are created, outside of America, is the primary enemy.

If America produced in America what it imports from overseas, America would be much better off. (that does not mean I'm a fan of consumerism as the dominant feature of American civilization)

But corporate-pushed globalization has turned many US mfrs into importers/distributors of products made overseas, by their own companies or foreign companies.

[Marcus Bryant]

The American consumer wants to pay less and get more. That's what is driving the beast. Your silly conspiracy theories gloss over this reality. You wish to isolate the culprit into some evil archetype while the actual villains are all around you.

[boutons_deux]

Koch Industries Front Group Launches Ad to Support Walker's Union Busting



As ThinkProgress has reported, the global conglomerate Koch Industries not only helped elect Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), but is the leading force orchestrating his union-busting campaign. Koch gave Walker over $43,000 in direct donations and its allies aired millions of dollars worth of attack ads against his Democratic opponent. Then, Koch political operatives pressured Walker to crush labor unions as one of his first priorities. Tim Phillips, a former lobbying partner to Jack Abramoff and current president of Americans for Prosperity, a front financed by David Koch, told the New York Times that Koch operatives “had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown.” A Koch-financed front group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, has prepped Wisconsin GOP lawmakers with anti-labor legislative ideas.

Today, the Koch group Americans for Prosperity announced that it will air an ad smearing the protesters in Madison and calling on the state to support Walker’s power grab. As we noted on Friday, Koch has demanded that collective bargaining rights be curtailed for both private and public sector unions, a step beyond Walker’s already extreme move. The ad disparages the pro-labor protesters for allegedly bringing in “out of state political protesters.” In fact, the small pro-Walker demonstration orchestrated by Koch operatives last Saturday included a number of out of state conservative activists, including Herman Cain (from Georgia), Jim Hoft (from Missouri), and Phillips (from Virginia).

AFP NARRATOR: Democratic legislators don’t even have the guts to show up for their jobs, hiding out in other states. President Obama backs the union bosses and floods the state with out of state political protesters. Governor Walker has the courage to do what’s right for Wisconsin. Stand with Walker.

http://www.truth-out.org/print/67992

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What's silly, laughable is anybody, esp a pretentious prick like Marcus Bryant, thinking the VRWC and its challenged power don't exist.

[fraga]

Can you say..."bought"...

[Marcus Bryant]

Do I think that the wealthy seek influence in politics? Sure. Do I believe in an all-encompassing conspiracy theory posed by a crack-addled pre-pubescent in which a group called the "VRWC" is behind everything bad in American politics and society? Nope.

[Wild Cobra]

As usual, Maddow's show has a devastating program of why Walker and Repugs are outright lying that public-sector unions cause deficits and must be destroyed

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#41726841

I don't trust any of the lies that come from the Madcows mouth.

[Wild Cobra]

Love how Boutons quotes misleading news sources like the Huff~n~Puff post, and the Madcow.

[fraga]

Sorry...you'd much rather have a more reliable source like...Fox "News"...mahahahaha...

[Marcus Bryant]

I'd like to take all three and shoot them into interstellar space.

[Yonivore]