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Massive Protests Threaten To Topple New Regime
This article originally appeared in The Daily Capitalist.
Thousands of protesters gathered outside government headquarters this week, ultimately seizing the legislature building on Friday and Saturday. Estimates ran as high as 68,000 people crammed into the main square. Sunday marked the sixth day of protests organized by labor unions and university students. Protesters shouted angrily and signs denouncing the regime were evident everywhere. On Saturday, a smaller pro-government group invaded the square, but thanks to the action of the state police, the two groups were kept apart and no violence resulted. The protesters had high praise for the police.
The regime was not deterred by the protesters' demands. Newly elected Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker refused to compromise his position against public service unions. "The protesters have every right to have their voices heard, but I'm not going to be intimidated into thinking I should ignore the voices of the five-and-a-half million taxpayers," he said.
Governor Walker and his majority Republican Wisconsin legislators would deprive public unions of collective bargaining rights:
Gov. Scott Walker proposed a bill that would close a projected $3.6 billion shortfall by forcing public employees to pay 5.8% of their salary toward their pensions and 12.6% of healthcare premiums, up from 6% on average. On top of that, Mr. Walker aims to cut many of the collective bargaining rights from union members, a move he says will prevent massive layoffs but which union members say will take away a basic human right.
In exchange, Mr. Walker has pledged no layoffs or furloughs for the state's 170,000 public employees. He has said 5,500 state jobs and 5,000 local jobs would be saved under his plan, which would save $30 million in the current budget and $300 million in the two-year budget that begins July 1.
It is no surprise that the unions are unhappy about this. They very quickly agreed to the pension reforms, but vehemently oppose the stripping away of collective bargaining rights. They know if they don't take a wage hit, the public backlash could be far worse for them in the future.
This has become a national issue. If Wisconsin succeeds in this time of state budget deficits, then other states will try the same thing. As a result unions are gearing up to aid the Wisconsin public service unions. Even President Obama is getting into the issue to shore up his union base. It is going to be very nasty.
Public employees are one the few "growth" areas for unions. In fact union membership has been drastically shrinking during the past 30 years:
In 2010, the union membership rate--the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union--was 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 percent a year earlier, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, and there were 17.7 million union workers.
Why is that? Unions have become irrelevant. Stroll down to any union hall and you will still hear rhetoric from the 1930s. Employers are still the bad guys and, according to them, but for the unions, wages would be at slave rates. Many workers now see with their own eyes that this isn't the case. Who needs 'em, they say. And they have a point. Real wages (adjusted for inflation) have risen steadily over the years.
Yet, according to Cato's Chris Edwards,
In 2010, 36 percent of state and local workers were members of unions, which is five times the union share in the US private sector. Yet prior to the 1960s, unions represented less than 15 percent of the state and local workforce.
Edwards notes that:
These differences in unionization between the states affect fiscal policy. Statistical studies find that unionized public sector workers earn a wage premium of about 10 percent over non-unionized public sector workers. This is important because employee compensation represents half of all state and local government spending.
Aside from inflated wages, public sector unions have pushed for excessive pension benefit levels, which are creating a fiscal crisis for many governments. That's another reason unions are so angry in Wisconsin: Governor Walker is demanding that state workers carry more of the burden for their health and pension plans.
Defined benefit pension plans are available to about four-fifths of state and local workers but just one-fifth of private workers. And public sector plans are typically about twice as generous as remaining private plans.
Unions serve no real purpose today other than to keep wages and benefits artificially higher than what the market has determined. Why have all new auto plants been opened in the South? To avoid the UAW.
It is simple economics. If labor costs are higher than the market determines they should be, after taking into account all other factors that make up production, then workers will be laid off or their compensation will be decreased. The "greedy capitalists" (derisively call "management" by the unions) aren't the culprits for wage pressure. It is ultimately the consumers of products who are the drivers of wages, not management. If "management" has a higher cost of production than their competitors, they will go out of business. Wages are an important factor of production.
Unions actually harm the economy. Artificially high wages were one of the factors that drove GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy.
[Unions] protect poorly performing workers, and they usually push for larger staffing levels than required. Unions typically discourage the use of inexpensive volunteers in government activities, and they create a more bureaucratic and inefficient workplace.
Further they prevent competition by urging union-supporting Congressmen to pass legislation to prevent free trade in order to protect less efficient U.S. industries and their workers. Ultimately higher prices are forced on consumers who have "voted" every time for lower cost goods.
Public service unions have a good deal. There are no consumers or competition with which to discipline their inefficient and wasteful labor practices. Their mostly Democratic supporters pass legislation that favor them and they let "tomorrow" take care of itself.
Unfortunately tomorrow has come for these union-friendly fiscally irresponsible states.
