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Gas PricesThursday, February 17, 2011
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Thousands of teachers, students and prison guards descended on the Wisconsin Capitol on Wednesday to fight a move to strip government workers of union rights in the first state to grant them more than a half-century ago, but it cleared a major legislative hurdle without the changes they sought.
The Statehouse filled with as many as 10,000 demonstrators who chanted, sang the national anthem and beat drums for hours in demonstrations unlike any seen in Madison in decades. The noise in the rotunda rose to the level of a chainsaw, and many Madison teachers joined the protest by calling in sick in such numbers that the district — the state’s second-largest — had to cancel classes.
The new Republican governor, Scott Walker, is seeking passage of the nation’s most aggressive anti-union proposal, which was moving swiftly through the GOP-led Legislature. The body’s budget committee passed the bill on a partisan vote just before midnight, clearing the way for the Senate and Assembly to vote on it starting Thursday.
Several opponents in the crowd broke down into tears just before the committee’s approval.
“I’m sad. Scared. Disappointed,” Kelly Dzurick, a 31-year-old fifth-grade teacher in Elkhorn, said as she walked out of the rotunda when it was clear the committee would pass the bill. “Nobody’s listening to what people say.”
Democrats were unable to stop it.
“The story around the world is the rush to democracy,” said Sen. Bob Jauch, D-Poplar. “The story in Wisconsin is the end of the democratic process.”
If passed by the Legislature, the move would mark a dramatic shift for Wisconsin, which passed a comprehensive collective bargaining law in 1959 and was the birthplace of the national union representing all non-federal public employees.
“It is momentous and I think people around the state are going to welcome it,” said Sen. Alberta Darling, co-chair of the budget committee.
As protesters chanted “Recall Walker now!” outside the governor’s office, Walker insisted he has the votes to pass the measure, which he says is needed to help balance a projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall and avoid widespread layoffs.
Walker said he appreciated protestors’ concerns, but taxpayers “need to be heard as well.” He said he would not do anything to “fundamentally undermine the principles” of the bill.
“We’re at a point of crisis,” the governor said.
In an interview with Milwaukee television station WTMJ, President Barack Obama said he was monitoring the situation in Madison and acknowledged the need for budget cuts. But, he said, pushing public employees away from the bargaining table “seems like more of an assault on unions.”
As the bill appeared ready to advance, tensions rose in the Capitol. Police roamed the halls, restricted access to some rooms and stood watch outside the governor’s office. The crowd swelled early in the evening as the budget committee prepared to start taking votes, with boos and screams filling the rotunda as Republican supporters of the bills talked.
Republican-backed changes made to the bill would extend a grievance procedure to public workers who don’t have one and require more oversight and put a deadline on changes Walker’s administration can make to the Medicaid program and the sale of public power plants.
In addition to eliminating collective bargaining rights, the legislation also would make public workers pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage — increases Walker calls “modest” compared with those in the private sector.
More than 13,000 protesters gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday for a 17-hour public hearing on the measure. Thousands more came Wednesday.
“I’m fighting for my home and my career,” said Virginia Welle, a 30-year-old teacher at Chippewa Falls High School. She said she and her husband, who also is a teacher, each stand to lose $5,000 a year in higher pension and health care contributions.
Welle said she never could get that money back since the unions would be unable to bargain over benefits under Walker’s plan.
The protests have been larger and more sustained than any in Madison in decades. Dozens of protesters spent the night in sleeping bags on the floor of the Rotunda. A noise monitor in the Rotunda registered 105 decibels at midday Wednesday — about as loud as a power mower or chainsaw.
Beyond the Statehouse, more than 40 percent of the 2,600 union-covered teachers and school staff in Madison called in sick. No widespread sickouts were reported at any other school.
On Wednesday night, the head of the 98,000-member statewide teachers union called on all Wisconsin residents to come to the Capitol for the Thursday votes in the Senate and Assembly. More than a dozen districts — including Madison for a second day — canceled Thursday classes, which was expected to swell the number of protesters.
Prisons, which are staffed by unionized guards who would lose their bargaining rights under the plan, were operating without any unusual absences, according to a Department of Corrections spokeswoman.
Walker has said he would call out the National Guard to staff the prisons if necessary. A union leader for prison workers did not immediately return messages.
Union representatives were attempting to sway key moderates for a compromise, but Democrats said the bill would be tough to stop. Democrats lost the governor’s office and control of the Legislature in the November midterm elections.
