Unions starting to cave in Wisconsin.

By: Moe Lane (Diary) | February 19th, 2011 at 06:00 PM |

RESIZE: AAA

The report is that the unions will agree to “the financial aspects of [Gov. Scott] Walker’s budget-repair bill” (which is nice, because they don’t have the votes to stop them) in exchange for the removal of the collective bargaining provisions (which is – oddly enough! – also something that they don’t have the votes to stop). Walker’s response? Get back to work:

As thousands of protesters marched and chanted, Gov. Scott Walker on Saturday rejected an overture from a Democratic state senator that public employee unions had agreed to make financial sacrifices contained in the budget-repair bill in return for the right to bargain collectively.

Cullen Werwie, Walker’s spokesman, said in a statement that State Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) “should come to work and debate the bill while doing his job in Madison.

What this means, of course, is that the unions are sliding towards the edge of the cliff on this one, and they know it. The counter-protests seen here (H/T to The Other McCain for the above link) must be quietly putting Wisconsin Democrats in a panic: they can tell their own minions that it’s not a reflection of grassroots outrage (unlike their own artificial outrage), but they themselves know better. Hence, what looks like a fairly hasty attempt to try to firewall the disaster by trying to go for what looks like a deep concession.

Not that it’s a concession at all: as it stands, the moment those Democratic Senators walk through the door the state legislature can get on with making the “financial aspects” AND reforming collective bargaining practices. Why on earth would there be any further discussion on this issue? The relevant conversation took place last November.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Tags: collective bargaining, elections have consequences, wisconsin

COMMENTS

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hoosierteacher

It may be too early, but is Walker joining the short list of VP candidates yet? I know the best of the best aren’t running for POTUS (Pence, Christi, Rubio), but they sure seem like solid VP picks to me.
http://minorcan-maven.blogspot.com/ minorcanmaven

I hope they stick to their guns and vote the whole thing through. There is immense support for it, and it’s right. Government workers shouldn’t have collective bargaining. The employers are technically the tax payers, it’s not a commercial enterprise. And, btw, we need to re-think the whole union thing in it’s entirety. People everywhere work without unions and do just fine. They are not necessary except apparently to inhibit business and be a mechanism for bullying and political enterprise, but I repeat myself.
Mayhem

Can Gov. Walker bring the Dems back into the State under Article 4 Section 2 of the Constitution?

?A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.?

Aren?t the Dem senators breaking the law by abdicating from the senate floor? Can’t Walker demand that Illinois deliver them up to WI state troopers?
earlgrey

a financial one to a union busiting one?

Will that change public opinion.

I’m all for busting unions, but I just am curious as to how it will affect debate. It is interesting my mom who is over retirement age has been a lifelong republican and she supports unions. I’d like to think that the older generation republicans are more moderate than the newer generation. Just a thought.
Brian_Roastbeef

Nice try, I guess, except there is no reason Walker would ever have agreed…

I think this is a moment of pride for conservatives everywhere, as one of our elected leaders decides to hold firm when the chips are down rather than cave for the sake of bipartisan compromise. Walker’s FB fans have gone from 1,700 last week, to 37,000… more than rock star tough guy Chris Christie. Walker is on the right side of public opinion. Democrats meanwhile are using a tactic that didn’t work for their Texas counterparts in 2003…

The government offers this compromise instead: Come back to Madison and face the music, and the state government will kindly choose not to pursue felony charges.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/18/wisconsin-republican-senator-we-don%E2%80%99t-plan-on-pursuing-criminal-charges-for-missing-democrats/
hoosierteacher

…state legislaters CAN be compelled by the police to return. The WI state patrol is already on it. The leftist senators are hiding in IL, wher it is unlikely they’ll be detained by police.

However, they’ve lost their staff, favored reporters, and creature comforts in the meanwhile. As this story points out, they’re already starting to cave.
jomo2009

as Andrew Breitbart said at the Tea Party rally today: we’ve got your back!
pastisprolog

I hope that the teacher’s unions are beginning to see the light, as well as the end of the bottomless pockets of taxpayers. But I grew up in a union town and I haven’t yet seen the unions send in the real thugs to smash car windows, cut tires, set a few fires, throw bricks at people, take swings with baseball bats and do the sort of stuff I watched on TV during strikes where I grew up.

What will the union bosses do when cornered? Will they throw teachers under the bus or send in the goons?

If that woman in the photograph, the one with the clenched fist and wide-open screaming mouth, had a rock in her hand and a Republican congressman in range, what would she have done with all that rage she is venting?

