Wisconsin Crushes Unions 'Rights'

[Chris_Wendt]

This is astonishing, regardless of your personal feelings on the matter:
www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/10/wisconsin.budget/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

The Republican Governor gave the Democrats in the State Senate many opportunities to return the the state and debate the Budget Repair Bill. The Democrats refused to return from Illinois where they had fled in order to deny the Senate a voting quorum on this bill, for which the Democrats lacked sufficient votes to defeat.

Yesterday, the Republicans in the WI State Senate and Assembly met and stripped out all spending language from the Budget Repair Bill, then met, with the required quorum present to vote on non-spending measures, passing the remainder of the legislation.

For teachers in Wisconsin, this means raises will be capped to the rate inflation; future negotiations will be limited to wages only; an automatic union de-certification election this year, and, annual union-re-certification elections required thereafter.

The original bill also included provisions that prevented school districts from collecting union dues for teacher unions, instead requiring unions to collect their own dues from their members. There was another provision that allowed teachers to remain in the union without paying dues to the union. I am not certain whether or not either of those provisions are included in the final joint resolution that was passed Wednesday.

Commentators made note of the 'mood' in the nation turning against public employee unions. This certainly means teacher unions, as teacher unions seem to be the main focus in other states, including New Jersey, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Arizona and New York.

Again, regardless of personal feelings about this, it is truly astonishing news, fulfilling a prophecy that, for teacher unions, the news is only going to get worse.

On the matter of my own personal feelings, this is frighteningly reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution in Communist China. After the right to bear arms was stripped away from that nation's citizens. religion and education became targets for extreme governmental persecution and punishment.

In a word, this smacks of fascism.

On...Wisconsin!

Good luck with that.

Astonished!
Chris Wendt

[ducky]

For years Government Employee Unions have been ripping off Tax Payers because the politicians gave the m whatever they wanted and the Unions gave big dollars and man hours to help the same politicians stay in power. All at the tax Payers expense. It is about time that corrections started.

[bradnanita]

Thanks, Ducky.

What too many people fail to realize is that, while private sector workers unionize to protect themselves from powerful corporations run by people who make far more money than the workers, public service worker unions represent workers who are usually far better off than the people who are paying their salaries. Because so much our tax dollars goes to teachers who make so much more on an hours worked basis than private sector workers with similar skills they have become the focus of a very bad situation. Unionized public services workers have become the new upper class which the rest of us can no longer afford to support. Because they are effectively a monopoly, something well recognized to be counter to the public welfare, they have been able to financially abuse the general citizenry. They are the new power elite, an all too often greedy upper class that knows well how to protect and enhance its status. Their abuse of "collective bargaining" has seriously hurt the private sector unions and the people who need them. It is ironic that it is Republicans who are now protecting the little people. The Democrats, by their failure to recognize the big difference between public service unions and private sector unions, may be doing themselves serious damage by siding with those who are doing well over those who are not. There are many more people who are suffering because of the hard times in which we live than there are public service workers who are effectively immune to the economic difficulties so many of the rest of us are experiencing. The high taxes needed to support keeping the new upper above the rest of us is a big part of the reason so many ordinary people are having difficulty making ends meet.

[bnjasper]

Chris points out not only Wisconsin but other states that are taking initiatives to rein in the cost of local government. As we know New York is also in that category simply by passing the 2% tax cap.

While this will limit spending by all government’s and their agencies the largest impact will be on the schools. The largest expenses for schools are teacher salaries and benefits.
To me the primary issue was simply ”… we don’t have the money therefore we cannot keep spending money we don’t have…”.

Nobody wanted to believe this to be the case. The firemen, the policemen, the civil service employees and the teachers all thought they should not be cut. The teacher’s union specifically, set up large advertising campaigns saying there are other places to cut but do not touch the teacher. As is always the case they refuse to tell us where these other places are to cut.

Well I want to stand up for the governors and legislators who are saying enough is enough. No more business as usual.

Wantaghite’s should unite to find the best of all that is being done around the country and push our leaders in those directions. Let’s analyze Levittown and Seaford and take the positives for our kids and limit the rhetoric.

However, let’s not stop using this blog to convey positions. Just don’t become radical in some of the analogies.