While other states have proposed bills curtailing labor rights, Wisconsin’s measure is the most aggressive anti-union move yet to solve state budget problems. It would end collective bargaining for state, county and local workers, except for police, firefighters and the state patrol.
Protesters targeted the budget committee’s public hearing Tuesday to launch what the committee co-chairman called a “citizen filibuster,” which kept the meeting going until 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Wisconsin has long been a bastion for workers’ rights. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was founded in 1936 in Madison.
But when voters elected Walker, an outspoken conservative, along with GOP majorities in both legislative chambers, it set the stage for a dramatic reversal of Wisconsin’s labor history.
Under Walker’s plan, state employees’ share of pension and health care costs would go up by an average of 8 percent. The changes would save the state $30 million by June 30 and $300 million over the next two years to address a $3.6 billion budget shortfall.
Unions still could represent workers, but could not seek pay increases above those pegged to the Consumer Price Index unless approved by a public referendum. Unions also could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized.
In exchange for bearing more costs and losing bargaining leverage, public employees were promised no furloughs or layoffs. Walker has threatened to order layoffs of up to 6,000 state workers if the measure does not pass.
Wisconsin is one of about 30 states with collective bargaining laws covering state and local workers.
Walker has argued the concessions are modest compared with those suffered by many other Americans. Democratic opponents and union leaders say his real motive is to strike back at political opponents who have supported Democrats over the years.
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Comments
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
Gov. Walker's proposals seem more than reasonable.
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
Apparently most Wisconsins believe it as do most Americans.
hkchas 1 year, 3 months ago
Governor Walkers's proposal are to remove the ability to bargain from the Unions who protect their workers. No health, safety, or benefits bargaining ...
tinoscalici 1 year, 3 months ago
Oh, really? Which part seems "more than reasonable?" And how come forty thousand people don't see it that way- so much so, in fact, that they traveled to the state house to hold a little "Governor Walker is Doomed" Party? It's true. Someone has to pay for all this. Governor Walker and his kind are traitors to their country and they should be put on trial. If convicted of conspiracy to commit extortion against their fellow statesmen, perhaps a fitting sentence might be working on assembly lines for free for ten years. The Chinese do it and it doesn't look so bad. We could put plexiglass around them in the factories and sell tickets to the working class with our "inflated" salaries. Wait... Do they still use that term... Inflated? Or is it "outsized" or "gold-plated" or "legacy" or "out-of-line" or "uncompetitive?" I forget. Anyhow- all I mean to write here is that when a bill comes due- the wage earner always foots the balance. The People in Charge pay the check using MY WALLET.
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
A lot of those "protestors" don't know why they are there. There was an election. They voted Republicans in. If they don't like what they do, they can vote them out at the next election. Instead, these thugs want to stop the democratic process. So far they are simply nonviolent terrorists. Your idea that Gov. Walker should be convicted of extortion is irrational. Is this what America has come to? Yes, thanks to the selfish and immoral left wing.
hkchas 1 year, 3 months ago
"selfish and immoral " ?
tonto 1 year, 3 months ago
No! no! no! ... tino - what are you thinking? ... This year's drank-the-koolaid code word, to be invoked whenever somethiing is to be described as evil, wicked, etc etc. is "jobkilling". Jobkilling health care program, jobkilling no-smoking law, jobkilling corporate taxes, jobkilling regulations, jobkilling minimum wage law, etc. Got it? OK? Right! The rest of us are stuck with a mistaken belief that "job killing" is two words, but the Fox News people have decided otherwise..
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
I don't know what you are talking about Fox News. You can't get a better news product anywhere.
hkchas 1 year, 2 months ago
I seriously doubt THAT
justaword 1 year, 3 months ago
Learned from Wisconsin politics is for unions to support the winning candidate. Wisconsin’s governor doesn’t have a problem with certain police/fire unions that supported him, however. Yes, it is union busting but with a liberal amount of political reward & punishment.
Wisconsin’s budget may have not that bad-off financially. That is until Walker took over. But, giving your political supporters their financial rewards, a governor can created a budget short fall. See host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_61064e9a-27b0-5f28-b6d1-a57c8b2aaaf6.html>.
It happens here too with Missouri’s legislature. Our corporations and their supporters in the legislature want a break on the franchise tax. If passed their tax break has to come from…where…? It may be power politics, but not good corporate citizenry. I would call such politics selfish, but not term them “terrorists,” or “immoral.” The use of such words is reactionary beyond description. As an antidote for such irrational anger, I suggest going cold turkey from Fox, and a liberal dose of CNN.