Historically, progressives are not peaceful when seriously or effectively opposed.
Mayhem

If Walker demands the return of the fugitive senators, then Illinois must give them up. At least, that’s how I read it.
hoosierteacher

Here is what folks are learning about unions right now:

In WI, the average compensation package for each teacher is over $100,000. WI is the only state where teachers pay ZERO towards their health care and retirement. Half of their students can’t graduate high school. The state is broke. Teachers are skipping school and legislators are skipping the state. The teachers are dragging their students with them, and those students can’t articulate the issue. The teachers (and the out of state anarchists and admited communist joining the fray) look like a mob of thugs. Rich teachers expect the rest of us taxpayers to feed them from a broke economy, and we aren’t doing it anymore.

If this turns into a union busting affair, and I think it is, this is the shining moment that unions lose all credibility. I think this could dominoe quickly, with most independents and conservatives winning the argument.

As long as Walker hold his ground, this could brake unions nationwide, and I think Obama and the dems sense it.
hoosierteacher

Foxnews, the internet, Limbaugh, take your pick. Union thugs can pull their violent stunts, and leftists will still support them. But the idependents (the kingmakers in voting booths) can see it now.

Unions are in big trouble. Christie polls above 50% in union/left/blue New Jersey. Now watch Walker do the same.
hoosierteacher

But it doesn’t work like that in practice (I’m in law enforcement currently).

First, nobody has been charged with a crime here. That’s the primary sticking point of your constitutional reference. The rule that the governor is following is a procedural matter of a state government, not a criminal matter.

IL has the right to detain and extradite the legislators (and that’s debatable), but they aren’t required to. Just as Obama shouldn’t interject himself into the affairs of WI, neither should IL unless there is a criminal matter. (Note that OK sat pat when the Texas legislators pulled the same stunt. Nobody really expects IL to act on this, conservative or liberal.)
http://redwhiteandblueblog.com/ generalgrant

and certainly Walker and the WI GOP don’t want to be seen throwing their political rivals in jail, even for derelict in their duties to the public. A smarter route would be to just strip out the union busting provisions and pass that separately as it would take less than 20 to form a quorum, then pass the budget repair bill separately after the 14 Union controlled Fleebaggers return.
pastisprolog

Both sides seem to be saying that now is the time and now is the place. That the unions will not be stronger later, and that our side is strong enough, finally, to win.

This will be settled. Public sector unions cannot demand endless tribute from taxpayers. Are we ready, now, to commit to do this? If state governments cave on this, the money will run out. Do union bosses finally understand that?

We’ll see. If they go for broke, are we ready?
msctex

Or the lack thereof.

They are going to make a lot of noise over the next few years, as a number of engines finally and inevitably seize up and stall forever. And, tragically, there will more than likely be some lives lost, when zealots taught to expect something for nothing receive just that, and blame those who do not wish to play along. But ultimately, we will just look back and wonder why it was ever allowed to happen in the first place.
hoosierteacher

The dems and the unions are losing face the further this goes.
hoosierteacher

I just watched two videos, one of Breitbart and one of Cain (both at National Review). Both make it clear that this is “ground zero” in the future of unions. Obama is inserting himself, and frankly so is the GOP (fundraising, etc).

To be frank, I really think this is the Battle of Armegeddon for the future of unions in America. For the first time, millions of no-union independents are seeing the face of unionism, and they don’t seem to like it.

As recently as yesterday I thought this wasn’t going to work out. But seeing the tea party flocking to WI, seeing the counter rallies, and hearing the quotes, and finally reading Moe’s analysis on the dems knowing that they’re in trouble, well, yes… I think the unions are going to take a punch to the gut in this epsiode, and it is one I don’t think they’ll recover from nicely.

At the same time, we’ve seen a gutsy US House bill that guts Planned Parenthood of funding. By God, we’ve only the recent election under our belt and we only have one half of ONE of three branches on our side, and for ONCE the conservatives are playing offense.

Hell is freezing over, and I like it!
joecollins

would be if some of those recall petitions succeed.

Imagine the good citizens of Wisconsin hacked off by this current display of poor politics . . . then we might see an even bigger repub majority in Wisconsin.

The dems have only themselves to blame.
earlgrey

Is is also good to see that the GOP has some real men in it. GOP men I think have (and this is just my opinion) been neutered in the past by feminists claiming they just want to keep women barefoot and pregnant.

It is meant to stifle dissent, much like the false claiims of racism.

