Destroy Unions, Ax Health Care For The Poor and Make the National Guard Scabs
The following is chronicling Wisconsin’s new governor, Scott Walker. From the Journal Sentinel:
In addition to the changes on health care and pensions, the bill would eliminate the ability for most public workers to negotiate over anything but wages. Raises could not exceed the increase in the Consumer Price Index unless approved by referendum. They would also have to hold annual votes to keep their unions intact.
The bargaining law changes would apply to all public workers except police, firefighters and state troopers. The unions for state troopers, Milwaukee police officers and Milwaukee firefighters all endorsed Walker. [This is why political interest groups need to find support in both parties. -m.z.] Most other unions, including most other law enforcement unions, endorsed his Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
From another story:
Speaking at a Capitol news conference, the governor also said the National Guard is ready to take control of state prisons if correctional officers illegally strike or obstruct work. Union officials said they had no such plans.
But many of the other changes to bargaining – such as prohibiting government employers from collecting membership dues for unions – would save the government little or nothing, he said.
“That’s a clear attempt to bust the unions,” Wineke said “That’s shameful.”
And for icing on the cake,
The proposal would allow Walker’s Department of Health Services to change state laws dealing with medical care for children, parents and childless adults, prescription drug plans for seniors, nursing home care for the elderly, and long-term care for the elderly and disabled outside of nursing homes. The programs affected would include the BadgerCare Plus and BadgerCare Core plans, FamilyCare and potentially SeniorCare.
“It’s a shockingly broad delegation of legislative authority to the Department of Health Services,” said Jon Peacock, research director for the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. “This is the authority to do almost anything to substantially reduce eligibility for children, parents, and childless adults, to increase premiums, to change renewal processes, to reduce services, and to change rates. It covers everything.”
The Medicaid plan is just part of the broad budget proposal, which also eliminates a statewide registry of home health-care workers and all bargaining rights for their recently chosen union.
This has come about with the election of a Republican governor coupled with a sweeping Republican majority in the State Assembly and a majority in the State Senate. These are their priorities.
Update:
I think this is the final word on the topic:
We know that it is teamwork on and off the field that makes the Packers and Wisconsin great. As a publicly owned team we wouldn’t have been able to win the Super Bowl without the support of our fans.
It is the same dedication of our public workers every day that makes Wisconsin run. They are the teachers, nurses and child care workers who take care of us and our families. But now in an unprecedented political attack Governor Walker is trying to take away their right to have a voice and bargain at work.
The right to negotiate wages and benefits is a fundamental underpinning of our middle class. When workers join together it serves as a check on corporate power and helps ALL workers by raising community standards. Wisconsin’s long standing tradition of allowing public sector workers to have a voice on the job has worked for the state since the 1930s. It has created greater consistency in the relationship between labor and management and a shared approach to public work.
These public workers are Wisconsin’s champions every single day and we urge the Governor and the State Legislature to not take away their rights.
Signed by a number of present and former Green Bay Packers. The Players Association also offers their support.
Comments are closed.
If this succeeds, and takes off and spreads, it will be the end of the last vestiges of the high-wage economy that followed the New Deal reforms of the Greatest Generation.
That anyone but a plutocrat can cheer this is just sheer idiocy.
Geesh.
Can we demand that workers in Congress or the Senate or the Governor, not be able to draw a pension from tax payer dollars? I mean they could save for a 401k, but no price matching since the economy is what it is. Then maybe they could live like the rest of us. These same people that make the laws sure make sweet laws for themselves and their retirement plans.
And if the previous Democrats in total control of Wisconsin had not implemented much of Planned Parenthood’s agenda, the Republican party would not have gotten swept in on the many pro-life things they are also planning to do this session in Wisconsin just to fix that evil mess.
You may be right about how the pro-life agenda helped sweep this in. That said, unless you are in the womb (and that only lasts for 9 months) this agenda isn’t very pro-life at all. It is however highly pro-dollar.
At least they have their priorities straight.
Ignoring the validity of your charge for a moment, do you support or oppose Governor Walker’s agenda in this instance?
Maybe. Not that pro-life, pro-union Democrats could have any hope of even eeking out an iota of charity from the Matt Bowman’s of the world, yet alone any political support. Pro-life liberals have no hope of political support from the corrupt and biased RTL movement.
The first two items sound like great stuff. I’d have to learn more about the third.
