From your link above:
What the Governor has done here is obvious political posturing. If they really believe that breaking the public unions is necessary to control the budget then they should include all of them.

Indiana, Ohio and New Jersey are expected to push their own anti-union bills soon

I dare them to try this in California.

So someone prank called Walker posing as Koch himself.

Apparently, the Wisconsin GOP grew too weary of all that democraticky debatey thing and decided to spring a vote, much to the ire of Democrats.

Wisconsin GOP wins Round 1 over unions, but final victory still eludes - CSMonitor.com

44 - Wisconsin Dems shout 'shame' after union vote


Meanwhile....

Factbox: Several U.S. states consider union limits | Reuters

So how long should they allow debate? 600 hours? At some point it's time to move on and hold the vote.

It's also time for the members of hte party of NO to demand that their Senators return from hiding and vote on this bill.

Either that or the governor should declare their seats vacant and hold new elections since the current Senators are unwilling to do their job.

Well, I'm not about to pull out some abstract number, but it should be expected to debate for as long as required to ensure all have had a chance to be heard. From what I've read, there were Democrats queued for commenting when the GOP decided to spring the vote on them, and it was over in a flash. Bad timing, and it looks like strong-arming.

I don't expect them to debate ad nausem, but this is clearly a big issue for the state, and if everyone has a say in it, then everyone should have their say, especially for something that includes conditions that have specious support outside of the Assembly GOP. It would seem that they would rather just have it over with and get their way. Better do it soon, or they might lose too much public support. Politics can be messy like that. That meddlesome public.

The senate thing is another issue. The whole thing has become messy.

A question (to anyone): There was a fairly recent ruling in a top Canadian court that considered collective bargaining a right protected by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms*. Is there a similar defense of it under any American document, including, but not limited to, the Constitution?

*The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is to the Canadian Constitution much in the way the Bill of Rights is to the United States Constitution.

There is no Constitutional right to collective bargaining.

The Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act), enacted in the 1930s, guarantees the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively...but does not apply to the public sector or government employees at any level.

What would a proper Constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to collective bargaining for any worker, public or private, look like? Could it be enforced?

So there was a condition applied to the definition of "workers," with regard to government employees?

The Supreme Court of Canada decided that working towards a collective agreement is essentially done so under the freedom of association.

The definition applied to "employers"

The term "employer" includes any person acting as an agent of an employer, directly or indirectly, but shall not include the United States or any wholly owned Government corporation, or any Federal Reserve Bank, or any State or political subdivision thereof...

National Labor Relations Act | NLRB

Interesting. So the Act doesn't regard the government as an employer per se. Or maybe a "special kind of employer." Interesting indeed.

That's a fascinating perspective. Our freedom of assembly is generally considered an extension of the freedom of speech, which is about gathering together to express or discuss opposition to public policy without fear of censorship in cases like US v. Cruikshank and Hague v. C.I.O., but iirc, Thornhill v. Alabama held that the right for a union to picket, informing the public of issues protected by the First Amendment could not be prosecuted as it was protected under the right to peaceably assemble. I wonder if there could be some legal wiggle-room on that.

Our documents are somewhat related. The freedom of assembly hasn't been a big issue in many Canadian cases. In the past, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Alberta that the clause doesn't mean workers have the right to strike. However, in an earlier case, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court found that it does include the right to meet as part of a committee or as workers.

I'm kind of waiting to hear from the small-government proponents here with regard to this vote and its blatant "nanny statism." This is one thing that would lead me to agree with them. It has kind of thrown me for a loop how the government can essentially deny you the action that is a fundamental component of a labour union. It's mind-boggling.

So do you think all of the judges that are being held up for vote should get their vote? Did you have any problem with the endless filibusters that happened over the last two years?


If this bill does pass there is a good chance it will be overturned by the courts because the bill passed the house by one vote (the voting was cut short as soon as they had enough) and there is apparently video evidence of republicans voting for absent republicans. That sounds like a sham vote to me.

