Wis. GOP bypasses Dems, cuts collective bargaining

As an activist in a public sector union, this is flat out despicable.

This is a maneuver to balance the budget? What the unions have asked for is the ability to negotiate. We're not demanding this, that, or anything else. We're stating let's go to the table and negotiate what we believe to be fair. If governments are saying that the unions got to good a gig going, then I suggest they get a better negotiator.

There were a lot of measures that could have been introduced that wouldn't have meant the 8% pay cut that these middle class workers have now suffered, not to mention their now inability to negotiate for a wage increase.

This is pathetic. If I could rally with these folks, I would be there every day showing my support.

reply to post by johnny2127


I agree with a lot of that, except I'm not sure how we could even consider unions as overly powerful and corrupt compared to the corporations now, especially considering only 7% of American workers are part of a union. It used to be 35% before Regan in 1980. Also before 1980, the average worker made 40 times less that that of the CEO. Now it is 350 times! And what are most of us in now?? Debt!!

Most American families need Dad AND Mom to work, just to make ends meet. And if you are solo, you have an even tougher problem.

Yes, unions are human and potentially corrupt, but come on, it's pretty obvious who the bullies are. The numbers don't lie. The top 20% own 85% of the wealth and 400 people own more than 150 million, half of the population.

You say that our government is of the people, but it's not. It's of the corporations. What does it matter if a politician's salary is cut when he's getting millions from the special interest groups he supports.

private corporations will now take over the jobs...workers will recieve the minimum pay, the jobs will be part time jobs, they will be jobs with no benefits, and each year the corporations will increase the cost to the taxpayers so they can continue to show a profit year after year.
why do we have government? the corporations run this country...why do i say this?...look who has benefitted, and look at who has lost. this isn't rocket science, we as citizens of america serve for the benefit of corporations and the wealthy...the government just got done with giving the wealthy a 40 billion dollar a year tax break during the worst recession of modern times. why would any SANE congressmen, senator, or president of any party do this?

reply to post by dolphinfan


With one swipe of a Pen, they have just gone back to the 1800's

A lot of people do think Unions are unnessesary today. If it wasn't for Unions ALL your working conditions you now enjoy were due to Unions. Without Union support ALL of your working conditions can be taking away in a moments notice. And those that say, yeah but Business can't afford Unions any more. And by saying that you are putting all the power and money back in the hands of the Billionaires. This will make the USSA more competative with China, if you can't beat them, join them. Eventually you will have all the same Benifits China gives to their Employees. Even further down the road, it will be cheaper for china to make goods in the USSA.

Wisconsin is only the Begining...

reply to post by MMPI2

What is all this nonsense about putting the Union leaders in jail? For what? Have you not been paying attention? The Unions have been attacked by a rogue governor who only had a budget shortfall because he gave millions in tax cuts to his fat cat REPUBLICAN buddies. Even so the union folks made monetary concessions to no avail. The people in these unions are good people. They pay their bills and taxes. They get up and go to work every day. They enter burning buildings to save trapped people and they put their life on the line to protect other Wisconsinites. They teach Wisconsin's children. They do all of this and you say they should be in jail! All they are asking is that their right to gather and bargain collectively not be taken away.

Originally posted by Southern Guardian

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
Um, I said that "some" socialist programs were implemented, as opposed to being a full fledged Socialist country. This is what is known as Fabian Socialism, or socialism in increments.

So you don't oppose socialism as a concept, you oppose fascism? Be alittle more clear, because when somebody equates socialism to fascism, it means just that, socialism, and it lumps all socialist programmes.

Make up your mind, make a clear stand.