You really think the union representing the road crews should not be able to negotiate over safe working conditions? Do you really believe the union representing the prison workers should have no input on how many guards are needed to keep the prisons safe? Who do you think should defend the workers in these areas? We know when the workers have no one to take their side that management will not consider their safety, history has proved this again and again. It is also being proven around us all the time.
You also think the National Guard can be brought in to run the prisons if the guards strike? Did you see the pictures of the prisons in Iraq? Much of the prison abuse scandal in Iraq was traced to using National Guard or reserve army personnel who were not adequately trained to guard prisoners.
It is so easy to assume everyone else’s job is easy and that they are merely greedy.
Sorry, Paul. I intended to reply to you, but clicked in the wrong spot. What I wanted to say to you is further down the thread.
As to work place safety, that is properly a matter of the legislature and the various agencies charged with carrying out safety legislation.
So when the political environment is totally controlled by ownership as is the case now in Wisconsin, who is to stand up for the health and safety of the worker then?
Perhaps this is why Archbishop Listecki just tonight affirmed worker rights.
Sorry but I will side with Listecki on this.
Again, I don’t think you honor the principle of subsidiarity where an employee with a workplace safety concern has the choice of exposing himself to danger until the State Legislature is willing to take up the issue.
Yup, demonization of political opponents is exclusively a problem of the political right.
This is the second comment of similar tenor. I have sourced three stories on the topic from mainstream sources. I have offered about three whole sentences of commentary, one of which can properly be construed as demonization. If you follow the links, you can find a link to the bill itself. That should take care of the authority issue. If you wish to dispute arguments then dispute them.
Do you really think that destroying unions, cutting health care for the poor, and turning the National Guard into scabs is an accurate summary of the governor’s priorities?
Any more than “babykilling” is a pro-choice politician’s priority, or establishing “death panels” is the priority for health care reformers?
Isn’t it more likely that the governor’s motivation here is to solve a budget crisis? We can have a debate over whether he has chosen the correct means to do so, and I will allow for the possibility that he has chosen means that are in direct conflict with Catholic teaching.
But that is not the same as saying that this is what Wisconsin Republicans’ priorities are.
I don’t really care to shadowbox here – this would be shadow boxing since you haven’t put forward an argument that they are inaccurate.
The governor was the one that stated he had alerted the National Guard as a contingency if prison workers illegally struck. Replacement workers are commonly referred to as scabs. What inaccuracy are you perceiving?
The governor’s plan removes the right of union workers to negotiate pension benefits, workplace safety rules, health care and retiree benefits as part of collective bargaining. This leaves public unions only able to negotiate wages. The governor has claimed public service rights are sufficient and the rest unduly restricts the management ability of government. The measure requires unions to collect dues from members directly rather than through payroll deductions. The measure also requires yearly recertification of public unions. I do not understand in any sense how this is not effectively destroying public employee unions.
This is what they are doing. How is this to be understood as anything other than the newly elected governor’s priorities?
The use of the National Guard for prisons is a contingency plan in the case of some action not entirely within the governor’s control, not a “priority” for the governor.
I would say it is similar to how President Obama said he did not plan to launch a series of great government spending, but was faced with little choice considering the economy he inherited. IMO, (and I suspect yours) those who said that TARP and the stimulus and the GM bailout proved that President Obama was nothing but a big government liberal were not operating with a great amount of charity.
Speaking at a Capitol news conference, the governor also said the National Guard is ready to take control of family planning centers if Right to Lifers illegally commit acts of violence or obstruct work. Right to Life officials said they had no such plans.
MZ – I notice you didn’t defend your excerpt of story #3. Would you agree that you omitted the part about legislative oversight, which could lead the reader to think it was a violation of that oversight?
The simple explanation is that I was hitting the easy points since there was so much difficulty grasping them.
I expect my readers to have basic reading comprehension skills. The intent of the maneuver is plain. Those with interest can research further.
It appears you have no interest other than trolling here. I don’t have an interest in feeding trolls. – m.z.
John,
I do think the Governor’s motivations go beyond solving the budget crisis. And I am convinced the end result of what he is proposing wil be to destory the union (if you think not, I would like to hear why).
Stripping workers from having a voice in a myriad of non-economic issues has nothing to do with solving a budget crisis.
You frequently hear people talk about the evils of PP and Gay marriage. The people you hear this from rarely talk of the evils of unjust war, executions, poverty, ignorance and abject greed.
