Wisconsin Gov. Walker to Dissolve Public Service Unions in Budget

Wisconsin Gov. Walker to Cut Union Rights in Budget

www.bloomberg.com

Gov. Scott Walker told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Thursday that he will propose removing nearly all public employee collective bargaining rights to help plug a $3.6 billion budget hole.

Walker, speaking from his Capitol office, said no one should be surprised by the move he will ask the Republican-controlled Legislature to approve next week given that he's talked about doing it for two months.

"This is not a shock," said Walker, a Republican who took office in January. "The shock would be if we didn't go forward with this."

But union leaders, and even some Re

(visit the link for the full news article)

Union "feather bedded" public servants make twice more on average than their tyrannical, union contract "shackled" taxpayer masters do. This is great news! Teachers actually contributing toward their health insurance and teaching more than 3-4 classes a day.

Now the public unions in Wisconsin will have to live like the rest of us. How refreshing!

www.bloomberg.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Sounds brutal but I'm entirely sure we won't be the only state enacting "brutal" austerity measures in the coming months.

reply to post by joyride0187


Oh this crap again, it's all the unions, everything is their fault. While I do think there are some problems in certain sectors, to think all Union workers are the problem is just silly. State unions cover all different sets of workers not just Teachers. And to think that State workers don't need representation because somehow the state can't abuse them-Well that's rather laughable.

Either way he's gonna catch a lot of flack. Most of that state's labor is unionized. His people aren't gonna like it. Furthermore, he may cut some budget holes, but he won't fix the problem. The problem isn't union wages or health care. Revenues are down, figure out some way to get revenues up and you fix the problem.


Of course, they could just go Right to Work like Mississippi or my home, Tennessee. But then again, we are one of the poorest states in the union for a reason. en.wikipedia.org...
It's not unions that are killing this economy. It's the rich fat cats on wall street stealing from people and corporations raping the populace. But yeah, let's cut a teachers pay. They make 50K a year, the bastards. The irony here is taking money from public sector will hurt you because they will have less money to spend. Therefore things like retail and other sectors will see their profits go down. So how are you helping yourselves?

But this isn't about the budget. It's about getting rid of unions. I always laugh at how the working poor seem to cheer for their own demise.

I feel anyone in a Union is a scapegoat! I am a state employee in an union and to support my family of 5 in a 2 bedroom apartment I work 2 full-time jobs. Yes 80 hours a week just to get by. Benefits are good and not much after that. I pay into a pension that won't be around after 2014 and we not offered any other options then keep paying. Union dues are 60 dollars a month and in a town with strong politicians that do not operate fairly. During the last contract a member of our union was given a 9000 dollar raise, yes 9000 by a friend who is a politician. The real corruption comes from the politicians, the contract was negotiated as a whole but the politicians slipped a raise for a friend at the last minute. So before we jump on unions who try to keep the playing feild fair lets look at the politics who cheat everyone. This my 1st post and I am hoping to not piss too many people off. Also a death at work was covered up no problem and it wasn't done by the union, just local police and politicians.

reply to post by antonia

Oh this crap again, it's all the unions, everything is their fault. While I do think there are some problems in certain sectors, to think all Union workers are the problem is just silly....

The US economy was targeted and systematically killed over the last forty (actually one hundred) years. Wisconsin Gov. Walker is trying to stop the hemorrhage with a band aid. He can do nothing while the District of Criminals is busy promoting the death of our nation.

Meanwhile Obama has just put three of the culprits responsible for our economic mess in charge of the recover. Talk about Foxes guarding the hen house! Or should I say Globalists to protect our nation.

....Barack Obama has reshuffled his staff....


* ... as head of the National Economic Council, Obama brought in Gene Sperling....

Before becoming the director of the NEC in the 1990s Sperling worked behind the scenes to secure the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement...

...he was working on China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, an event which caused millions of manufacturing jobs in U.S. to be permanently lost.

Sperling also played a major role in repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking. Many observers credit the act’s repeal with causing the financial crisis that brought the economy to its knees.

* ...Chief of Staff... the president brought... William Daley, a former Clinton administration official and banker....

Daley too was instrumental in the passage of NAFTA and China’s entry into the WTO... His only responsibility during that time was ensuring that the trade deal passed.

After delivering the trade pact that cost America 20 percent of its manufacturing jobs in just 14 years, Daley moved on to serve as Clinton’s Commerce Secretary from 1997-2000. During that time, he helped pave the way for China’s entry into the WTO.

Daley’s work in the Clinton administration earned him a reputation as someone who is ''squarely on the opposite side of working families.''

* And to top it off, General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt was tapped to lead a newly created Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

Immelt,... has consistently supported the same failed trade policies that have cost America millions of jobs. As the leader of one of the world’s largest companies, he has been at the forefront of the outsourcing movement.