Good to see some real men.
http://www.redstate.com/tnjim TNJim

Well, two of them anyway that I’ve seen so far.
carolina

quote from:
http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/Madison_Schools_Prepare_For_Staff_Absences_116265614.html

I find this very interesting (especially since it was included in an update about the failed Madison School District attempt to get a court order)
Maybe the union person realized that this “illegal strike” was going to become too obvious and indefensible?
lewincolorado

Please watch this link to The Journal Editorial Report. The pertinent interview starts at about 12:25. I found this compelling! http://video.foxnews.com/#/v/4546902/the-journal-editorial-report-0219/?playlist_id=87937
Finrod

Brian_Roastbeef gives a link to where the missing Democratic senators could be charged with a class 1 felony for intentionally refusing to do their jobs; Republicans are offering to not charge them if they return.
smagar

Is that teacher’s union rep a doctor? How can she possibly know that everyone will be well enough to return to work on Tuesday?
jmimac351

is a Leader showing how Leadership is done.

How invigorating!

Speaker Boehner and Rep Cantor could take a lesson or 3 from this guy. Hopefully it appears they are starting to get the hang of it.
chbroussard

Thank you Gov. Walker. While helping your state with its financial problems, you might just be helping the entire country more than you know.
Duke

here in Wisconsin, in my view Walker MUST succeed in passing and signing into law the collective bargaining restrictions.

In Wisconsin we have something called Interest Arbitration that forces the municipalities to pay the wages and benefits decided upon by a labor arbitration judge. On the one hand, the public employee union cannot strike; on the other the municipality is bound by the arbitrator’s decision. In nearly every case the arbitrator decides for the union and against the municipality.

When a company’s income is down – or in the case of a municipality, when taxes are down – the employer sometimes must decrease the pay and/or benefits that acrue to his employees. With binding arbitration that’s just not possible. In Wisconsin the legislature, under both Republicans and Democrats, has limited local municipalities to a maximum property tax levy increase of 2% over the past year. In every year we face decreasing state and federal subsidies for mandated programs and vital activities like law enforcement and fire protection. In every year we face wage and benefit increases that totally eat-up our 2% capped tax levy increase.

I believe the reason Governor Walker is standing firm is because he intends to decrease or eliminate state Shared Revenue payments to local municipalities – millions of dollars – until the state can get it’s ship righted again. By eliminating the binding collective bargaining for some of our employees, and teachers are the highest paid of the lot, he’s giving us some of the tools we badly need to keep our local governments and school districts in business. Without these limits on public employee unions, and considering the corner we’ve been forced into, we would be financially bled dry in a very short time.
Jack_Savage

1) If they don’t concede financially, 6000 kids who are just starting out will get fired. The old coots know that this is not the way to build support for the future.

2) The class warfare that the Dems have spent generations cultivating has come back to haunt them. Now that the facts and figures are out, people are beginning to understand who is really gaming the system and getting far more than their fair share. Everyone knows a government worker who doesn’t do squat, is always on vacation, and is eager to tell you what he has to do in order to retire at age 50. Now we can do something about it. Forever.
smagar

I’d love to hear you be interviewed. I’d LOVE to have this story get out on the airwaves.

Basically, unions know the arbitrators will vote for them in most cases. I.e., the arbitration “game” is de facto rigged.

One MORE thing the MSM won’t tell us!
Jack_Savage

I totally agree, and Walker has said on numerous occasions that the collective bargaining aspect is non-negotiable.

As an aside, I have always wondered how much of the education budget was consumed by the salaries of administrators (non-teachers). Any rough guess?
lineholder
nick2000

The alternative we had here was to reduce headcount so the teachers all agreed to a pay cut. There is no need for anything more really.
nick2000

The Roberts court is firmly on our side. We are missing the senate and the presidence but that is just one election away (fingers crossed). Just need to make sure that things do not happen like last time…
nick2000

Unions brought us the work environment that we have. The thing is that people who get power (union bosses?) can sometimes have a hard time going dormant when it is not needed anymore and keep fighting for more than is reasonable. In short, a “savior” can become a despot and need to be taken down. (in short, the balance is tilted strongly towards the employees at the expense of the rest)

The risk by taking down unions blindly out of vengeance, jealousy (they have better conditions! They do not suffer like us!) whether justified or not, we could also turn the clock back to a time that is the current “norm” in countries like China or Pakistan.

The question is can both employees and employers interests be catered to? I believe that Germany has shown that it can. It has strong unions that also have a vested interest in the success of the company. It’s neither dictatorship by the employees nor by the employer.
carolina

I just got this email from the DSCC (I’m a registered Independent….. that they ‘hope’ is friendly I guess)
paste:
Dear friend,

I?ve been watching what?s going on in Wisconsin, and it?s just one more example of how extreme Republicans have gotten. In Washington, rather than ask the wealthy to pay their fair share, the GOP is trying to balance our national budget on the backs of those who can least afford it. Now in Wisconsin, they?re launching an attack on teachers, prison guards and other public employees ? the very workers who educate our children and keep all of us safe. They?re trying to strip away most of their collective bargaining rights and greatly increase the cost of their health care.