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OTOH Walker is sponsored by the Koch Bros. Whose company cut 25% of their workforce in Wisconsin. Which obviously didn't result in higher tax income for the state.
I fail to see how lowering the standard of education can be good for any developed country. Unless a pool of cheap labor ($1 a day wages) is the intended goal. To achieve that, first society has to be broken down though...
For those of you who wish to read a very good brief history of unions and unionism in America from an economics perspective, see: http://mises.org/daily/3553 You will be surprised.
Tax slaves arguing over how tight their chains should be.
Those that want democracy to prevail should accept the results and consequences of the last election.
Those that want transparantcy and fairness in government should stop abusing the process.
This is something that will be resolved politically by the people that have skin in the game.
Everyone that is screaming about "outside interests", "Koch brothers", "Organizing for America" being or having a role in the resolution of this political impasse is full of shit.
Sean Hannity and Jesse Jackson are both mugging this issue for their own purposes.
The world will not end just because some called in sick when they were not.
Democracy is not threatened because of the Governor's proposed legislation.
We will handle this.
Thanks for your interest.
Maybe if the US were in the top 5 (heck, even the top 10 would be nice!) in terms of global student performance, then many of these US teachers would be worth the money, even in this economic environment with a lot of qualified people currently un- or under-employed.
Instead, the New York Times calls America "shameful" (see the chart in "Equities Rising on 'Rivers of Blood'" at the top of this page).
All I know is, if I have lousy performance at work, then I'm well on my way to getting canned -- never mind getting great payraises & bennies.
Then again, I do work in the private sector....
Take it from a resident of a Right to Work State (Georgia). Labor has NO rights which has led to awful working conditions and low pay. I know the elites and corporatist are trying to pit private sector employees against their public sector brothers by constantly droning on the better working conditions and benefits that public sector employees enjoy. WELL, that is because they already gutted private sector protections and NOW they want labor to be divided so they can reduce public sector benefits to lower levels.
Bullshit to that.
Down with ELITES.
Maybe if the corrupt Unions agreed to keep their money in the corrupt Big Banks they could jointly agree on how to most efficiently destroy our Country...
Round 1 of he Class War: Buffett and Co. won.
Round 2 of the Class War the Egyptians (!) won. Who could have guessed?
Round 3 of the Class War: the unions have come back from the dead! Hey, Wisconsin. Corrupted from the top by payoffs and kickbacks (what else to explain the 7- figure pensions for 'administrators'?) the unions have been kicked to the gutter and left to rot. Stabbed with the harpoon they stir! Surprise: instead of Mad Max we have Woodstock! In the battle of Public Relations, the Republicans -- mindlessly aping Ronald Reagan's PATCO bust -- come off as un- American punishment fags.
The Republicans are overreaching, instead of creating jobs they are seen as eliminating them and doing so to benefit the Buffetts of the world.
BTW: Brent @ $108+. Oil price shock alert. The class war is gonna get serious, fast. Peak oil is real
sooner or later protestes will break out all over this lasnd of ours for one reason or another, the real question is will the selfishness win out over the true common good (as it has since 1962) eventually putting and end to liberty, or will liberty somehow prevail and the original USA survive.
The need for worker representation against abuse of employers is still very much in evidence. Unions were a very important part of America’s growth and prosperity as industries grew following WWI.
Unfortunately, special interest lobbyists and even gangsters gained control of union leadership selling out members, even to the interests of the employers. Other unions became socialist fronts and memberships dropped in protest.
None of this, however, is remotely connected to public service unions. They are in a class unto themselves in that their employers, politicians, consistently give into their demands because of their voting power.
In the case of Democrats, take a look at the delegates to the Democrat National Convention and you will see wave after wave of primarily public school teachers. To say that these public service unions deserve collective bargaining rights is to say that government deserves a ticket to blackmail the taxpayer into higher and higher tribute. Collective bargaining by a teachers union uses children as a wedge weapon to get higher and higher salaries and benefits (and for fewer hours' and years' worked) that go way beyond those of their communities.
When one of the teachers in the Wisconsin protests was asked what leaving his post to protest would mean to his students, he said, It would show them that it is important to stand up for what you believe. That’s true: it shows that what this teacher believes is that the skipping of work and the use of extortion can be good for your bank account.
By the way, the characterization of the supporters of the Republican stand on the Wisconsin bill is not anti-union; it is anti-government excess.
Correlating the conditions and collective “bargaining” actions of America’s teachers unions to those of the proud heritage of America’s organized labor movement that in the past benefited all American workers and set them apart from the slave plantation workers that Apple et al. now exploit in China is disappointing.
Public sector unions should be outlawed.
Basically, labor unions and Wall Street types are of the same cloth...greed gone wild.
But, I do believe that labor unions in the private sector serve a purpose.
