MADISON, Wis. — As four game wardens awkwardly stood guard, protesters, scores deep, crushed into a corridor leading to the governor’s office here on Wednesday, their screams echoing through the Capitol: “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Behind closed doors, Scott Walker, the Republican who has been governor for about six weeks, calmly described his intent to forge ahead with the plans that had set off the uprising: He wants to require public workers to pay more for their health insurance and pensions, effectively cutting the take-home pay of many by around 7 percent.
He also wants to weaken most public-sector unions by sharply curtailing their collective bargaining rights, limiting talks to the subject of basic wages.
I think we’ll be seeing more of this.
Found by Cinàedh.
Other articles have observed that Walker was trying to cut collective bargaining for state employees unions except those involved with police and fire.
If one wishes to cut collective bargaining rights, fine, that is a position that is debatable. When bargaining rights cuts fall on everyone except the security apparatus one has to question the motivations.
This is just the start of this stuff…
The chickens of deficit spending are coming home to roost.
This has been created by governments, both GOP and Dems for a long, long time…and now it’s time to pay for the party.
It’s going to be a VERY ugly thing to watch….but necessary.
these workers just arent getting it.. protesting? HA!
You really wanna wake up the legislature ?? cut their pay!!! first we need to get all a our elected officials on minimum wage.. then when they make cuts anywhere, they have to cut their pay by an equal amount. also to get elected, they would need to donate all their worldly possessions and money to charity and and live in public housing,
then once they are out of office they could start all over again… also need term limits for all. damn would the country work differently when the elected have to live like the majority of americans.. 😛
The comments on this post highlight one of the most depressing traits our society exhibits. It seems all too many people, when they see somebody better off than themselves, seek to make things equal by dragging down others, rather than improving their own circumstances.
If the government workers think the private sector workers wants a tax increase so the government workers can make more and have much better benefits than the private sector workers they are nuts.
EXXON profits last year $16 Billion. Total taxes paid $0.
The top 2% richest Americans were given a tax relief extension that totals $131 billion.
So…let’s kill the American worker by taking away collective bargaining.
Why should there be unions for public workers? They are working for the public, not a corporation.
The teachers closed up the schools Wednesday, like the article said. They also closed the schools today and Friday. The unions have not been getting cost of living increases in what has been, and still is, a boom town. The issue is not just public sector employees, but all union employees, as the legislation that suddenly appeared and is being rushed through would change Wisconsin into a right to work state, breaking all unions. The provision to exempt police and fire employees came after members of the public were allowed to speak at the Capitol last night and a tone of hostility was noticed. Today, the police walked in groups of 4 or more.
I was driving a block away from the Capitol building tonight when a squad car pulled in front of me sideways with the lights on and blocked the intersection, which filled with hundreds of protesters. I would have been stuck there for an hour, but some of my friends stopped by and said, “Hi”. They had the cops move their cruiser a little and clear a path through the crowd so I could drive through.
More liberals who are using violence to subvert democracy.
For all you righties who just *know* public employees make a lot more money and have better benefits than private sector employees, here are the facts from the Economic Policy Institute:
http://epi.3cdn.net/8808ae41b085032c0b_8um6bh5ty.pdf
Check Table 2 which compares both salary and benefits. On the average public employees earn 11% less than private sector employees in comparable jobs, and their total compensation, including health insurance and retirement benefits, is 3% less.
Public employee unions are nothing like private unions. They are lobbyists, plain and simple, who work to garner support from politicians who are more than happy to grant them benefits in exchange for votes. They are the perfect example of concentrated benefits dispersed over a broad tax base. They should be outlawed.
Teachers are refusing to work, because they are upset about a plan to make them pay for 12% of their health care and 6% of their pensions? Democratic Senators are fleeing the state to prevent a quorum?
Here’s a solution, for each day this bill doesn’t pass, amend the bill so that the percentages go up one point per day. That should get things solved fast. Oh and appoint your own senators to fill the vacancy.
MikeN, there are unions for public workers exactly for situations like this. The governor wants a pay cut for all public workers. The average salary of a public worker is $48,348 and after the pay cut it is estimated to be $44,500. That’s a pay cut of $3,100 for that person. Gov. Walkers proposal also makes workers pay 5.8% of their salary towards pensions and 12% towards health insurance.