It?s unfair, and it must stop.

This is just the start of Republicans showing their true colors. Democrats are fighting back, but they need to know that we?ve got their back.

Click here to sign our petition. Let Democrats in Wisconsin know that we stand with them against the extreme antics of the GOP.

Republicans are far out of the mainstream, and when they target the very people who teach our children and keep our communities safe, we must speak out as Democrats, and as Americans. Thanks for adding your
carolina

I just got this email from the DSCC (I’m a registered Independent….. that they ‘hope’ is friendly I guess)
paste:
Dear friend,

I?ve been watching what?s going on in Wisconsin, and it?s just one more example of how extreme Republicans have gotten. In Washington, rather than ask the wealthy to pay their fair share, the GOP is trying to balance our national budget on the backs of those who can least afford it. Now in Wisconsin, they?re launching an attack on teachers, prison guards and other public employees ? the very workers who educate our children and keep all of us safe. They?re trying to strip away most of their collective bargaining rights and greatly increase the cost of their health care.

It?s unfair, and it must stop.

This is just the start of Republicans showing their true colors. Democrats are fighting back, but they need to know that we?ve got their back.

Click here to sign our petition. Let Democrats in Wisconsin know that we stand with them against the extreme antics of the GOP.

Republicans are far out of the mainstream, and when they target the very people who teach our children and keep our communities safe, we must speak out as Democrats, and as Americans. Thanks for adding your
Duke

this afternoon in Madison. I saw Sen. Glenn Grothman talking to him, so I have to believe he’s got the whole story on the way binding arbitration works.
hoosierteacher

We have Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, and Alito on our side. That’s only 4 our of 9.

Kagen, Sotomayor, Bryer, Ginsburg, and Kennedy are not judicial conservatives.
acat

The court is not on our side.

The court is nine people, each with their own agendas, and not nearly enough of ‘em honest for my mind.

Mew
Kyle-MI

How long does the recall process take? Could they do it fast enough that it would be a practical solution to the Dem’s absentee strategy? Also if I were running the WI GOP I would find people to do this in all 14 Senate districts. They only need to win one to break the stalemate, but with the current mood who knows how many you can topple. The icing on the cake is that it would be just too.
roguebeaver

Let’s see what else he can do first.
Bill S

Kennedy is the swing judge, and he is not “firmly on our side”. He is occasionally on our side. But he’s fickle.
The_Rebel

by Wisconsin doctors giving out fake doctors’ notes. The Wisconsin AG should investigate this and ask for actual medical evaluations in support of all of these notes.

“>
hoosierteacher

…but Kennedy was called a “liberal” when O’Conner was called the swing justice.

Because leftists always have to have a “swing vote” justice to keep up their mantra of “One vote away from back ally abortions”, they had to elevate (or demote, depending on your view) Kennedy to “swing” status to account for O’Conner leaving the court.

Kennedy is as liberal as ever, despite the few bones he tosses to consevatives here and there.
roscopico

We voted this guy in for a reason. He saved Milwaukee County, now we need him to right the ship of State.

We have dibs since we found hime first!

May G-d Bless the Honorable Governor Walker!
acat

The word on Kennedy is that the side he lands on is somewhat determined by which side will be more .. popular. He’s extremely fickle… and right now he’s somewhat miffed at Obama… but he’s no conservative.

Mew
traversecityconservative

That the Dems and the leftists still think they’re in charge. They had two years of un-checked power and now they are back in the real world again.
joayn

at her website. Highest, $198,500 to lowest, $99,996. The list is long and a mind-blower.

http://michellemalkin.com/2011/02/17/watch-wisconsin-part-iv-the-salary-info-big-labor-doesnt-want-you-to-see/
sieve70

For those of us that have voted for and backed Gov. Walker since he became Milwaukee County Executive in ’02, we are extremely proud of the work he is doing!

He has been in this fight since ’02 – balancing our local budget the only way possible with a liberally controlled county board – laying off workers and imposing forced furlow days for county workers among the only possible options to reduce the effects of these contracts on the budget…

Keep up the good fight Governor!
hoosierteacher

He was appointed by Reagan, and considers himself a republican. Enough so, in fact, that there have been rumours he has said to staff he’ll only retire under a republican.