This is however, what is hiding up the skirts of the pro-life, anti-gay marriage movements. Not that there are not good people behind both causes, as indeed there are, and I know some of them very well.
This is what happens when you focus myopically on one or two issues and ignore all the other agendas that are hiding in the back pockets of the people who are hiding underneath your skirts.
You wind up used and abused and the unborn keep being slaughtered but you lose many things that you once valued but did not notice until the monsters climbed out from underneath your skirt and took them away from you.
Now just keep your eye on the shell right here….
It’s hard for me to justify a union of public servants. That’s my hangup.
As for the third story, MZ’s excerpt makes it appear that the board would be usurping legislative authority, when the article clearly states that that’s not the case.
Because public servants do not have the natural law rights other workers have? Because they are a lower form of human life?
Excellent points Kurt. I think Pinky is disturbed because Pinky equates unionizing government workers with the thought of paying higher taxes.
I do find it odd that someone would not mind paying more for services provided by a private company but would resist doing the same for government services.
It is almost like the tax rate that one pays is sacrosanct but everything else is fair game. Bizarre.
Not only is your point excellent but I would like to know how the dollar you pay in taxes is entirely different from the dollar you pay in the free market.
I suppose the comeback would be that you do not have an option when the government provides the service.
My response to that would be that if private companies are so much more efficient than governments are then let’s see them compete with the government.
My other response would be that in many cases you do not have an option with private companies. There are many monopolies in existence today, but I rarely hear complaints from people about them. But the little guys at the bottom of the food chain, the unions, you hear massive amounts of carping about that.
The easy answer would be that public sector unions are, by definition, organized in opposition to elected public servants and their administration. Public sector workers have a vote just like everyone else, and as a concentrated interest group, they have more power over elections than most people (teachers, for example, are empirically much more likely to vote in school board elections than anyone else). And it’s not as if public authorities are colluding to keep profits for themselves — they’re more likely to be in collusion with the public sector workers to extract more money and benefits from the public.
All of which counsels that public sector workers should not be given yet another source of power.
Then why give the extra power to the autoworkers union? They have massive numbers and are very well organized in voting?
I would say that is a grave violation of the principle of subsidiarity that instead of workers and managers solving problems at the workplace level, that it need to take place in state wide political campaigns.
It simply insults human dignity to say that a worker needs to make a statewide political issue matters which can and should be resolved in the workplace.
There’s nothing stopping workers and managers from doing that, but why do public sector workers need the additional power of union law on their side? They’re already powerful enough on their own, and it’s not as if public sector managers are likely to be conspiring to keep the workers down (the opposite is more likely, since they’re all public employees who mutually benefit when, say, public pensions are increased with the burden placed on the taxpayer).
There’s nothing stopping workers and managers from doing that..
Explain how this would work.
By that thinking, a royal court is the epitome of subsidiarity, since the decisions of state are made by only a few people. That’s silly. Subsidiarity doesn’t conflict with the right of the individual to oversee his government. In negotiations between government unions and government officials, the citizen’s voice is unheard. That’s far more likely to lead to injustice.
What am I supposed to explain? How people would ever manage to exist in the public sector without the burden of unionization?
SB,
I wasn’t speaking to the mere existance of public workers. I would hope that is not under debate.
And it is a violation of subsidiarity to say that a public worker needs to address a workplace issue with candidates for Governor rather than in in workplace problem solving and negotiation.
Why do they need the power of union law behind them to do this? You’re not addressing any of the points I raised as to why public sector unions are superfluous at best, and pernicious at worst (because managers and workers end up on the same side extracting too much money and benefits from taxpayers).
SB,
The Governor’s proposal would make it illegal for an Wisconsin state agency head or a bureau manager to meet with employee representatives to make any agreements as to workplace rules be it leave policies, telework, disability accomodation, alternative work schedules, shift preferences, veterans preference, grievence procedures, accomodation of religious holidays and obligations, workplace safety and host of other matters.
SB – Well, I would have put it more awkwardly than that in more words, but yeah.
Gisher and Kurt – When you assume that the person who disagrees with you is saying something inhuman or insane, your assumption is probably wrong.
Well then perhaps you could favor us with a detailed explanation of why you are against these unions.
A blanket statement that you are against them is nice but I would like to see precisely what foundations you built upon to come to this blanket conclusion. Surely you must have thought this out?