As much as 34% of companies with 100 or more employees have a traditional pension plan.
Jobs That Still Offer Traditional Pensions - US News and World Report

The myths about unions - The Boston Globe

The Big Myth in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's Union-Busting Crusade - Robert Schlesinger (usnews.com)

Generally speaking, though, the comic does point out that perhaps the problem is that there aren't enough unions.

U.S. Corporate Profits Hit Record in Third Quarter - NYTimes.com
Wealth And Inequality In America

Thanks, BG.

It is striking to me that the same people who will justify obscene levels of CEO compensation by claiming that high compensation is the only way to ensure top talent is retained can easily make exactly the opposite claim with regards to teachers: teachers suck, so lets cut their pay.

It's funny you should mention that.

In Wisconsin, it's teachers vs. millionaires - Ron Legro - Open Salon

How does that old saying go?

Something about a wealthy person being able to hire half of the working class to kill the other half? I think it's probably evolved a bit since then. Now, they don't have to hire members of the working class, they just have to convince them that their interests are the same as the wealthy folks interests, that way, the working class will choose to off themselves (economically speaking, of course). Won't somebody please think of the millionaires!!!

A CEO, a union worker and a Tea Party member are sitting at a table.

On the table is a plate with 10 cookies.

The CEO takes 9 of the cookies, then says to the Tea Party member, "Watch out! That other guy is trying to take part of your cookie!"

My wife and I paid over $3000 dollars in state and local taxes last year not including federal income taxes and we cannot afford a pension or decent healthcare. The only healthcare insurance we can afford is over $500 per month for $10,000 deductable with no drug coverage. I have no problem furnishing public employees with pensions and healthcare from our taxes but first the government must leave us enough money to provide for ourselves.

The Long History of Labor Bashing - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

a short history of the rather dismal history of conservative union-bashing.

I don't understand. What is your solution? Defund all public employee pension plans until the government can ensure that each private citizen can afford to fund their own retirement?

Yes, until we (our government) can figure out a way to get the money from somewhere other than from those who cannot afford these things for themselves. At the very least it is very unfair to force people who cannot afford healthcare etc.. to pay for others. Why can't we design a system that allows people to keep enough money to provide these benefits for their own families before forcing them to provide for others?

in significant measure because conservative continue to insist on tax cuts for the wealthy that undermines the ability of these systems to function equitably. it is one of the many insanities of conservative economic "thinking"....it might have made sense as a purely theoretical construct in the early 1980s, but after 40 years it's pretty obvious that this doesn't work. unless you're part of the top one percent in terms of income. then you have more money to spend on your yacht upkeep. they're expensive you know, yachts.

Well, the free marketeer in me wants to be snippy and say that its your own fault you can't afford to pay for your retirement and that you should stop engaging in class warfare against unionized public employees, but since I know that the free marketeer in me is easily placated by nice-sounding, but overly simplistic and unworkable solutions, I choose to ignore him.

I'm right there with you when it comes to designing a system that allows people to take home enough money to provide for the long term well-being of their families. Unfortunately, the direction we're heading is exactly opposite that, and the main reason for this is that we've been getting the bulk of our economic advice from people who'd love nothing more than to turn our nation into Mexico. They don't want livable wages because livable wages cut into their profits. They don't want regulations because regulations cut into their profits. They could really give two shits if you or I can save for retirement. In fact, they stand to make more money if we can't, because that means more cheap, desperate labor for them.

Oddly enough, the best bet you have for being able to save for retirement might be to join a union. If the people demand the things they want, the economy will adjust to accommodate them.

I'm in favor of private sector unions. My father was a union steward for years. If a company agrees to a union contract that requires them to raise prices then consumers can take their business someplace else. Not so with our government. When our politicians agree to increase wages and benefits more than likely they will raise the money by taken some away from those of us who cannot afford these benefits for ourselves. Perhaps we need some kind of means test to allow us to take care of our own families before making us take care of others.

perhaps we need to vote out conservatives who continue to work actively to gut the public sector on the one hand and then basically lie about the role of unions in making them financially precarious.

in principle there's no problem with public-sector unions representing employees of the state. what the right has done is to basically mischaracterize by erasing the nature of the state as employer and replacing it with an image of the state as a mechanism for the redistribution of wealth.

the second mischaracterization is that the problems of financial sustainability states are confronting follow from the application of conservative economic policies. period.

classic divide and conquer. turn one segment of folk who struggle to make ends meet against another, like has been said before.

but the real problem is conservative economic ideology, conservative economic policy.