He is very open to persuasion, perhaps because he has no real constitutional guiding theory (as in Strict Constructionism or Original Interpretation). There is a lot to what you say, and several expert watchers seem to think that it all comes down to who sweet talks him the best. Neither Thomas or Scalia were patient enough to sugar coat things, but Roberts and Alito seem to be better at it. So perhaps Kennedy’s voting record may improve. (He’s even changed positions on his own previous rulings in the past, but that was a few years ago).

Souter is off in his own world (but remains very liberal), and eccentric. Ginsberg (a former ACLU head atty) is strongly liberal, but also friendly enough to be poker buddies with Scalia (!). Sotomayor had a reputation coming into the court as a bully, and that won’t help the liberals with Kennedy. Kagen is a liberal, but I’ve seen worse. Stevens was the arch liberal before he passed away, and Ginsburg was close behind.

I hope all of the current justices hang in there until we get a republican in office, and I hope we don’t get a squish republican who only believes in one or two stool legs of conservatism when it goes down.
usadying

It’s always “sign our petition”. They get your e-mail address, and then flood your box with their crap. I wonder how many young people they recruit like that. You have to admit, their machine is 100 times better than ours.
http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

Really – what kind of example are they both setting?
dave72

As a third year resident, Patrick A McKenna, M.D., is apparently not licensed to practice outside his residency program. His unprofessional practicing medicine in the streets without maintaining proper medical records may give him trouble now and when he wants to get a license after finishing training. Anne Eglash MD, Hannah M Keevil MD, Lou Sanner MD, MSPH, and James H Shropshire MD should all be charged with unprofessional conduct and disciplined.

I suggest all you Walker supporters in Madison call these doctors Monday and tell them exactly what you think of them.
JadedByPolitics

is the linchpin that pulls apart their incessant demands on the local governments. It is the only way they will be able to pay what they can AFFORD in the future to get their budgets balanced. Plus for people like me to who find the unions a cabal of communists, it pulls apart their power and lets Conservatives keep their money in their own pockets and not in the coffers of Democrats!
dave72

How about publishing a list of all the teachers who took sick days this past week.
merryj1

All generalizations are worthless, of course, so bring your own grains of salt:

Many unions, by the 1940′s and 1950′s, were infiltrated by CPUSA, which pretty much had to move aside (or take a much lower profile) because of Joe McCarthy and his Senate committee and the House counterpart, HUAC.

By the late 1950′s – 1970′s, control at some level of (many) unions was in the hands of the Mob – really a better ‘deal’ for all concerned because mobsters are interested in making money (and creating “legit” job-openings for friends & relatives), and avoid tactics that will kill the golden goose, while communists are agenda and ideology-driven,

During the 1980′s – 1990′s, the feds’ O.C. squads were taking down the Mob “affiliates” in high union posts, and the commies seem to have moved back in. For my money, I’d rather pay union dues to Tony the Hat or Kip-out Louie, and have the commies in the penitentiary.
thurman

As this WI situation exploded the last few days, it’s become pretty clear that this will be the tipping point for public sector unions in general for our generation

With the recent election cycle and the exploding debt crisis (nationally and locally all over), the unions realize they have a big bullseye on them now and are making their last stand

And the DNC and Obama know this too, which is why they went all in from the outset last week

Walker has blown me away so far, I’m really impressed how he’s stood firm

Hopefully the shameless behavior of all the spoiled union brats will finally unmask them for what they are to the masses and independents for once and for all
sharonmcp

In addition to the video above, this link has 3 more videos of doctors writing sick notes, as well as the names of some of the doctors.

http://punditpress.blogspot.com/2011/02/physicians-betraying-their-oath-and_19.html

This link shows a picture of someone holding a sign that says,
“I’m A Doctor, Need A Note?

http://slapblog.com/?p=9693
Menlo

I would imagine the ability and willingness to fake notes would be a prerequisite for employment there.
thurman

I’m glad someone got their names

McKenna should be kicked out of his training program, period

I hope the WI state medical board and the AG take action on this

These teachers are perpetrating fraud by calling in sick– any doc abetting this is party to that fraud by falsifying medical records

I am glad the folks on the ground pursued this and got the names of these pieces of trash doing this
thurman

I’m glad someone got their names

McKenna should be kicked out of his training program, period

I hope the WI state medical board and the AG take action on this

These teachers are perpetrating fraud by calling in sick– any doc abetting this is party to that fraud by falsifying medical records

I am glad the folks on the ground pursued this and got the names of these pieces of trash doing this
Diogenes314

The downturn in the union movement began with the merger of the AFL-CIO with John Lewis in charge. Sam Gomphers’ American Federation of Labor was a collection of groups of skilled workers that combined to negotiate wages and working conditions. Lewis’ Congress of Industrialized Organizations, on the other hand, represented mostly unskilled labor (such as Lewis’ Mine workers) and their prefered tactics were strikes and intimidation. And as mentioned before, they were much more comfortable with communism than the AFL. The beginning of the end was when JFK paid off Big Labor for the 1960 election by giving collective bargaining power to government workers.
nilram

The Texas legislators fled to New Mexico not Oklahoma. I suspect Oklahoma would not have been as welcoming and New Mexico was at the time.
nilram

I really shouldn’t post when I’m tired.
JX12

…but Souter is off the court (succeeded by Sotomayor), and John Paul Stevens is – as of this writing – still very much alive (although retired).

