So I don't know how many of you are aware of what's been going on in Wisconsin since it elected its new governor, Scott Walker (R), last fall.

First, he killed a proposed high-speed rail line between Madison to Milwaukee that would have been a part connecting Chicago to Minneapolis. He said, "No" to Pres. Obama, and returned $810million dollars of federal funds (but he's spending $2billion dollars to improve the I-94 corridor between Milwaukee & Chicago....?)

Secondly, he's proposing legislation that would essentially destroy state workers' unions (exempt are police & firefighters, go figure...). Yesterday, more than 10,000 protesters gathered at the capitol, including firefighters who are protesting in solidarity.

Today, the Madison public school district is closed because over 40% of the teachers called in sick, in order to protest!

This reminds me of how Madison was in the 70s toward the end of the Vietnam war. While I'm not overly political, I'm really inspired by what's going on.

Finally, the governor's readied the National Guard, just in case.... Stay tuned!

As a child of a union worker, the the spouse of a teacher, I have been following this story very closely. I have some friends and family up in Madison, too. So, yeah, I will be watching.
Thanks for the heads-up, though, Mo.

EDIT:
And, apparently a few current and former GB Packers are marching in solidarity, as well.

From yesterday:

The NFLPA also released a statement in support of the AFL-CIO. "The NFL Players Association will always support efforts protecting a worker's right to join a union and collectively bargain. Today, the NFLPA stands in solidarity with its organized labor brothers and sisters in Wisconsin," the statement said.

How cool is that?

They already did the same thing here. Basically took away their funding mechanisms, but exempted the groups they "like" ala State Troopers and Fire Fighters.

Good luck. If there's a big enough majority in the house and senate - kiss it all good bye.

But my favorite is Florida's new governor who proposes closing their $3.6bn funding shortfall by cutting $3.3bn from education.

Yeah, this is some bullshit. I think the middle class (and folks in general) are just fucking fed up with this type of shit while they ignore the giant elephant money suckers in the room (defense/medicaid, et al).

Good to see some democracy in action. Now, actually affecting change is a whole other story.


Around here the big story (besides massive economic issues) is the Sunday alcohol sales issue. Looked like it was on the fast track and now the Christian Conservatives are flexing their muscles again and it may die.....AGAIN. Sometimes I'm embarrassed by this state.

I still mourn the loss of popular support for unions in general so I have been quite pleased to see this. The big shame to me is that while it is all well and good to support the white collar unions, which I do, the people who really need unions in today's world are service industry workers who are left out in the cold and the blue collar unions power continues to diminish.

I like to pick my unions support group by group. State workers in the WI capitol: aces. The lazy fucks who control elevator installs in Mass? Worthless greedy shills. They fucking denied us using the new elevator in my const project here, unless we paid 2 operators 8 hours each a day to "run" the elevator, at $400 an hour. As in, push the button. So we craned everything up over the railing. Unions shoot themselves in the face with that bullshit. Meanwhile, good decent hard-working underpaid people at the DNR in WI can't even bargain for their salary...? so dumb.

Well, for me, it is the attitude taken when people complain about....but this unions gets this..or that unions gets that... Yes, they do. That's what's good about unions. If more people were in them and more people supported them and didn't cross lines and all that, we might get to a place where instead of bitching because someone else has good working conditions and pay, we all could. Instead, I hear way too much of people instead of seeing a union worker and saying..."hey, I deserve those rights too...maybe this thing where people unionize and are able to make real demands isn't so bad"...instead saying "well my job sucks too and I get no say and feel totally powerless...why should he have it better?" We're far too quick to take the easy route of tearing others down instead of lifting everyone up.

I don't know anything about the legislation the governor is proposing but if the Unions hadn't gotten greedy and pressured state and local governments to increase their pension benefits or the governments had the wisdom and balls to say "no" than we wouldn't find ourselves in the pickle that we're in. There's good reason for the anti-public union backlash. Public Pensions are underfunded by $3.2 trillion and as a result pension costs are crowding out other programs. Former Mayor Richard Riordan predicted in a Wall Street Journal op ed during the summer that Los Angeles would be forced to file for bankruptcy by the year 2014.

I'm kind of torn or not sure where I come down on this.

First, I don't know the details of Wisconsin's budget so I can't really have an opinion on this issue. However, generally, states are getting crushed right now with budget shortfalls. And there doesn't seem to be many easy answers or good solutions for most states. However, it seems a lot of states (Louisiana included) under republican governors are really just robbing peter to pay paul. And a lot of it looks to be political posturing to build a reputation as a "tough fiscal administrator." Very similar to what DA's to do appear tough on crime regardless of if any of their stances actually work.

The High-speed rail issue still irks the shit out of me.