Ok well, if you recall, I mentioned Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism, so I didn't make up that concept. Jonah explicitly states that Wilson was the first fascistic US President. American Progressives embraced fascism and thought highly of Mussolini. Mussolini in fact coined the term "Totalitarian", which is basically govt control over the minute details of our lives. Interestingly, both Hitler and Mussolini wanted this type of control. It's just that Hitler employed a bit more of a Police State. The Smiley Face on Goldberg's book implies that the type of totalitarianism so espoused by Mussolini and others is ostensibly enacted "for our own good". Hitler just took it really far with policing it. Totalitarian dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler are leftist in spite of the fact that Hegelian Dialectic terms them as rite wing, while calling communists like Lenin and Stalin left wing. But Socialism is really just a bridge between Capitalism and Communism, and the Communists even say that in their webpages. Fascism, Communism, and Socialism are all apects of Totalitarian type systems. Even Hitler described his movement as Socialist. He did not like communists apparently and did imprison a number of them. But this is rather like saying spiders eat ants and they are both insects.
While I never said I approved of any kind of Socialism, one must consider that the whole premise of the Capitalist/Communist Hegelian dialectic is that one counters the other, thus we commonly hear communists and socialists talking about how terrible and evil Capitalism and corporations are. It's so classic as to be comical. On the other hand, we have the industrial military complex and multi national giants which really do employ predatory behaviors.
There is such a thing as Charity, which is talked about by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. He states both that "every man shall bear his own burden" and yet in another statement he admonishes us to be our brothers keeper. This is really not as contradictory as it sounds. He is espousing voluntary charity to our brethren, as opposed to forced income redistribution, which is anathema to the real path of initiation.

reply to post by Fitch303


The fourteen Democratic Wisconsin Senators are hardly cowards and did not run away. They left to protect the rights of everyday Wisconsinites by attempting to keep Walker's fascist power grab from becoming law. Despite over a hundred years of RETHUGLICAN attempts to paint unions as gangsters, it is unions that keep the OWNERS from taking us back to the 19th century where 100 hour weeks, continuous pay REDUCTIONS, child labor, and totally unsafe work conditions prevailed. If you like decent working conditions thank a Union member. And for God sake read some history

Originally posted by David9176
reply to post by romanmel

 

These teachers get an average wage of $49,000 per year with 15 weeks of vacation and unheard of benefits!

You should see what the governor gets. Better yet, you should see what banking CEO's get...or better yet...you should see the benefits CEO's of any major company get.

It's spectacular...and all payed on by the dime of the American worker.

How is that?

They reap all the benefits by taking more from us....paying as little as they can with as little benefits.

Think in reverse my friend.

Instead of attacking those similar to you with better benefits...why don't you go after those who are keeping you from getting the same?

You have to be kidding!

These teachers aren't Governors, Bankers or Corporate CEO's, they are in fact in many cases little more than glorified babysitters. Some wouldn't even be considered good babysitters. Is a babysitter worth $33.00 an hour?

reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus


Yes, preventing wholesale slavery is fascism.

Workers "sell" their services to the employer because the employer cannot or will not do the service required. Perhaps it cannot or will not be done by the employer because there is considerable danger or stress, or because one person can simply not muster all of the physical labor required to do what is desired.

Now, just because a person wants something created - say, a shake-weight or an iPhone - doesn't mean that this person can just say to another person, this is what you are going to do, and this is how much I'm going to pay you for it.

If you are going to sell an iPhone for $300 (or whatever they go for) but pay a person a wage that is not tenable in even in a third world country, with poor working conditions and dangerous materials all around when the price you are selling it for could easily allow for a more realistic wage.

Also, the argument that capitalism is somehow the most "natural" form of "economics" (in that the most natural form of economics is nature itself) when it implies that one person, due to an idea, but no skill, is able to sit back and "manage" other people's labor, which in its end is of no good to those people (especially in the case of Chinese and other third world laborers and increasingly the US) except for the remuneration they receive. Again, this remuneration is of little value to the worker, as the worker cannot buy an iPod or whatever with the amount of pay he or she receives to make the very same product (if any one person were to - from start to finish - make any given product in its entirety).

The worker is much more adept at understanding the praxis and product of his labor than the person dictating the task to be done in his grand design (or theory, if you will). At the end of the day, it is the union (a community of labor) that balances out the manager or dictator (in the literal sense - i.e., one who dictates and does not "do"). This is because of the inherent imbalance of power brought on by your capitalism. In theory, you seem to believe that somehow, in nature perhaps, "free enterprise" means that I can just go out and make a product or offer a service and that restrictions should not exist to my doing so. "Let the "free market" decide," is the mantra.

However, your market is not free. It never has been. A person in Mongolia could never sell llama wool, if she wanted to, just because she was free to do so. Nor would a person in Mongolia ever even ponder such an action (until perhaps recently in a globalized economy where Peru and Mongolia have some form of trade). The Mongolian and the Peruvian would be restricted to their own environment, not free to sell Sashimi Tapas or electric lawnmowers...there's no context for that.