As to being an arch-liberal, Breyer is right up there as well. He not only cites extra-constitutional sources for his rulings (international law, etc), he has unapologetically proclaimed in public speeches that it is good and right to do so.
Jack_Savage

Unbelievable.
http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

Maybe they will be allowed a few small face saving compromises. But here is what I have discovered in my life:

Then left wing will always give in if the right will just hang tough. The main problem I have had with the Rinos and the “Beltway, establishment” Republicans is not that they are not ideologically pure.

My problem is that they lack the will to fight, to hang tough, and to stay the course. How many times in the past thirty years have we seen Republicans go into negotiations with Dems having a strong hand and then end up getting rolled? Well seems to me it has happened a lot!
http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

I remember going to a union organizing meeting way back in the 1970′s and hearing the organizers quoting Marx. From each according to his means”" etc.

I was disgusted and left.
Jeff Weimer

In 2003, over a redistricting vote, they fled to OK.

In 2009, they went to NM over a voter ID bill.

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/02/19/flashback-democrats-go-un-democratic-when-they-lose-and-then-they-lose-some-more/
acat

And, please note, Upton Sinclair was not an accurate witness to history.

The reality is that unions were, especially in Chicago and Milwaukee, the home of eastern european anarchists. The original idea of the bomb-throwing anarchists came out of this movement.

They specifically targetted unskilled labor for recruitment in part because – at the time – unskilled labor was largely eastern european (so they spoke the language) and the disparity between the rich and poor was very much on display.

Since that time, and in part to hide their roots, unions have co-opted the image of trade guilds. There’s really no comparison, though. Unions organized unskilled or low-skilled labor, trade guilds specialized in high-skill crafts; clock-making, silverwork, trades that take a lifetime to master. Doesn’t take a lifetime to figure out how to lay bricks, or how to stun hogs for the slaughter.

I’m not interested in taking down unions out of some misguided jealousy – I’m interested in taking them down because they’re demanding more money when the rest of the country are in serious belt-tightening mode… and they show no sign of backing away from this behaviour.

Mew
Marcus_Traianus

Just don’t pay them or if for some reason the state is compelled to pay them, have them pick up the check at Walker’s paymaster on the legislature floor.

Anyway, the longer these cowards, err, Democrats stay away the worse this gets for them. Ever been on the road or out in the wilderness for a month or so? Lousy food, no family, strange surroundings. People picking up the phone saying “You’re the man!” rings hollow after a while.

To make things worse, these folks are shirking their responsibilities. They are deliberately avoiding a job they were elected to do because they don’t like what the boss is telling them. If that occurred in the real world, you would very quickly find yourself on the unemployment line.

If I am Walker, the next thing I would do after the chickens come home is work on a statute defining or refining legislative job-abandonment.
bobbishc

Can the state accumulate the doctors’ notes, total up the affected teachers’ salaries, and sue the issuing doctors for the amount? For example 500 notes issued by one doctor for 5 days of “illness” at an average of $40 per hour per teacher would be $800,000 (plus court costs). (Yes, I know I am assuming 8 hours of work per day, per teacher, and that is probably high /snark)
antisocial

Every day convinces me we are on the right track. The battle for heart and soul of America is being fought and won every day.

And yes – Scott Walker is my favorite Republican.
nick2000

Yes, unions can be really bad and actually hurt everybody’s interests (maybe especially the workers).
However, do we really want to go back to Steinbeck’s “The grapes of wrath”?
I would not call this the golden age of American.

Balance is always needed. To make a comparison, I keep hearing people who want the government to, basically, have absolute power to keep us safe from terrorists. Well, what about when you and the government disagree on who is a terrorist? Absolute power (or leverage) in one entity is always bad (which is why we have 3 branches).

Let’s not throw the baby with the bath water. We need to make sure we can limit excesses of bad unions as well as prevent a race to the bottom in wage and work conditions… unless you think that it cannot happen here for some strange reasons.

