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.
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?
#56 ReadyKilowatt
Where I was born and reared, there used to be two huge steel mills. They employed, directly and indirectly, the entire population of the city. One mill was fully unionized and the other mill wasn’t unionized at all.
My father spent his entire life in the non-unionized mill and most of my family members financed their way through college in the non-unionized mill.
We were always very grateful to the unionized employees because our mill paid whatever the union mill workers and their families literally fought and bled and sacrificed to gain, plus we always got one more dollar per hour than they got in their contract. That was to (successfully) bribe us not to form or to join a union.
I have never been a union person either but I have always understood and appreciated their history, their sacrifices and their dogged perseverance in the face of overwhelming wealth and power.
You might want to try it sometime.
Consider this, if you will. You are currently on the side of the intellectual MikeN and the rest of the Koch Brownshirts.
If you have a shred of decency in you, you might want to think about that for a moment and perhaps reconsider.
#61, Yeah, right to work without being threatened and intimidated by a bunch of union goons who would like nothing better than to have the state shelter them from labor competition.
#64->
Sounds like your non-unionized mill had a very smart and savvy head. I would have been proud to work for him.
I’m confused, though. Were you defending unions or criticizing them? Your example is a good one on why unions aren’t needed anymore.
Consider this — His labor costs were more than the unionized one and he still managed to compete with it. How did he do that? Did the workers actually work 8 hours a day or risk getting fired? What?
#66 G2
Everyone in the non-unionized mill was terrified of getting fired at any time for any reason or for no reason. Workers had no rights or recourse when they were treated badly. They could quit and starve, I suppose, although most people didn’t consider that a viable option.
It was like slave labor for Nazis, except you got paid.
After working there for 27 years, my father was taken off steady days (which he had earned) and was put on midnights. He wasn’t very happy for the next five years, then he died.
Both mills were sold, closed and shipped to China, so it hardly matters anymore which system was best, does it?
The rich owners and stockholders got even more fabulously wealthy and the poor workers got fucked, as usual. It’s the American Way, neh? End of story.
#57 Tcc3
The state passes child labor protection laws. But the children wouldn’t be working unless it was necessary for them to earn money for their family (what parent wants their kids to work?). So the child is forced to go to work in the underground economy.
Which would you rather see happen, children working in yarn mills or on the street as prostitutes?
Luckily, the US standard of living was raised enough (not because of unionization, but greater automation), that we could afford to not have our children work in factories.
Sadly, there are places in the world where that’s not the case, even in the 21st century.
#52, Reagan, so what parts don’t you agree with? Increased labor productivity allows workers to produce more while working fewer hours? Or that capital investment by the employers is what causes labor productivity to increase? Or you just don’t like it because it doesn’t jive with your idea that unions are the only reason that we all aren’t still working 16 hour days in early 19th century factory conditions (which themselves were preferable to toiling all day long on the family farm).
#67->
Terrified? 27 years is a long time to be terrified?
If it was that bad, why didn’t he move to a place where the working conditions were better? He should have acquired some skills during that time period that would most certainly have been of benefit to someone else.
I’m not trying to slam you dad. My dad had the same experience except it was IN a unionized plant. He wasn’t in constant fear of being fired, but the working conditions were pretty horrible. And this was a UAW plant. He worked there for for over 30 years. Retired and dropped dead.
I always asked why he didn’t look for something else. Golden Handcuffs was his response.
Like your dad, this plant was moved to Mexico.
Unions at one time served a purpose. They were for craftsman. Now they are political bodies with momentum of their own. I lived in a union household and I saw it first-hand.
I guess the grass is always greener . . .
Cheeseheads.
Looked through some stories in the media, and I notice that none of the stories say that the protesters are ‘mostly white,’ which they loved to do during Tea Party protests. Why isn’t the media pointing out this fact now?
The people don’t want the law but it will get voted into law anyway.
Yay, democracy.
I recall a story about a somewhat cranky guy who worked as a janitor in a hospital run by the Catholic church. He was doing his job and talking about wages with a co-worker, and at one point he said: “I’m never paid what I’m worth”.
A nun standing nearby overheard, and snapped back at him: “You’re always paid what you’re worth!”.
The cranky employee and the stiff penny-pinching manager. What a parable.
Anyway, I’ve been both a ‘worker’ and a ‘professional’ in my time, and I found that if you are skilled and confident in what you do, and if you think you’re not being compensated enough by your employer, you simply “vote with your feet” and go find a better situation (I’ve seen it happen a number of times).
The problem seems to be that if your skills are limited to pushing a mop etc. you don’t really have much to choose from in that regard, union or not. A culture must try to empathize with such folks and help them as best it can, but without ‘coddling’ them.
It’s gotta be one of the greatest dilemmas of all time.
Everybody vomits their venom on federal and state employees. You might want to do a little research and stop watching TV and movies for your education on what they do. Everybody wants to cut both state and federal government programs and workers. They want to cut every program that they don’t use. The problems is that everyone uses at least one of those programs. What do you cut when every program is used? Missouri no COLA for the last two years. No raises period except for a politically motivated one back on 07. Lowest paid state employees 50 out of 50. They jumped to 49th after the raise in 07 Mississippi jumped back up with two raises. With a degree figure 39K top end not starting. Five years to become vested in the retirement program. A copay insurance program. If you go to work for the state today, again no COLA or raise, eleven years for vestment plus you pay 4% for your retirement in MOSERS and a deductible plan. If your a government employee you either love what you do, or your an idiot, possibly both.
As a side note the reason the dems vacated the state is that if they stay away the bill dies due to the state time lines for bills.
Second side note I am a state employee-as a third career-and there are days that I feel I fall into all of those categories.
$75 that’s about what I think government workers should be making.
There were over 60,000 people protesting today:
http://wkow.com/Global/story.asp?S=14062370
Shades of Egypt. Maybe the governor isn’t learning the lesson of Mubarak.
I’m a state employee and trust me….I’m not overpaid! I could make twice as much in the private sector. What state employees get is a sense of job security and a base package of benefits and little else. They are not assured a career ladder, they don’t get a generous match for a 401K, they don’t get good health insurance, they don’t get a good retirement package, and the pay is always under the competitive minimum. They also can’t unionize, and the public unions that do exist cannot strike, they cannot collective bargain, they can’t walk out, they can’t sit-in, they can’t do work slowdowns, and all they really have is an advocate who can lobby legislators, that’s it.