“You would have difficulty finding a company that has outsourced more jobs and closed more American factories than GE,”...

In the past, Immelt was a vocal supporter for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. He also spoke out against the proposed “buy American” provision.

Immelt, Daley and Sperling certainly do not represent the “change” the president was fond of referring to in 2008. In fact, all three represent more of the same - failed trade policies that result in the loss of millions of jobs.

www.economyincrisis.org...

Originally posted by kainamiken
I feel anyone in a Union is a scapegoat!

I agree. Was it the unions that sent the jobs overseas, or Wall Street with the connivance of the politicians? "Blame the Unions" is the battle cry of a race to the bottom...a race fueled by those American who voted to support tax breaks for the wealthy and war without end while screwing themselves in the ear.

Originally posted by crimvelvet
reply to post by antonia

 

The US economy was targeted and systematically killed over the last forty (actually one hundred) years. Wisconsin Gov. Walker is trying to stop the hemorrhage with a band aid. He can do nothing while the District of Criminals is busy promoting the death of our nation.

Very true, nor will we see that stop until American's stop voting fro Rethugs and Demonrats. I fully expect it to continue though. Citizens of this country are very good at voting against their own interests.

I wondered when the PTB would get around to union-busting. Through corporate media they have convinced the average (unawake) American that greedy, overpaid public employees are the cause of the budget mess. I'm a public employee (county) and anyone who believes we are underworked and overpaid should visit my job site. Every day we are expected to do more with less, we are busting our @sses trying to keep up with service demand. We often work through breaks and lunches, take work home with us, etc. because each of us is now doing the job of 2 or 3 people.

As for overpaid? I have a Bachelor's degree and make about $40,000 a year. Does anyone here think that is exorbitant?

reply to post by Rockerchic4God


There is a reason I refuse to teach music in a public school. You don't get much in pay, the only thing that makes up for it is the benefits. I'm sure they will take those too. Most people think music is a waste of time as well. Then you face the fact most of these kids don't give a damn and their parents are going to blame you because their little angel is lazy. It's just glorified baby sitting since we don't value education like we should. I sat there and watched a teacher get cussed out because a child was failing band. Why? He didn't show up for class and refused to learn to read music. Yet somehow it's the teacher's fault.

The only public employees who get paid too much are the politicians and their cronies. The rest of you would be better off going to the private sector when it finally opens back up.

Union leadership will sell out the workers in a second. They got all this stimulous money and tossed some scraps out to keep folks working for a while but who pocketed the rest? Now we got this high speed rail boondoggle coming down the tubes and the same thing will happen. All to keep the money flowing back in campaign contributions from unions. There is your problem right there.

reply to post by joyride0187


Gov of Iowa is pushing back at unions too.

Gov. Terry Branstad moved quickly Friday to rescind two executive orders approved by past Democratic governors regarding state construction projects and voting rights for ex-offenders. Just hours after his inauguration, the Republican governor signed one executive order scrapping former Gov. Chet Culver’s requirement that state officials seriously consider negotiating project labor agreements with union leaders on major state construction projects. Non-union contractors contended they were frozen out of state projects by Culver’s order and that the requirement for project labor agreements drove up the cost of construction for taxpayers. Union leaders claimed the agreements helped to insure labor harmony and avoid cost overruns.

Link Here

Well it all sounds good,now lets see if it will still take them 2 years to fix a damn pot hole.
Im going to sit on the fence about this till i see ANY real results from this.

But at least life in WI is good so far,GO PACKERS!

Originally posted by HoldTheBeans
Union leadership will sell out the workers in a second. They got all this stimulous money and tossed some scraps out to keep folks working for a while but who pocketed the rest? Now we got this high speed rail boondoggle coming down the tubes and the same thing will happen. All to keep the money flowing back in campaign contributions from unions. There is your problem right there.

Unions...those folks who got you the weekend!

The problem is your (our) jobs being sent to Asia, where they are paid pennies on our dollars. Have you noticed the price of a car drop in proportion? The difference is pocketed on Wall Street...and you blame your neighbour with a collective agreement, who still makes a decent wage. You think the unions got rid of your jobs and started the economic crunch?

Not freakin' likely!

The middle class being sucked dry, and Wall Street...and K Street...get y'all to blame the last man standing.

reply to post by crimvelvet


I am not of the mind to join a union the few times I have had the chance, however, unions were borne out of oppressive circumstance. In fact in the last 30 years our national decline has paced the decline of unions, the LOWERING of top TEIR tax rates and the rise of modern Reagan conservatism. Unions are going away, that is a *snip* FACT, it does not seem to be creating higher wages for the non unionized counterparts does it?

Show me how the decline of unionization in the last thirty years has helped the private economy HERE, right HERE bud, not in China.