In other words, inherently, the environment imposes automatic restrictions (vis-a-vis your niche) on what you can and cannot sell. There is no more freedom implied than the fact that the cheetah must chase the gazelle and could never chase penguins.

Also, the market is not "free" - or rather, unmanaged - because no one really needs a shake-weight or pokemon cards or Martha Stewart trivets unless the meaningless propaganda (=advertising) conditions the "market" to want that product. Perhaps a small Mizurkan town would want kielbasa or galompki and a small Sonoran town would want nopales or tamales. Of course they would, that's the cultural product that stems from niche and that only make sense for conservation of local resources and feasability of energy put in to get that foodstuff out. A Mexican would not want to spontaneously make a kielbasa any more than a Polish person would want to make a tamal.

Also, without the labor, the iPhone would be just a sparkle in Steve Jobs' eye. So why is there this inherent imbalance? Apple needs the labor as much (if not more) than the labor needs Apple. Labor is simply the collective of humanity that could/would otherwise exist in nature but who have been usurped by a minority's mindset and taken out of that nature and into the realm of the abstract and metaphorical.

Insert tab A into slot B. Repeat. So very productive...so very stimulating indeed.

reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus


the problem with what you are saying is that the forced income redistribution is FROM the lower classes TO the upper classes. this is common knowledge in ALL statistical income studies. there is no opinion to this, it is in easy to read, easy to understand income data. to ignore this data, makes what you say irrelevant to recent history.

reply to post by romanmel


How much are you worth?

I bet you are worth 33 dollars an hour.

Originally posted by jimmyx
reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus

 

the problem with what you are saying is that the forced income redistribution is FROM the lower classes TO the upper classes. this is common knowledge in ALL statistical income studies. there is no opinion to this, it is in easy to read, easy to understand income data. to ignore this data, makes what you say irrelevant to recent history.

Ah, what difference does it make who gets what from whom? It is still redistribution. You see you are trying to make the typical argument that its ok to tax the rich because they have more, but that the middle class should not be taxed. You have not done your homework or you would know that the Progressive income tax is actually a plank of communism, and communism and Marxism is quite simply class warfare.
I think what you have done, like others who keep saying that Walker is giving corporate welfare, is there is a basic misunderstanding that giving a tax break does not equal income redistribution. You are not "giving" corporations money from the taxpayers, you are "allowing" corporations to keep more of their own profit. Corporations who keep more of their own profit can afford to upkeep their property and machinery and what ever else they have for the purpose of providing a product or service. They also can afford to pay higher wages and hire on more employees when they can keep more of their profit. As another here stated, when corporations have to pay higher taxes they just pass on the cost to consumers.

Originally posted by David9176
reply to post by romanmel

 

How much are you worth?

I bet you are worth 33 dollars an hour.

You are off subject.

Point is, some teachers may be worth more than $33.00 an hour. But, with a closed shop union they'll never get it unless the lousey, lazy ones get it as well. Unions encourage slothful unmotivated space fillers. Hardly what society needs when kids are graduating unable to read or write at a third grade level.

reply to post by Southern Guardian

Maybe you are confusing socialism for communism? I don't know, maybe you can be clear as to what a socialist country exactly is

No I am not confusing it whatsoever. I have explained now that Socialism is a bridge to communism. Socialism is definitely forced redistribution of income. When our Founding Fathers set up the new govt, they did not set it up with Social Security, medicare, and medicaid. They set it up with the freedoms to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In fact, our present system of taxation is way more extreme than what we fought the Revolutionary war over. Remember that? Taxation without representation?
In a communist society, no one has any private property. This is what Karl Marx envisioned, where all private property is abolished. He said that the State would eventually wither away. One need only to look at the old Soviet Union to know that the Sate did not wither away, in fact it became deeply entrenched. Socialism intentionally leaves some private industry in place while it sucks the wealth out of it. That is ironically what fascism does as well, it employs private industry for its purposes. When all industry is "nationalized" or seized and run centrally by the State, is when it turns into communism.

reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus

Corporations who keep more of their own profit can afford to upkeep their property and machinery and what ever else they have for the purpose of providing a product or service. They also can afford to pay higher wages and hire on more employees when they can keep more of their profit. As another here stated, when corporations have to pay higher taxes they just pass on the cost to consumers.

