Wisconsin

[AdAstraPerAspera]

I am not from WI but when I got based at MKE I registered to vote here so I could vote and support not just Sen. Russ Feingold (a true independent thinker, the only senator with the balls to say NO to the USA PATRIOT act after 9/11) but also support the Democratic challenger to douchernatorial candidate Scott Walker.

Of course we all know Scott Walker won (thanks to the much higher turnout of the elderly during mid-terms and much of his personal fortune spent on campaigning) but I was curious to see what you fellow union folk thought of this scorched-earth power grab to attempt to destroy the public worker's unions for state employees...?

In case you were wondering, this budget shortfall is by his own design... He deliberately created an artifical budget deficit just to give him an excuse to go on a union busting spree with NO compromize and NO effort to find common ground... he is just intent on doing his own thing, the will of the people (who elected him!) be damned.

 

[delldude]

So you are saying he negotiated all these contracts years ago before he was Gov so he could say the state can't afford the costs like a whole boat load of other states?

 

[delldude]

Scrabitz.... B)

 

[dapoes]

I am not from WI but when I got based at MKE I registered to vote here so I could vote and support not just Sen. Russ Feingold (a true independent thinker, the only senator with the balls to say NO to the USA PATRIOT act after 9/11) but also support the Democratic challenger to douchernatorial candidate Scott Walker.

Of course we all know Scott Walker won (thanks to the much higher turnout of the elderly during mid-terms and much of his personal fortune spent on campaigning) but I was curious to see what you fellow union folk thought of this scorched-earth power grab to attempt to destroy the public worker's unions for state employees...?

In case you were wondering, this budget shortfall is by his own design... He deliberately created an artifical budget deficit just to give him an excuse to go on a union busting spree with NO compromize and NO effort to find common ground... he is just intent on doing his own thing, the will of the people (who elected him!) be damned.

Gee, where does one start? First off, he didn't create the budget shortfall, the state constitution prohibits running a shortfall. Secondly he's not trying to bust any union either. Under the Walkers plan, state employees would contribute 5.8 percent of their pay toward pensions and pay at least 12 percent of their health insurance premiums. Far less then anyone in the private sector.

The average teacher in MPS is receiving acompensation package of $100,005 per year as detailed here, while students remain unable to read and do basic math. (And it’s not because Milwaukee is an urban district and the children have problems. Other urban districts have succeeded where Milwaukee fails.) An analysis of data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics further demonstrates how well teachers are paid compared to other professions.

Let’s be honest. A compensation package of over $100,000 per year for a job which gives you summers off isn’t bad. In fact, it is really, really good. I’m not saying the job is easy or that I’m willing to do it. I’m just saying that if you take the emotion out of it and compare the working hours and pay/benefits to other professional occupations, teachers are doing well!

So this idea that we need to control employee costs for public employees (and in this article, specifically for teachers) isn’t that crazy. Will there be a shortage of teachers? I doubt it.

 

[Ms Tree]

I am not from WI but when I got based at MKE I registered to vote here so I could vote and support not just Sen. Russ Feingold (a true independent thinker, the only senator with the balls to say NO to the USA PATRIOT act after 9/11) but also support the Democratic challenger to douchernatorial candidate Scott Walker.

Of course we all know Scott Walker won (thanks to the much higher turnout of the elderly during mid-terms and much of his personal fortune spent on campaigning) but I was curious to see what you fellow union folk thought of this scorched-earth power grab to attempt to destroy the public worker's unions for state employees...?

In case you were wondering, this budget shortfall is by his own design... He deliberately created an artifical budget deficit just to give him an excuse to go on a union busting spree with NO compromize and NO effort to find common ground... he is just intent on doing his own thing, the will of the people (who elected him!) be damned.

I do not have the link any more but I had read an article that indicated that the unions who supported his candidacy are not having any issues with their contracts. How ever those who did not support his candidacy are having issues. Funny how that works if true.

 

[dapoes]

Have you noticed that none of the media and the union stooges has asked former Gov Jim Doyle how WI came to have a $3 billion deficit at the end of his term?

 

[dapoes]

VIDEO: Myths vs. Facts of the Wisconsin Union Protest

Channeling Hitler? :blink:

 

[Kev3188]

Secondly he's not trying to bust any union either.

Uh, yeah actually he is. What he's trying to do is strip away the collective bargaining rights of state employees.

The state deficit? A huge part of that is a result of iniatives he himself has pushed through.

More info here.

 

[delldude]

Uh, yeah actually he is. What he's trying to do is strip away the collective bargaining rights of state employees.

The state deficit? A huge part of that is a result of iniatives he himself has pushed through.

More info here.

From your link:

The "revenue projections released Friday underscore what Governor-elect Walker has said for months - the state of Wisconsin is facing very serious budget challenges," Walker transition director John Hiller said in a statement. "Further, we believe that the true budget shortfall is much higher than indicated by the projections released today."

 

[delldude]

On Thursday, Maddow spent a chunk of her show advancing the popular, liberal rumor that Wisconsin is not facing a budget deficit this year, but rather a budget surplus. The governor’s recent emergency budget bill — which strips unions of much bargaining power — is then simply an “assault” on hard-working people. Maddow, and others, point to an independent report authored by Robert Lang and Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau:

And Rachel did a long discussion on the absurdity of the gov's actions as well. Now we need to have papers and other networks run with the same story to get the truth out.

According to the Wisconsin division of PolitiFact, Maddow didn’t read the fine print:

We re-read the fiscal bureau memo, talked to Lang, consulted reporter Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel’s Madison Bureau, read various news accounts and examined the issue in detail.