I am all ears.
I don’t see why I should believe that there’s a supposed “natural law” right for public sector workers to have unions. If the Church has ever said so, then it was wrong, for reasons explained well by FDR himself:
“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 public 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.”
So FDR would have said that the Wisconsin teachers currently going on strike and preventing kids from going to school are doing the “unthinkable and intolerable.”
The Church is more enlightened than FDR.
I will only ask one more time as not to annoy the author of this post, but I ask you again, why give that extra power to the autoworkers unions, they are already large and powerful?
The theory behind private sector unions is that lone individual workers have too little power compared to large corporations. It’s not as if the corporations are all run by managers who were elected by the workers, after all. And there’s lots of money at stake, and the managers will be tempted to extract it all for themselves.
None of that applies — none — to public sector unions. The “managers” are elected, or are appointed by people who are elected, and all of the workers get to vote in the elections. In fact, they have disproportionate power in those elections, just by being a motivated interest group. In addition, there aren’t huge piles of money/profit that the managers could keep for themselves. Moreover, the managers usually aren’t in opposition to the workers in the first place — they’re all together on the same side, because they all work for the government, and they all want higher pay and benefits for themselves, paid by the taxpayers.
Well SB thank you for that explanation. What I failed to glean from it was why any worker, private or public should be held lower than any another worker. (See my response to smf below)
These “managers” you speak of can suddenly be replaced by a new group of managers who were elected by an ill-informed public, so poorly informed that they turn on their own self interests and elect people who are hostile to the worker and the middle class and totally beholden to billionaires and large multinational corporations.
Yes they may even elect people that are against church doctrine for workers. None of this makes any sense but yet it happens, and in fact is happening right now.
So when such vile propaganda is turned against we the people why would anyone suggest that we strip power away from any union? Those managers (elected officials) that you spoke of who were protecting the government union worker (people like teachers) were just recently tossed out in the street.
There is no such thing as entrenched protection for them, we have just seen this proved in Wisconsin. And I must conclude by mentioning again, why should we allow one set of workers to have less protection than another?
I can only see this mindset developing amongst the middle class when one buys into the propaganda bought and paid for by people with thousands of times more power than any union members?
It’s not a question of saying that government workers are “lower” — how absurd — but of saying that they generally already have more than enough power.
“It’s not a question of saying that government workers are “lower” — how absurd — but of saying that they generally already have more than enough power.”
What is happening in Wisconsin just totally debunks your point.
And it IS a question of lower. Public employees are not beneath private sector employees and are entitled to the same exact protections that all other employees receive.
Even if your assertions that government workers had greater power now had not been debunked by what is happening in Wisconsin, the Catholic, and humane solution would not be to lower those employees but instead to raise the others up to them.
“Enough power?”. Do we deny people natural law rights because of unsupported claims they have “enough power?”
Why not take away the vote from the rich? Don’t they have “enough power? Or take away the free speech rights of bishops, as they have “enough power?”
Kurt — the better analogy would be whether we should give two extra votes to the rich, beyond what other people have. Wouldn’t it be appropriate to respond that they already have quite enough power, thank you very much, and don’t need more?
There’s no natural law right to exploit other people, which is what public sector unions are doing with the $3 trillion dollar liability that we taxpayers owe for public sector pensions and retiree health care.
Here’s a good explanation: http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/02/15/021711-opinions-oped-public-sector-wages-wilkinson-1-2/
Oh and SB I have an excellent link for you:
http://vox-nova.com/2011/02/16/archbishop-listecki-affirms-worker-rights/
You are most welcome to remain in the Catholic church but you the parishioner do not set doctrine in our church.
SB,
The Church teaches workers have a natural law right to form unions and that collective bargaining, far from being explotation, is a guard against explotation.
The massive popular outrage in Wisconsin speaks well of the people of that state. God bless them.
There’s that word, the keyword SB “taxpayer” you have the right wing buzzword ringing in your ears.
You are not listening so I doubt when I encourage you to go read the Compendium of social doctrine you most likely won’t do that because you have your “right wing” agenda.
But that Catholic church has an agenda on workers rights and you are running smack up against it. Pick your faith good sir, pick your faith.
If I were a dedicated Republican without any scruples, I would indeed wish to destroy the public sector unions as fast as possible, for the public sector unions are, by and large, the most committed enemies of the Republican party and firmest supporters of the Democratic party that can be found.