In any case, we could circumvent the specific issue here by “outsourcing” the staffing for the school I suppose.
WY_Cowboy

and know that if they show the courage that Scott Walker and the GOP Legislature in Wisconsin is showing, we will be there for them. We will show our support just like they did in WI.
joayn

Wisconsin is a pretty big deal. The notes, afterall, are to insure these “sick” workers get paid for their time off, not just to explaint their absence.
earlgrey

THat is what I am reading at Huffington Post.. I am going to pray that they aren’t successful.

The HCR cramdown was a bitter pill to swallow, but this will go down much worse.
Jeff Weimer

It’s not their “members” – they’re perfectly willing to throw them under the bus to keep the tongue attached to the self-licking ice-cream cone they’ve created with compulsory, government-garnished dues.

If they actually had to convince their rank and file to pay dues, you wouldn’t find them jetissoning the money in favor of the union’s power position quite this quick, now would you?
Next93

If there’s no record of an office visit, a note is worthless. If the doctor is willing to risk a charge if insurance fraud and/or tax fraud, let the gin up some fake receipts, as well
caboose

as the American Federal Government Employees Union (AFGE) are authorized by Presidential Executive Order and have limited collective bargaining power. Representating employees in the grievance procedure, and bargaining for some working conditions are among them. However, unlike the postals services government unions, they do not have bargaining rights to pay. That is the responsibility of the congress and POTUS. Oh yes, all US government unions , including those in the postal service are under the right to work US government laws and employees have the option of belonging to the union or telling it to go take a SHT because their face looks full. The union, However must give full representation to those who opt out. One last thing, I was in a federal government union, as an official, who has collective bargaining authority and only on two contract negotiations were the parties able to reach a contract settlement. However in case of impasse, the law required that binding arbitration be employed . The pay mostly from binding arbitration, went from $16,000.00 to$ 55,000.00 a year. Time to rein in the big U,s
acat

First, Grapes of Wrath is fiction. Second, the dust bowl was due to over-farming and a drought. No union cause, no anti-union cause.

Further, I’d like a cite for where you’re seeing – at Red State – people who want to give the government absolute power… I don’t recall seeing anyone here advocating that – in fact, our usual argument of late has been over how far to *cut* the federal government. Individual liberty, balanced with individual responsibility, is a pretty cool thing.

I’m not clear on what you mean by “outsourcing” the staffing for the school. Are you talking about outsourcing teaching, administration, maintenance?

The major problem I have with education is that the pay scale is upside-down – teachers earn significantly less than administrators…. That’s a justifiable ratio in the private sector, but .. does not make sense in education. It’s like having a medical practice where the billing and scheduling clerks make more than the physicians.

Mew
Next93

I’m planning to attend the next school board meeting in my area, and i’m going to call for every teacher who’s a union member and called in “sick” on Friday to be fired and loose retirement benefits for participating in an illegal work action. If they want to appeal, they can provide a receipt for an office visit dated either Thursday or Friday. Lets see how many doctors are willing to write a fake receipt that may end up getting copied to the insurance company, the department of revenue, or the IRS.
macbookben

for the entire legislature get on with the rest of the State’s business whether the ‘fugitives’ are present or not. I’m sure there are other legislative initiatives that will require proposing, debating, amending, voting, etc. One reason I dread the end of a long vacation is the enormous pile of work, emails, etc. awaiting me upon that first day back to work. Tough cookies for me if I’m not ready to get back into it. So, Wisconsin statehouse (what’s left of you, anyway), full steam ahead!
hoosierteacher

And of course, it was Rhenquist that passed on. Jan Crawford Greenburg would slap me silly if she saw how I butchered that entire paragraph.
hamilcar

I’ve started hearing reports of children of Republican legislators being ridiculed by teachers in front of their class. If I can get confirmation with names/schools I’ll write a Red State blog. While the teachers may view children of class enemies as fair game the vast majority of people will not. If we can document and publicize this could really discredit the teachers union.
nick2000

Yes the dust bowl forced the farmers out. However, the conditions they found in California where exactly the “union busting” forced by large interests who wanted to keep wages as low as possible (and lower them) by taking advantage of the cheap labor coming from the east. Reading the book will show exactly the examples of union and anti-union behavior. While it is fiction, it is firmly rooted in facts.

Anyway, yes, I meant to use private staffing for the school as an alternative (like what Ronald Reagan did to traffic control). However, the control should still stay in the hands of the local citizens (in short, public control). Yes, I agree that administrative costs are out of whack in many public institutions and maybe more so in schools. However, the private sector is certainly no role model. Corporations are even worse (think health insurance with crazy overheads). In fact, I believe that only small businesses can provide good role models.