Our conclusion: Maddow and the others are wrong.

There is, indeed, a projected deficit that required attention, and Walker and GOP lawmakers did not create it.

More on that second point in a bit.

The confusion, it appears, stems from a section in Lang’s memo that — read on its own — does project a $121 million surplus in the state’s general fund as of June 30, 2011.

But the remainder of the routine memo — consider it the fine print — outlines $258 million in unpaid bills or expected shortfalls in programs such as Medicaid services for the needy ($174 million alone), the public defender’s office and corrections. Additionally, the state owes Minnesota $58.7 million under a discontinued tax reciprocity deal.

My link

 

[dapoes]

What is pretty hilarious is to see all these union leftists completely unhinged. What happen to civility that they say should be?

and death threats? Really?

 

[Kev3188]

Unhinged? Not according to the Madison Police department, who issued a statement yesterday praising the decorum of protesters on both sides.

Try again...

 

[WorldTraveler]

First, let me make it clear that I am NOT a WI resident and as such do not have the right to tell WI how to do its business... as the saying goes, "politics is always local" and those who want to try to tell WI what is wrong w/ itself would do well to keep that perspective in mind - including the OP who obviously wants to use WI to advance a political agenda - but then so are other people as well.

The simple fact is that the WI governor is using the legislative process to at the minimum impose his own views regarding unions AS WELL AS correct the budget problem which WI has. Whether WI really has a budget problem is again for the people of WI to decide on but it would be really hard to argue that they don't have one given that so many other states do and property values and the economy across the US have declined, diminishing tax revenues. WI HAS fared better than much of the US - but unless WI's spending has fallen proportional to the decline in revenues, it is a given that WI is running a deficit - or at least was having to provide greater and greater percentages of the state budget for HR purposes.

What should be apparent -certainly to members of this board - is that what the WI governor is doing is essentially what US airlines did in BK - and then throw an additional twist in the assault. US airlines argued for years that they could not cut their cuts because of unions' unwillingness to negotiate and yet the BK process provided a means to align HR costs with what a company thinks they need and again, the company controls a huge part of the BK process. (perhaps the BK process still provides those powers but since no airline has filed under the new rules, we don't really know what can be done - but it appears that power is not GENERALLY changed)

Whether the WI governor NEEDED to limit the control of WI unions is the real question - and in reality only those who in WI who have followed WI's budget situation for years really know. If the WI government has repeatedly requested w/o success for union assistance to reduce the budget deficits, then perhaps there is some reason to believe that the governor is not completely out of line.
Since state governments can't print money - and too many people think of state government just like the Feds despite the fact that the Federal government under both parties cannot and will not provide needed fiscal discipline- it seems apparent that the governor apparently decided he was tired of seeing growing percentages of the budget going to public workers at the expense of other programs, and he decided to act.
While WI is the focal point of this discussion, WI is not the first state to face the issue - nor is it the only one struggling w/ the issue, including in heavily industrialized midwest states like OH where unions are strong.

It is noteworthy that one of the cries in WI is that the Republicans should negotiate. Sure they should but I have to honestly ask were the unions asking for the same thing 2 years ago? Now that they are on the verge of having their ability to demand higher salaries and benefits ripped away from them, it's not surprising they want to negotiate.
Returning to the US airlines, seems like we heard more than one airline union ask for negotiations as the airlines were asking judges for the right to gut its contracts.

I don't know where this will end up - it is very possible - if not likely that stripping state workers of their right to collective bargain could end up in court for years to come.

But it is also possible that Walker might succeed in showing WI residents that public workers have far better pay and benefit packages than many WI residents - and that fact alone may give him the political ammunition he needs to keep fighting to reduce public salaries and benefits - and more closely align them with the public sector.

No one likes to see anyone have their pay or benefits cut but the reality is that the US economy is in a ditch - has been for several years and neither Republicans or Democrats have been able to fix it yet. Until that happens, everyone needs to sacrifice.

If that involves stripping the right to collective bargain is part of that process will be decided first by WI's legislators, then likely its voters, and then the courts. Other states such as NJ have succeeded at taking on public worker unions so it isn't unrealistic to think that other states might succeed in reducing costs first - which is probably more important than the collective bargaining issue for the state.

If the WI governor has succeeded in bringing to light the levels of compensation among public employees, then the whole process to strip CB rights is a whole lot necessary.

But we also know from the airline industry that management - just like unions - have used their powers to get as much power as they can at any particular moment. And that shouldn't be a surprise to either side.

But it also shows that true cooperation at all times builds prosperity for all when it is called for and also requires all to fairly sacrifice when that prosperity is not present.

I think there are legitimate cases to be made among both DL and WN regarding recent participation in the successes of the company. DL employees (at least the PMDL ones) enjoyed the highest profit sharing checks among network carriers while WN employees have long enjoyed excellent compensation - and both airlines have had cooperative labor relations - at least in DL's case post-BK.

I certainly hope that the people of WI figure out how to maintain their outstanding level of education (consistently rated as some of the best in the country) and still work within their budget.

 

[dapoes]

Unhinged? Not according to the Madison Police department, who issued a statement yesterday praising the decorum of protesters on both sides.

Try again...

Unhinged Exhibit A: Nazis?

 

[dapoes]

Unhinged? Not according to the Madison Police department, who issued a statement yesterday praising the decorum of protesters on both sides.

Try again...

Unhinged Exhibit B: