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Hey, another stupid column.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022103190.html
Hitherto, when this university town and seat of state government applauded itself as "the Athens of the Midwest," the sobriquet suggested kinship with the cultural glories of ancient Greece. Now, however, Madison resembles contemporary Athens.
This capital has been convulsed by government employees sowing disorder in order to repeal an election. A minority of the minority of Wisconsin residents who work for government (300,000 of them) are resisting changes to benefits that most of Wisconsin's 5.6 million residents resent financing.
Serene at the center of this storm sits Republican Scott Walker, 43, in the governor's mansion library, beneath a portrait of Ronald Reagan. Walker has seen this movie before.
As Milwaukee County executive, he had similar dust-ups with government workers' unions, and when the dust settled, he was resoundingly reelected, twice. If his desire to limit collective bargaining by such unions to salary issues makes him the "Midwest Mussolini" - some protesters did not get the memo about the new civility - other supposed offenses include wanting state employees to contribute 5.8 percent of their pay to their pension plans (most pay less than 1 percent), which would still be less than the average in the private sector. He also wants them to pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their health care premiums - up from about 6 percent but still much less than the private-sector average.
He campaigned on this. Union fliers distributed during the campaign attacked his "5 and 12" plan. He says his brother, a hotel banquet manager, and his sister-in-law, who works at Sears, "would love to have" what he is offering the unions.
For some of Madison's graying baby boomers, these protests are a jolly stroll down memory lane. Tune up the guitars! "This is," Walker says, "very much a '60s mentality."
He does, however, think there is sincerity unleavened by information: Many protesters do not realize that most worker protections - merit hiring; just cause for discipline and termination - are the result not of collective bargaining but of Wisconsin's uniquely strong and century-old civil service law.
"I am convinced," he says, "this is about money - but not the employees' money." It concerns union dues, which he wants the state to stop collecting for the unions, just as he wants annual votes by state employees on re-certifying the unions. He says many employees pay $500 to $600 annually in union dues - teachers pay up to $1,000. Given a choice, many might prefer to apply this money to health care premiums or retirement plans. And he thinks "eventually" most will say about the dues collectors, "What do we need this for?"
Such unions are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it always wants to do anyway - grow. These unions use dues extracted from members to elect their members' employers. And governments, not disciplined by the need to make a profit, extract government employees' salaries from taxpayers. Government sits on both sides of the table in cozy "negotiations" with unions.
A few days after President Obama submitted a budget that would increase the federal deficit, he tried to sabotage Wisconsin's progress toward solvency. The Washington Post: "The president's political machine worked in close coordination . . . with state and national union officials to mobilize thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals." Walker notes that in the 1990s, Wisconsin was a trendsetter regarding school choice and welfare reform. Obama, he thinks, may be worried that Wisconsin might again be a harbinger.
He also thinks Obama's intervention demonstrates why presidents should serve apprenticeships as governors. He says that Obama, in the Illinois Legislature and the U.S. Senate, "was a liberal among liberals," and liberals are his base, and his staff comes from it. Governors, Walker says, get used to considering the interests of broad cons uencies.
Walker's calm comportment in this crisis is reminiscent of President Reagan's during his 1981 stand against the illegal strike by air traffic controllers, and Margaret Thatcher's in the 1984 showdown with the miners' union over whether unions or Parliament would govern Britain. Walker, by a fiscal seriousness contrasting with Obama's lack thereof, and Obama, by inciting defenders of the indefensible, have made three things clear:
First, the Democratic Party is the party of government, not only because of its extravagant sense of government's competence and proper scope, but also because the party's base is government employees. Second, government employees have an increasingly adversarial relationship with the governed. Third, Obama's "move to the center" is fic ious.
Hey, another stupid column.
Gotta give him props for including almost every GOP cliché...
- Unions bad: check
- blame it on Obama: check
- Reagan/Thatcher: check
- it's the Dem's fault: check
Wow, so the governor wants public employees to pay a little more for their pensions and their health care (still both less than private sector averages) and he doesn't want the state to garnish their wages to collect union dues?