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
Union busting is just an added benefit. Wisconsin's budget wasn't bad before? Do you know how long he has been govenor? Bottom line this is a problem created by liberals in Wisconsi, Illinois, New York the federal governmnet and all across teh nation. If responsible people don't fix those problems the nation will fall.
countyfactor 1 year, 3 months ago
I think we need to call this for what it is, union busting. The republicans along with Glenn Beck and Rush telegraphed this platform over a year ago. Complaining of the public employees pension and health care benefits. Does any body legislate from the middle any more. Our political system swings either to far left or to far right. You know the republicans did not always hate organized labor in fact one of the most underrated Presidents of our country Dwight D. Eisenhower sought it as essential for our democracy to have collective bargaining rights for our country. And this whole anti labor campaign is going to spread all over the country even here in MO with the new legislature putting a referendum to make MO a right to work state. Now republicans like to wrap them selves in the american flag while holding the constitution. But our MO reps and senators are sworn to uphold the MO state constitution, republicans and democrats alike. And our state constitutions states that all employees shall have the right to bargain collectively. And it amazes me that our elected officials have know understanding of this. So I guess these republicans want to violate our state constitution. This issue really comes down to one thing and that is money The republicans understand that if you out raise and out spend your opponent that the likely hood of winning is greater. So limiting the access of labor to government and democrats you have really put a stake in the heart of your opponent. You always have to have a check and balances system no one wether it be government or the private sector should have a upper hand. And I believe that is what organized labor provides to all of us wether you belong to a union or not.
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
The unions need to be broken. Government employees in the federal government and most states are overpaid. They get in the way of progress. That is why the USA is broke. It needs to be fixed and the unions and liberals in general are part of the problem and in the way of slovency.
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
No, but left wingers have all the wrong answers and only by chance get something right. They are at the core of this nations moral and fiscal problems.
tonto 1 year, 3 months ago
slovency, huh? The lazy person's version of financial stability?
pegassuss2525 1 year, 3 months ago
Actually the problem is that neither the left nor the right will work from the middle. Neither side is all wrong or all right. Compromise has to occur not the "my way or the highway". That way of thinking is about to shut down the Federal Government again. That is what was said in the last election but again, neither side has heard it. At this point I would say that the Democrats have heard it a little more than the Republicans. Please remember before painting in broad strokes...Not all Democrats are left wing liberal and not all Rebulicans are right wing conservative. There are those of us in the middle with voices that can't be heard with all of the shouting. It's fine to feel strongly about your believes but you still need to LISTEN to the opposing views. Stop the hatred and name calling and work together! As for the state employees being paid too much, that's wrong. Most of them qualify for food stamps due to the low pay.
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
The left is all wrong. The left has put us in this financila mess not to mention the moral mess. Compromise is also what got us here. The right compromised even when they knew better. Democrats have heard the message of compromise? No, that isn't even close to the truth.
pegassuss2525 1 year, 3 months ago
More of the "my way or the highway". Compromise works. It wasn't all the actions of the left that got us into this mess. The Right needs to accept responsibilty. We need to work together not at each other. Again, please stop shouting over people and actually listen to them.
rmsberengaria 1 year, 3 months ago
I agree. Just watched another report from in front of the Wisconsin Capitol with protesters seeing the commentator trying to report hollering and trying to shout down the news person with (kill the bill) over and over. While holding sheet metal workers union signs aflcio union signs and referring to the Egyptian overthrow of Mubarak and somehow pointing to the Governor as Mubarak! Shame on teachers, who teach civics....and freedom of speech! Seems if anyone disagrees with teachers and union members, bused in from all over, that somehow an opposing viewpoint is not tolerable! Typical of the far left hypocrisy!
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
What did the right do? They only helped to get us in this mess when they acted like the left. Listening to the left is what got us into this mess. It is time not to listen to them. It may be time to separate ourselves from them.
rmsberengaria 1 year, 3 months ago
I think that is why we elected 88 new Republicans in the Senate and House. Because these people are not listening to the Left. It is why Republicans control 29 of the 50 state Governorships and control 26 of the 50 State Legislatures. I don't believe they are listening to the left nor following the spending spree of either party and their past spend pay later attitudes. But then we shall see?
pegassuss2525 1 year, 3 months ago
That's right, your side can do no wrong. It's everyone else's fault. Don't take responsibilty for anything. BOTH sides got us to this mess and not just by listening and letting the other side have at it. There are moderate voices that are neither far right or left that should be listened too. Those in power need to listen to the people not advance their own agendas and follow the status quo. Stop painting eveyone in broad strokes.