Right. Completely agree. Outsourcing to China so they can make a good profit and give their workers top dollar while working in spectacular working conditions. Luckily they are making record profits right now despite their good will to workers to keep up that machinery.

Corporations definitely are on the side of American workers and small businesses.

reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus


Um no! Sorry, try again.

You are referring to trickle down economics. That was sold to the public in 1980, where corporations are supposedly taxed less and more profit trickles down to the most basic worker...Blah blah blah!

I will say it again: Numbers do not lie! In 1980 the average CEO took home 40 times that of the worker, Now it is 350 times and the majority of America is in Debt and a few are living the dream.

There's your trickle down economics for ya.

reply to post by romanmel

You are off subject. Point is, some teachers may be worth more than $33.00 an hour. But, with a closed shop union they'll never get it unless the lousey, lazy ones get it as well. Unions encourage slothful unmotivated space fillers. Hardly what society needs when kids are graduating unable to read or write at a third grade level.

Oh...but we are on subject. you want to talk about how much people are worth...I think it's only fair we talk about what you think you are worth. So lets hear it.

Wisconsin has the 2 ranked sat IN THE COUNTRY. Guess how bad the 5 states are without collective bargaining? ALL 5 are within the 6 lowest ranked of all 50 states.

A teacher cannot force a child to learn. The parent has incredible responsibility to help make it happen. Instead, parents come home and basically ignore their children. some of it is because both parents have to work...some because the parents are simply BAD.

Why don't you attack union firefighters as well for the lowly educated firefighting skills?

Only have ammo for the teachers eh?

How much are you worth again?

reply to post by jimmyx

and each year the corporations will increase the cost to the taxpayers so they can continue to show a profit year after year

Corporations are forced to increase cost to consumers, not taxpayers. Not all consumers pay tax even. They do this because of inflation, which results from the Fed printing money to pay for stuff we dont need and cant afford.....Inflation is really a hidden tax imposed on the citizens because govt wants to keep spending. Tax and spend is merely raising taxes so you can spend more.
I highly recommend checking commentary of G Edward Griffin on the Federal Reserve.

Originally posted by Reflection
reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus

 

Um no! Sorry, try again.

You are referring to trickle down economics. That was sold to the public in 1980, where corporations are supposedly taxed less and more profit trickles down to the most basic worker...Blah blah blah!

I will say it again: Numbers do not lie! In 1980 the average CEO took home 40 times that of the worker, Now it is 350 times and the majority of America is in Debt and a few are living the dream.

There's your trickle down economics for ya.

So what you and others here are trying to tell me is that the only way to be fair is to impose income redistribution and higher taxes for corporations and the wealthy? I just said that corporations will pass the cost to consumers. IThat's a given. But when the Fed prints money to pay for all this stuff, it creates an inflationary spiral. G Edward Griffin gives a remarkable explanation of the mechanism.

heres one vid, and there are more on that YouTube channel www.youtube.com...

Originally posted by The Sword
reply to post by Maxmars

 

Uneducated people assume that the unions are greedy, malevolent and just plain evil.

They probably aren't members of unions. They probably have bosses that make them work for #ty pay and benefits. They probably don't have adequate sick pay/vacation pay. They probably work more overtime than what's legally allowed (and their boss likely bribes the gov't to look the other way). They probably face retaliation if they even think of challenging their employer.

If you enjoy that kind of crap, more power to you.

But don't trample on the rights of other Americans to organize and fight for good benefits, pay and equity!

Who doesn't want a fair wage? Collective bargaining exists for that sole purpose!

Actually I'm college educated and work for a company that requires union membership. I get paid less, work worse hours and have to wait 6 months longer for benefits compared to my last job that wasn't union. I work with complete screwballs and have to constantly fix their problems, the reason these losers haven't been fired is precisely due to the unions. The power structure is so jacked up I don't even know who to complain to when I have a problem, managers say go to union and the union says go to managers. The only thing the union is good at is taking money out of my paycheck every month. I hope to god that legislation is passed on a Federal level making all states right to work, there is no reason they shouldn't be. If you have the right to choose to be a union member why can't I choose NOT to be? it's all about power. Big business=big labor