Well the divide and conquer thing seems to be working. I don't think it would make much difference whether the Democrats or Republicans were in charge. I suspect the $3000 in state and local taxes we pay will continue to go up no matter what. There is some hope that our healthcare insurance could stabilize after 2014 if Republicans don't repeal the whole thing before then.

flstf... $3000 seems like a very small number. How much do you and your wife make each year?

That is just state and local taxes, add to that federal income taxes, sales taxes and other various license fees etc... for the total tax bill which is much higher. Since I was laid off about 9 years ago I have been unemployed and we have been living by withdrawing from our savings which varies from year to year. The $3000 for state and local taxes is the amount probably most used along with sales taxes to help pay for state and local public employee benefits etc.. which are members of the public unions being discussed here.

A few thousand dollars in our world is a lot of money to buy others benefits when we cannot afford our own.

This is once again arguing from the false point of view that the issue in Wisconsin is a budget one. The unions have already conceded on the benefits. And the same bill that removes their collective bargaining rights also reduces taxes for the top tax bracket. So whether or not they actually go through with the bill will have zero impact on how much you currently pay in taxes. So again this is a false dichotomy.

According to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, "less than three percent of all state and local government spending was used to fund public pension benefits..."

http://www.nasra.org/resources/ERContributions.pdf

Of your $3,000 state/local tax bill, that amounts to less than $90.

But as dippin noted, this is not about pensions costs or state budget deficits...it is simply anti-union politics, particularly given than the unions in WI have agreed to significant cuts in the state's contribution to employee pensions.

I had no idea it was only 3% so I guess they should have no problem giving that up. How much more can I keep to help pay for my healthcare insurance if I don't have to contribute to theirs?

---------- Post added at 12:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:46 AM ----------

I'm in Ohio but I guess the same is true here. It is sad that they won't pass the spending cuts down to us. I guess there is no trickling down once they get the money.

Somewhere around 2/3 of all Americans have employer-sponsored health care.

Are you suggesting that police, fire fighters, teachers etc, shouldn't?


Spending cuts alone wont solve either the federal or state budget deficits.

Until Republicans at both levels are willing to consider tax increases, particularly on the top bracket and on corporations, deficits will not go away.

Attempting to balance federal/state budgets on the backs of the working class is not the solution.

Look at the federal level and proposed Republican budget cuts as opposed to tax breaks for the wealthy:

http://i.imgur.com/tlG0Y.jpg

Not what I would describe as a fair and balanced approach to deficit reduction.

Yet another false dichotomy. You speak of this as if this were a matter of income redistribution, not of public employees. If you don't think there should be public education, that is one thing. If you think there should be, then there will be some sort of compensation that will come from your taxes and paid to them. You don't get to have one without the other.

In the mean time, most Americans complaining about where their taxes are going will receive more in direct services from the state than what they pay in taxes.

---------- Post added at 11:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:14 PM ----------

On an unrelated note, let's be clear here. If the real issue in Wisconsin was the budget the same bill that cuts collective bargaining wouldn't also have tax cuts only for the top bracket. If the real issue was, say, quality of education, the #2 state in the nation wouldn't be trying to implement the model of the bottom 5. If the real issue was the inefficiency of public sector unions, the unions that supported Walker wouldn't be exempt.

The real issue here is demobilizing organizations that are historically democratic.

Just like all the blame the teacher rhetoric is also about attacking a democratic base.

Eliminating collective bargaining rights reduces the possibility the unions will hold the state hostage if and when the economy improves. Eliminate them, pass right to work laws, and pay state employees fair market value.

You know who else wanted to get rid of labor unions?

/GODWIN'D!!!

SO what you are saying is that you agree with me that this bill isn't about balancing the current budget at all, but instead demobilizing a key democratic constituency so in the future they can't have much of an impact? I'm glad you've come around.