Obviously there are exceptions, but rather few of them, and those largely due to local considerations.
The public employee unions are the only unions that have anything like job security, the old industrial and trade unions are all dying a slow death. The only areas for union growth are low/non skilled (and thus low paid and low dues paying) workers, public employees, and various professionals that unions once thought of as the white collar enemy. Generally white collar professionals see no need for a union, so little hope there. Unskilled workers will never provide much political muscle due to lack of education and money. The public employees on the other hand are well payed, are nearly guaranteed to grow in number year after year, are sufficiently educated to be politically useful to a campaign, and even tend to have a bit of free time thanks to their work schedules.
I suppose a true single issue voter could also support destroying the unions for the same reason. After all, since the unions support the democrats, and the democrats support abortion, then defeating the unions becomes as much a pro-life measure as defeating the democrats for a true single issue voter. Also destroying any company or institution or organization that supports abortion directly or indirectly would become a target this way. (Left leaning types take note: you can turn the single issue pro-lifers against some of your enemies by convincing them those enemies support abortion.)
Also there are many in the more traditional sections of the labor movement that see public employees unions, particularly for white collar workers and such, to be contrary to the traditions and values of the American labour movement.
Further, there are also many who take the view that public service, in all its forms, is a unique privildge and that there is in no way any right to work for the government.
Our nations founding fathers even thought the capitol needed to be a special district under sole authority of the Congress both to keep the people of any one place from gaining undue influence on the government. It was not an oversight that said district was given no voting rights in the orginal scheme, for in the old world far too often the governments would serve the needs of the capitol before the needs of the nation.
In any case, I find picking a fight with the unions in such a manner to be unwise. There may indeed be some need for certain reforms in some areas, but to make a major political battle out of this is not in the interest of the governor or his party. More than a few state administrations have been brought to ruin by picking a fight with the state employees only to have those same employees quietly undermine and sabatoge him at every move to the point of electoral dissaster in the next polls.
(In my own state we had a governor elected who had a grudge against the civil service because he had been denied a job due to political affiliation and illegal patronage. As governor he let the grudge influence him, and the civil service types then circled the wagons. They used every trick in the buerocratic play book against him, and he in turn used the influence of his appointees agains them. In the end the voters elected someone else. I think the civil service has decided it is only willing to work with a governor of one party. If the civil service wasn’t a certified part of a particular party before this mess, it is now.)
“Our nations founding fathers even thought the capitol needed to be a special district under sole authority of the Congress both to keep the people of any one place from gaining undue influence on the government.”
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The founding fathers detested corporations (because of the behavior that had witnessed from the East India Company) and intended for corps to be made available primarily for municipalities.
Early private corporations usually had to complete some public works project first and then were granted only a one year license to incorporate. It was expected then that the corporations would be dissolved at the end of that year.
Needless to say over time, these corporations grew in power and influence to the point where today, immense power is wielded by these giant multinationals, who have the financial clout to dominate any political debate.
Today these corporations are not asked or required to contribute to the public well being. In fact, many of the largest corporations pay zero dollars in taxes.
Further, massive numbers of the union jobs that were formerly available underneath one of these massive companies were sent to places like China or Mexico, effectively busting the unions, and lowering the overall standard of living for the average American.
Another result of these moves was of course, much higher quarterly profits, which obviously motivated the moves in the first place.
Additionally, America’s middle class has shrank significantly and continues to do so, but now just a tiny fraction of the population owns and controls a majority of the wealth.
We have been to this place before in history and the end results have not been good for anyone involved including those at the very top.
We have strayed from the founding father’s ideals as well as from our Church’s doctrine, a doctrine by the way, stands by the workers just as much as it does the oppressed.
I fail to understand why so many are compelled to bring unions down when our doctrines and our history demand that we lift each other up.
Instead of fewer unions, it is obvious that we need more unions. The best part is now, with so many service sector jobs, you cannot ship them overseas as they require a human being to be on site and in this country.
Instead of knocking your fellow Americans down, I suggest you help lift all of them up on high. As history has proved, this creates an environment that is much healthier for all human spirits to live within.
Kurt and Gisher — see what I said above about “natural law” and what FDR said.
Where does the Church say anything specifically about public sector unions? Those unions are totally different from private sector unions; you obviously agree, or you’d be able to come up with an answer to all (or even one) of the arguments I’ve raised.