This again reminds me of how much I hate politicians.

here's a solution from a Republican out of Georgia

http://www.lawmemo.com/blog/2011/02/defund_nlrb.html

Yes, but you should't lay blame for underfunding of pensions at the feet of the unions. The contracts were agreed to by both sides, and the government, by choosing to not invest enough to cover existing contracts, is solely to blame for the deficit.

the cheeseburgersocietystate is going nuts. cool. but honestly, this is kind of interesting for me because nobody would bring it up the news here.

It's not an issue of the government underinvesting. It's a matter of benefits being far too generous. In California, a public employee can retire at age 50 after 20 years of service and receive 85% (90% if a police officer or fire fighter) of their highest annual income for the rest of their life. That's crazy and far more than anyone in the private sector gets. When those benefits were negotiated, the stock market was at an all-time high, real estate investments had gone up year over year for as long as anyone could remember, and private equity funds were making IRR's of 20-30%, and the pension funds on paper could fund all the benefits. Do I blame the government for agreeing to those benefits? Absolutely. If you re-read my post up above, you will see that I did. The government negotiators should have known better than to assume that their investments could only go up but its the taxpayer that is left holding the bag. It's unsustainable. I'm all for the city of Los Angeles declaring bankruptcy to get out of those pension contracts. The Unions certainly aren't going to be civic minded and give up any benefits when they don't have to.

The same story is playing itself out all over the country. I'm not saying the Unions are solely to blame. They just aren't a very sympathetic character to me.

The pensions and benefits seem little lavish to me, (as someone who has to save to fund my own retirement). There should be guidelines implemented to prevent double dipping. Employees that are fired for fraud and stealing still collect, how messed up is that? The contracts may have been agreed to by both sides, but they are clearly lopsided towards the unions now and the programs are doomed to suffer for it, which will ultimately hurt both sides and push them into extinction.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110217/ap_ ... get_unions

Aww. I've lost more than $5k a year- and I'm only working part time, with no benefits and no health insurance. Sounds like some people will have to tighten the belts like a lot of us already have.

High speed rail

what kind of crazy country would try high speed rail amirite

unions are for lazy people.

San Diego could have filed a couple years ago!

This makes sense if it's 1902 and we're in the meat packing industry. It does not make sense when

- Union labor costs 1.5x what non-union labor does, and I don't mean "bussin' in the messicans"
- Unions can no longer demonstrate a tangible quality difference for that extra money
- Unions use smear tactics and stunts to get what they don't want to compete for

I say all this on the tail end of an $80M project where I watched (for example) the racking installation bids from unions come in at $1.5M, and from non-unions between $400k and $550k. Identical work, no engineer needed, just installation. Where the elevator union pulled the stunt above... trying to squeeze us for $6,400 a day for two fat dudes to stand there in the elevator and hit the buttons. These aren't anecdotes or vague impressions, I saw this shit. We used a mix of union / non because if we didn't, they'd pull out the rat costume and go to every paper screaming that we hate local families.

So when the balance of power is even, as it is today (as opposed to one hundred years ago), and in whatever industry you're talking about the owners don't have the ability to abuse workers (probably because at one point in years past they unionized), I do not feel as much sympathy. In the case of WI government employees, however, I do. He didn't ask for mild concessions or call for talks, he said "fuck you" and called in the troops. Madison has a long, colorful history of looking people like that in the eye and giving the middle finger right back.

I don't know about Wisconsin, but in Michigan no employee hired after 1997 receives a pension. Newer employees are strictly 401k, however they do get a fairly good employer contribution - up to 7% of pay. A 401k match does not create any future debt, obviously.

The current budget problems are due to obligations created decades ago, and a well-funded retirement system should be able to ride out any market bubbles or crashes. Unfortunately, in most states these long-term funds have been among the first to be raided when times got tough, resulting in the current pension crises.

According to some studies, Michigan state government employees on average are paid at or below private sector levels. Government employees usually have a better than average healthcare, but do not receive common private sector perks such as stock options, profit sharing, or unexpected bonuses or payouts. It's a trade-off.

I agree with you here - in some ways, it's a tale of two unions. I think a group of employees, already employed by a company or government entity, should have the ability to negotiate en masse. For instance, I would LOVE to see Wal-mart employees unionize. Trade unions such as your elevator guys or plumbers or electricians I don't really understand - to me it makes sense to let the open market dictate reimbursement.

However, the balance of power today is only even BECAUSE of union pressures. Your faith in corporate noblesse oblige is overly optimistic. I think most corporations would revert to 6 hour workweeks and child labor if they could - in fact they probably still do, overseas. Just look at the growing gulf between the average middle class salary and the CEO.