That's really what all the hubub is about?
"wants public employees to pay a little more for their pensions and their health care"
they've agreed to that.
It's not about money, it's about the VRWC, who finances Walker, busting all unions.
they are willing to pay more ... what are you talking about? walker wants to bust the union... that's the problem..
now go back to playing dumb
Collective bargaining is what the hubub is about...
darrin didn't realize that the union has agreed to make the proposed increased payments. wherever he gets his information from doesn't mention that..
he's not very bright is what I am trying to say
Last edited by George Gervin's Afro; 02-23-2011 at 09:51 AM.
Yes, but what would have Reagan done?
Yeah, heaven forbid that the taxpayers don't have government employees organize against them. And collective bargaining wouldn't entirely disappear for the pedagogues of the Badger state anyways.
It would limit their collective bargaining to wage issues, big whoop.
It's a fraction of 300,000 public employees vs. 5.6 million tax payers.
"It would limit their collective bargaining to wage issues"
any VRWC beat down of any labor, union or non-union, is to be resisted with the same vigor and laser-like focus the VRWC.
Anybody find how much Kock Bros corps in WI got from Walker's tax breaks?
The "VRWC" seems to be a catch-all bogeyman to supplant the exercise of sane thought.
VRWC explains precisely why Ameica is ed.
I thought it was a weird idea when I first heard if from Hilary Clinton to explain the Clintons being witch hunted, but over the years, the VRWC is the culprit.
You really have to be insane, or a VRWC shill, to ignore what the VRWC has done, is doing, to up America and the planet.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 02-24-2011 at 11:43 AM.
The strange thing, of course, with all conspiratorial bogeymen is that the term is simultaneously elastic and inelastic. Everyone's in on it, save for the wizened few who know what's really going on, and their favorite public personalities.
Now we are to believe that the Clintons correctly identified themselves as targets of this conspiracy, yet the very policies they embraced while in office would seem to be what the great bogeymen wanted.
Who looks out for the tax payer's interests in public union negotiations?
Unions are for the tax payer.
Dear god, it's like I'm back in 10th grade and people still have no comprehension of the basic fundamental processes of the system. You're too smart to play this stupid, WC.
Public employee unions are "for the taxpayer?" I've got to hear this...please, do elaborate.
But first, read this:
Thus, after public employee unions were established, they had to figure out a way to cir vent the will of the taxpayer. Using dues to bribe lawmakers into passing ridiculously generous en lement packages is that way.All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.
Not really, my understanding is that they want to just do away with CB, period. IIRC, they also want to reduce the min duration on contracts to one year, something that would normally be part of collective bargaining also.
And I disagree that it's not a 'big whoop'...
And your point is?
Whoever is on the other side of the bargaining table? Politicians like Gov. Scott Walker?
Politicians change and, many, are willing to sell out the taxpayer for campaign cash...as has been the case in Wisconsin, (and elsewhere).
Private unions have to bargain with the owners of a company whose own best interests are at stake.
Big difference.
In theory. In reality the practice leads more towards Yonivore's characterization, with higher wages feeding contributions to politicians unlike Walker who are amenable to their demands.
Further, this is organizing against the interests of the taxpaying public.
I don't disagree you can't equate private vs public bargaining...
That said, in this specific case, this governor already sold out the public workers for campaign cash (from Koch and co.)
Maybe it's too much to ask that politicians actually do something for the tax payers instead of whoring themselves out, whichever the interest they get paid to side with.
I agree with that in my personal view. However, saying that it's not a big deal to lose the CB rights is really dishonest. It's really a big deal to them, as it's a big deal to any union, public or private. In a way, that's exactly one of the big factors that give the union leverage.
Bull .
Public employee unions demand more and more money which comes from tax payers. The officials making the decisions don't have the same pressures to negotiate on the side of the tax payer. there are countless government jobs that don't pay as well as the private sector, but even among those that don't, the benefits are usually better than any thing in the private sector.
Is it too much to as for something closer to the industry standards of similar non government jobs?
But there are so few out there that actually worry about the bottom line. If they were all like him, things would be far better.
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