You guys and your RED herring witch hunt are reckless, blame the piss ons with spoon and ignore the Billionaires with Back - loaders.

It will be entirely ironic when we are decimated By Chinese Communists and American corporatists in unison.

Originally posted by Janky Red
It will be entirely ironic when we are decimated By Chinese Communists and American corporatists in unison.

Look at home foreclosures and who owns US debt...unless I'm mistaken, it already happened!

reply to post by antonia

Very true, nor will we see that stop until American's stop voting fro Rethugs and Demonrats. I fully expect it to continue though. Citizens of this country are very good at voting against their own interests.

Yes we are always told Never vote for a third party you are only throwing you vote away and so the Banksters get to give you a choice of PUPPET R of PUPPET D but they bankroll both.

Unfortunately the public is brainwashed into thinking the "Democrats" represent the people. But the three sumbags I mention in my first post ALL worked for Clinton and ALL worked to send millions of jobs overseas! At least you expect that from a repub.

reply to post by Janky Red

It will be entirely ironic when we are decimated By Chinese Communists and American corporatists in unison.

You are making the mistake of thinking the Banksters and Corporate CEO are Capitalists. Far from it they HATE capitalism. THEY hate Competition. Most are "Socialist Fabians" AKA Cecil Rhodes, the Round Table, Council on Foreign Relations.

THEY own the News Media and education and can blame "capitalism" for their empire building.
Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual (human) rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. More importantly capitalism takes REAL WEALTH, the product of a persons labor and reinvests it to make more wealth and thereby provides jobs. Compare THAT idea to the reality of the 1980's:


DEFINITION:

Leveraged buyouts involve an investor, financial sponsors or private equity firms making large acquisitions without committing all the capital required for the acquisition. To do this, a financial sponsor will raise acquisition debt which is ultimately secured upon the acquisition target... en.wikipedia.org...

In other words the investor is placing a mortgage on property he does not OWN!!!

This is not moral or ethical and given what happened during the Great Depression, I would be very surprised if laws were not enacted to prevent it. SO - Where the heck was CONGRESS. Where the heck were the COURTS when this was going on??? Where the HECK was Obama and the democrats??? If you want to do one single thing to help America get back on her feet OBAMA, then Declare Leveraged Buyouts ILLEGAL. They are certainly immoral and very destructive to the country.

If you want to know what the US government did about it...

...In January 1982, former US Secretary of the Treasury William Simon and a group of investors acquired Gibson Greetings, a producer of greeting cards, for $80 million, of which only $1 million was rumored to have been contributed by the investors. By mid-1983, just sixteen months after the original deal, Gibson completed a $290 million IPO and Simon made approximately $66 million. The success of the Gibson Greetings investment attracted the attention of the wider media to the nascent boom in leveraged buyouts.[10] Between 1979 and 1989, it was estimated that there were over 2,000 leveraged buyouts valued in excess of $250 billion... en.wikipedia.org...

The big question is WHO profited from "eating the seed corn"

Remember every single dollar the bankers loan out whether it is to the US Government, business, or home owner is created on the spot. In other words it is legalized COUNTERFEITING. The byproduct of all this money printing was the increase of the money supply from $60.5 billion in 1966 to $2016 billion in Dec 2010 AND it caused the minimum wage to rise from $1.00 to $7.25. (My Mom in the thirties was paid 25 cents an hour and that was considered a very generous wage for an office manager)

....These days, corporations seem to exist for the investment bankers.... In fact, investment banks are replacing the publicly held industrial corporations as the largest and most powerful economic institutions in America.... THERE ARE SIGNS THAT A VICIOUS spiral has begun, as each corporate player seeks to improve its standard of living at the expense of another's. Corporate raiders transfer to themselves, and other shareholders, part of the income of employees by forcing the latter to agree to lower wages. January 29, 1989 New York Times: LEVER AGED BUYOUTS: AMERICAN PAYS THE PRICE

THAT by the way is where ALL our good paying jobs got wiped out. The equity in the business was taken by the bankers and the businesses had to cut benefits and wages to survive. ALL of the corporations I worked for, some with very good working conditions because they had NO DEBT, are GONE!

reply to post by joyride0187


Good. This is step in the right direction. This is not a solution, mind you, but a positive turn. This "public service" union teat has got to be shut off. Time to wean the children and let them plan their own darned futures without using the rest of us as their retirement pln.

reply to post by HoldTheBeans

Union leadership will sell out the workers in a second.

Unfortunately you are correct. Happened to a friend of mine. The national Union would not help when the Corporation gave the ultimatium - 25% pay cut or we close the doors.

My Father started the Union at Pocketbook Inc. in the 1950's. Another union heard about it beat the crap out of my Dad and forced him to leave the state in fear of his life!