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
Moderates are folks that are unwilling or unable to take a stand. They play both sides for their own benefit.
pegassuss2525 1 year, 3 months ago
Do not tell me that I or anyone else, plays both sides for our own benefit or that we can't take a stand. I know exactly where I stand at and where I draw the line at. You are too busy shouting down at everyone that you don't have a clue. At least I'm willing to listen to someone without screaming at them about how wrong they are. There use to be actual discourse in this country. We use to actually listen and hear people even if we didn't believe in what they were saying. That worked. This yelling that extremists are doing isn't getting us anywhere but downhill real fast.
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
Maybe I should have clarified my statment to mean politicians or those that have some influence on governmnent. We have already heard it all. We know what has failed. It is time to try something that might work. It is time for responsible folks to fix and very few of them are moderates.
pegassuss2525 1 year, 3 months ago
Actually many responsible people are moderates or at least willing to hear all sides before making a decision. I agree that we need to try something new. The people want the government to work together to get things DONE. Not start a shouting match and push their own party agendas. The people DO have influence on the government. We proved this last time when we voted most incumbents out and will do it again if something doesn't change. Discourse needs to happen. We have forgotten how to respect one another.
bluesfan13 1 year, 3 months ago
So leftists are demons, moderates are greedy opportunists, and right-wing conservatives are the only ones who know what this country needs to set things right?
hudson 1 year, 3 months ago
We need more goverment & more unions, more lawyers,more goverment double dipper workers,more taxes,more laws!
hkchas 1 year, 3 months ago
And EXACTLY who's position is that ? Could you name them ?
Daddy 1 year, 3 months ago
WOW! Ever wonder why people in Missouri need 3 jobs to make ends meet? Ever wonder why Missouri state workers are the lowest paid in the nation? Because the less than educated citizens in Missouri are anti-union and think they have something great when they get a 7 dollar an hour Walmart job. I love watching the state workers whine about their health insurance and think back to when they could have been union lol! Just think with your 7 dollars an hour you can buy a tank of gas in about a week LOL!
rmsberengaria 1 year, 3 months ago
Hey Daddy, how about you take a look at real figures ONLY 6% of private sector jobs are union. For the first time in history this year 7% of the Public Sector belongs to unions and the only growth in Unions is the Public Sector. If this State had more Unionization in the public sector we would be flat broke as is we are in the hole but it would be much deeper!
Read what the Socialist Franklin Delano Roosevelt said about Public sector Unions...... President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the patron saint of the American labor movement, was a man of strong character. One has to look no further than the heroic way he coped with his crippling polio. This dreadful disease undoubtedly made him the consummate realist.
For example, although he had a lock on labor's vote, he expressed caution about public sector unions. In a little-known letter he wrote to the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees in 1937, Roosevelt reasoned:
"... Meticulous 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 ... The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for ... officials ... to bind the employer ... The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives ...
"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 ... This obligation is paramount ... A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent ... to prevent or obstruct ... Government ... Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government ... is unthinkable and intolerable."
To get this in historical context, Congress enacted the landmark National Labor Relations Act ("Wagner Act") in 1935 - the Magna Carta of the American labor movement. It excluded federal, state and local employees. It created the National Labor Relations Board to enforce the rights of labor. Employers were legally obligated to bargain collectively with their employees. In 1937 in a Senate speech, Roosevelt intoned, "The denial or observance of this right means the difference between despotism and democracy." (One would be led to think that before 1935, America was not a democracy.)
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
FDR a realist? Overall-no. He apparently thought that the ponzi scheme social security would work.
hkchas 1 year, 3 months ago
No he just hoped to help the aged and infirm... what a HORRIBLE thing to do, eh ?
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
He helped them with my money, my children's money and my grandchildren's money. And we won't have any.
hkchas 1 year, 2 months ago
And others paid for your family's Social Security payments as well.... kind of a fair trade, huh ?
Did you want EVERYONE , including your relatives, to die so you could buy your new pick up truck ?
rmsberengaria 1 year, 3 months ago
Overall yeah it works, as you said, a ponzi scheme works. As long as there are enough people paying in to support those collecting. You can thank another Democrat LBJ for, starting the practice of taking the peoples money out of the SS fund and spending it in General Revenue. As you well know if a Ponzi scheme like this was done in the private sector, as many have tried, you would go to Jail. If SS money had been invested in relatively safe Market funds over the working lifetime of employee's, not withstanding ups and downs in the market, the return would in fact be 8%. SS has never returned anywhere near that to the retiree! Facts are facts, it is going to go broke.