The framers themselves warned against the power of the corporations (heck the monopoly on tea by the East India Tea company started it all for us!)
lineholder

Trying to press charges or prove that anything illegal has occurred simply on the basis of a doctor’s excuse would be difficult to do, because in many cases there aren’t laws in place that regulate this documentation.

And with a receipt, if it is stated the visit was paid in case, then who is going to follow through with it? The Unions could very well throw some money at these unscrupulous doctors to compensate for the visits.

Most outpatient facilities, including doctor’s offices, will use an encounter form as a means of recording patient data. This includes info about present illness and can even include info about ROS (review of systems) in situations where illness exists. This information is usually transposed from the encounter form to the billing record in the context of CPT and ICD-9 codes.

These two forms are legally part of the patient’s record. It usually requires that the doctor gains the consent of the patient to release this info. If they don’t have a consent on file and the doctor releases this info, the physician can found guilty of violating HIPAA.

The best chance of getting hold of these documents, if they truly exist, is through a subpoena duces tecum, which means filing a legal case first.
acat

and the Law of Supply and Demand is as fundamental as the Law of the Speed of Light. All the Okies pouring into Cali did was to increase supply, thus lowering prices. The rest was just as predictible as the light from the TV hitting my retina… Ugly, but predictible. Look also at conditions in NYC during the Irish potatoe famine.

I do agree that some salaries in large corporations are not .. rational .. but that’s the responsibility of the shareholders, who mostly just ignore their periodic “vote your shares” proxy docs (every 401k owner gets ‘em…) just as most people ignore politics until October. That doesn’t mean anything in this discussion, though – there’s a group of involved people, the local school board, who are involved, and are responsible for setting salaries. Or .. would be, if the unions weren’t involved.

The framers, for the record, warned against concentration of power in any one group, ignoring the nature of the group….

Mew
nilram

I was thinking about ’03 when I wrote that. ( I was very busy in ’09 and completely missed the ID bill).

It turns out we’re both right. The house members, the Killer D’s, fled to Oklahoma and the senate, the Texas Eleven fled to New Mexico.

I do remember Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico being very accommodating.
dajeeps

If I called in sick and showed up on the doorstep of my employer with a huge photoshop special of Hitler’s face morphed into his and shouting nasty things I would be fired – plain and simple. They should be fired as well. It’s one thing to have strong feelings about the issue, but it’s quite another to do what they’re doing on the peoples’ time. The need to grow up or be taught a lesson in responsibility.
sharonmcp

and what they can indoctrinate them with.

Picture from a post at Hot Air
walter_hanson

To those unions if you want your rights back do it like we have been forced to on healthcare. We’re going to have to kick out the House (Done!), the Senate, and President Obama to get our healthcare right.

If you’re right then you should have no problem doing that.

Oh you’re not right and that’s why the majority of the people are supporting the governor on this.

Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
nycenterright

Introductory salary for a teacher in upstate NY runs around 30-35k. I know 3 people who quit teaching and went to work as middle management at the local grocery store for the higher pay.
Raven

The nation can survive another 4 of Obama if we have men like Walker and Christie in the State Executive positions.
Raven

Before there is any reasonable expectation of IL to act.
…and even then it’s doubtful.
Raven

There are a few genuine cases of unions actually forcing good things to happen.
Not typically by peaceful, good means, mind. They are historically violent mobs, but in cases like those WV and PA miners, it was a justifiable and necessary violence.
Raven

would not exist without Christie’s example. He showed it is Possible. They grew spines and made it happen.

When Walker wins this one, he will have done more than Christie can ever hope to accomplish in NJ (but then, it Is NJ, after all). But without Christie’s example, he would not have tried.
Adjoran

That figure is “average total compensation” including all benefits, which for WI teachers is about $78,000, adjusted to convert their 190 day work year to the 240+ days the average private sector worker with benefits works per year.

Given that their contributions to benefits (6% of health insurance, none towards retirement guarantees) is currently well below national averages even for state workers, they are very well compensated, but not quite 100K for classroom teachers.
nycenterright

I don’t know a single teacher who only works 190 days per year. Also, I don’t really think it’s a good idea to include benefits. Teachers who don’t get sick all that often aren’t getting any (haha) benefit out of them.

I think it would be more accurate to say that people who have been teachers for a long time are WAY overcompensated, people who have been teachers for a short time are slightly undercompensated, and that is skewing the average (just as Bill Gates and I have a huge average net worth.) I wonder what the median teacher salary is?

Another thing to bear in mind is that approximately 50% of teachers quit within 5 years, so those retirement benefits aren’t costing the state anywhere near as much money as it might immediately appear.
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