The health insurance is a big deal because unions negotiate a better group deal with an insurance company. Unions actually spend a good deal of time in meeting rooms dealing with the health funds. If Walker gets rid of the union then the health insurance companies can also charge higher rates for 200,000 people. Governor Walker’s highest corporate contributions were received from the health care industry and he spent $11 million in his gubernatorial campaign.
A newly elected governor and state government doing what a clear majority of the people elected them to do? The horror! Fight the tyranny!
Bugger the taxpayers, unlimited expenditure forever is our right!
Sea Lawyer, but I bet you were in full support of the decision to allow corporations to use money to influence federal elections, right?
SimonSez, nope, but try again.
Republikans have decided to take a shot at ending collective bargaining rights. Followed by social security, medicare, education.
Welcome to 1922.
There is much more to this then paying more for your benefits, this is all about a Governor that was bankrolled by the Koch brothers and is carrying out their wishes to destroy unions in this country. Thanks to Citizens United unions are the only organization able to compete with corporate interest when it comes to campaign financing. They also are a formidable ground force on election day when it comes to getting out the vote. This was actually bragged about by Karl Rove on Fox News.
I also would like to add that Wisconsin’s Gov. inherited a budget surplus when he took over in January and he promptly gave it back to his corporate buddies as payback in the form of tax breaks. This is not the same situation as we have in NJ or like NY or Calif. The corporate media is distorting this fact.
#46
has it right
#29 ReadyKilowatt
I read it, even though I truly loathe being forced to read such obvious, transparent propaganda. It’s as bad as being forced by evil, unavoidable circumstance to watch FOX NotNews.
Your link leads to prima facie nonsense. Responding to that silliness would be like responding seriously to a Donald Duck cartoon.
I’m sorry to say this but if that’s the kind of ridiculous illogic you base your opinions upon, you need to get yourself a vastly improved education, definitely not in the USA.
Serfs up!
The Misinformation here is astounding. As well as the Media shoveling it here.
I have talked to a number of Teachers (had dinner with two last night (whose husbands work in private sector) as well as a state worker. Granted no one wants to have to give anything up it’s human nature (would you?). But they full realize concessions have to be and will be made. They know Status Quo is probably not a possibility anymore.
The issue is that Walker gave this pronouncement of the bill on a Friday afternoon late with the full intent to bum rush it through with zero public (or even private) discussion. His tactic reeks of arrogance and abuse of power.
Yea, the union leaders are ok with the pay cuts. They just don’t want anything that threatens their personal power, and are using the workers to further their agenda. Same as always. Like when management brings in scab workers during a strike, and the union negotiates a deal to represent the scab workers, with the same terms as what caused them to strike in the first place, and who cares about the old workers who are now out of a job.
#56 Ready Kilowatt
So child labor, excessive hours, no weekends, poor pay, indebtedness to the company store, and unreasonably dangerous work environments…These have never been issues or problems for the American labor force?
>pay 5.8% of their salary towards pensions
That’s about how pensions should work. Who knew that you should get the same salary forever with inflation increases after you retire?
Strange how people are mentioning bankrolled by the KOch brothers, Walker’s corporate backers being repaid. I think we know what the Leftie talking points are for the week. That got spread fast.
Obama is having his goons at Organizing for America arrange the protests in Madison. This is what they mean when they claim the Tea Parties are fake.
The idea is Obama pretends to stand back and be the good cop, while he has his agents engage in violence in support of his radical agenda.
This needs to be done in Virginia now.
Virginia, a mockingly called “right to work” state, makes unions by state workers effectively illegal by saying no one can be prevented from working by a picket line, thus the only real power of unions is eliminated.
The governor is also breaking a long held promise to state employees, a state that pays its workers lower than normal wages in exchange for a solid retirement, by forcing workers to pay much more for their retirement, further reducing their already low wages. Only, in Virginia, since the state workers can’t effectively unionize, not much can be done, except, perhaps, march to Richmond and force this yahoo out of office and back to the not-real-college he got his “education” from – or better yet, into duty in a foreign country we he can truly serve his nation.
[M]eticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government.
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.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of pubic employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.
No one going to criticize protesters going to the homes of lawmakers?