According to ABC's Wright, "In 10 years time, Social Security will be paying out more in benefits than it takes in in taxes. And about the time the last of the baby boomers retires, the system will go bankrupt." As Milbank put it, "As the boomers retire, Social Security will go into the red in 2017 and become insolvent 24 years later, according to the system's trustees."
Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago
Maybe Missouri has things right. Missouri isn't on the verge of bankruptcy like the leftists states.
Daddy 1 year, 3 months ago
LOL you people are too much you quote a 1937 letter from a President who had ten times what the working man had in the bank as your ammunition. I like to think more in the present sense of the lowest paid state workers with diminishing health care costs because they are non union. Take a look at the state workers that have made some strides because they had some sense of unity the corrections officers. At least their "association" has gained them better benefits, salary, and training. I also like to look to the JCPD example of collective bargaining and what it has gained them. Most of their officers (non ranking) make mid 40's to high 50's with some making as much as 70,000 last year all because they organize. You folks that think the working man should starve to fill the coffers of the rich are simply laughable lol. RMS I will give you that you researched, all the way back to 1937 to find some sense that you are right LOL! GENIUS I tell you!
rmsberengaria 1 year, 3 months ago
Well, I will thank you for the compliment on my research, I think thats called history, something alot of people should do more of. It, Daddy is not a matter of whether I am right or wrong it is a FACT! The class envy game you are playing on FDR is just that! I am no fan of FDR but when he was right I will stand up for him. Ever heard this, Daddy "Those Who Forget History Are Doomed to Repeat It"? How about pointing out to me in the Constitution where it says anything about collective bargaining or unions? Maybe some Fact?
rmsberengaria 1 year, 3 months ago
No it sure does not....it only meant the freedom to pursue happiness in anyway they wished. It has nothing to do with taking peoples jobs or benefits away. Hapiness in the freedom to start a business, farm, believe the way they wished, all without government intervention and impediments thereof. Except, those powers delegated to the Federal Government by the States and the people thereof in the Constitution.
countyfactor 1 year, 2 months ago
Well, rmsberengaria since you love to research history take a look at our MO state constitution it does specifically state that employees shall have the right to bargain collectively. I believe it is wrong for our federal government to say to the private sector that you can not discriminate or threaten against employees who want to have union representation. But we as the federal government do not have to be held to the same standard for it's employees. That is fundamentally and ethically wrong. What is happening in Wis. goes well beyond just trying to balance a budget. Which the employees have already made the concessions. The governor wants to silence a politically active base for the opposing party. Now I love it when people call democrats socialist but with this major offensive against organized labor, the republicans seem to be more like fascist. Look the bottom line is the best management tool that any business or corporation or local government body is it's union.
justaword 1 year, 2 months ago
Looking at Wisconsin, we can go back to the future. Corporations have reduced their costs by busting unions first, then wage-salary employees next. I forgot somewhere in this mix is the gutting of promised retiree pensions/health benefits. Right now, our corporations sit on a cash load of almost 2 trillion dollars! What workers, union and non-union, have given up won’t ever filter back down. The income of the average taxpayer in 1988 was 33,400. Ahead 20 years, it was 33,000. Workers are spinning their wheels, while giving up benefits. Walker’s Republicans are running Wisconsin like a corporate business, above. He set up a deliberate, contrived confrontation. Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau says this year’s legislature inherited a small surplus of 121.4 million. Now, Walker is claiming a deficit of 137 million. Where did the money go? New expenditures! 25 million for economic development fund, 48 million for PRIVATE health savings for the rich, 67 million to business in a tax shift plan. Let us not forget, Walker’s Republicans don’t want to bust the unions that supported them, however. The “crisis” sounds eerily familiar in the past corporate world. This year in Missouri, we will probably give our corporations a break on the franchise tax. “Balancing” the budget, we will cut education, services to the poor, employee benefits? Fast forward to the future on a national level. Like the corporations, like Wisconsin, there will be a crisis. Nationally, we have the resources to bail-out banking billionaires, making the stock market whole again while running up massive deficits. But when it comes time to pay the bill during our last lame duck congress, the rich, who benefited most, said, “No, not us.” Most, me included, don’t stand in the top 1 percent plus of tax payers making 380,000 up. The reactionary cry will be shared pain, but not pay. I stand with working men and women in Wisconsin and Missouri.
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