HOWEVER, bust up the unions in the public sector. These groups are a disservice and an externality to a sovereign composed of, by, and for the people.
And if you say that public unions are needed to operate a state, then I say that there is no such thing as civil "service."
++
The greatest accomplishment of the unions is the never-ending PR campaign that teachers are grossly underpaid. We are to believe that teachers go home to the bare walls of their studio apartments and eat an open can of cold beans by the light of a lone bulb swinging from a frayed electrical cord.
Bust 'em all. And, let them recieve what they are worth.
How come when unions get together to plan bargaining strategy, it's okay, but if management does it, its "collusion"? This unlevel playing field destroys any sympathy I might have for the unions.
the fact of the matter is this gov. ran on ending collective bargaining for public unions and won. The voters and taxpayers have spoken. The striking teachers should be fired and the Dem. elected officials who ran should be recalled. No state can survive the scourge of public employee unions any longer.
Did Scott Walker run on "theft" of state assests and a transfer of public wealth to corporations as well?
That's what the little noticed and well hidden no-bid, no-review sale of state energy producing assets section is all about.
This is an attempt to directly screw state employees AND taxpayers.
On Sunday, economist Robert Kuttner wrote that "something important that was largely missing has been kindled. Popular protest against financial abuses, top-down class warfare, clueless Republicans, and misplaced austerity is finally in the air. The labor movement is leading, and even non-union Americans are realizing why organized labor is all about protecting the middle class generally."
What many ZHers don't understand is that the civil unrest they've been calling for (mostly from the right) is being led by public union employees (mostly left).
What is interesting to note is that Walker tried to buy-off what he thought were his right-wing/conservative Law Enforcement unions--the state police, local police and firefighters unions--that supported, him by making them not subject to the big changes in collective bargaining. (See below.)
The problem he has now is that the state police aren't doing much and many cop and firefighter locals have thrown in with the other public employees.
In fact he’s lost the support of the largest state-wide LE association representing the State Troopers.
Since there's been little to no violence (and only about 10 arrests over 7 days), the protestors are policing themselves, the cops are left directing traffic and sharing in the Brotherhood of Bratwurst.
[Walker's even losing/lost the state prison guards (largely conservative).]
His give-aways to his corporate owners, ginned-up budget crisis and heavy-handed tactics don't play.
This is the street level showdown many ZHers have called for.
They don't recognize it or support it because it didn't come from the side of the political spectrum they expected.
So much the Tea Party leading the fight against corporate cronyism and fiscal responsibility. They came down on the side of "theft". And even for all their millions pumped into a counter-rally, the Koch sponsored Tea Party country rally could only muster 1,000-3,500 pro-Walker supporters in the face of 70,000-80,000 anti-Walker protestors.
-------------------------------
State Troopers now feel betrayed. They know they're next.
http://www.wlea.org/
See message to Members from Executive Board
To – WLEA MembersFrom – WLEA Executive Board (Message 2)
The Governor’s proposal for modifying (or complete dismantling, depending on your viewpoint) the collective bargaining language for government employees contains more provisions that are intended to cost employees more in the long run.
When he was Candidate Walker, he never talked publicly about union dismantling during the campaign. As Governor Elect Walker, he brought the subject up publicly during a luncheon at the Milwaukee Press Club on December 7, 2010. It was reported in many papers across the state. His anti-union stance wasn’t a surprise, but the introduction of this radical change caught many people off guard, including people who actually voted for him during the election. http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/111463779.html
"This is the street level showdown many ZHers have called for. They don't recognize it or support it because it didn't come from the side of the political spectrum they expected."
Excellent point.
However: how could it have come from the other side of the spectrum? Was there ever a serious chance of that? I mean, we have the Tea Party, but it has failed to generate mass support. And how could it generate mass support when its main themes have so little to do with the problems encountered by the great majority of Americans? "Taxed Enough Already". Big deal. The majority of people feeling the pain are not in trouble because of high taxes. Most people just want a freaking job at decent pay -- the kind of salary on which you pay substantial taxes! Most people would LOVE to make enough money to be in a position to start feeling the pinch of "high taxes". Complaining about high taxes is largely an upper-middle-class hobby to which rank and file Americans cannot relate.
If the "street level showdown" came from "the other side of the spectrum", what would it look like? The "other siders" showing up in their BMWs and (impressively) demanding lower taxes on their $200K incomes?
The Koch Bros. have as much to do with the real spirit of the Tea Party Movement as Ron Paul has to do with the corporatism (a government protection I might add) that the public employees unions attempt to relate themselves to in opposition. They have no such relationship in opposition. What they oppose is the primacy of the taxpayers' interests; they prefer their special interests. Imagine that. The spoils system is probably cheaper in the long run and probably less of a political football.
Having worked in management for periods of my career, I have had to sit across the table from many "union voices"... they are a pain in the ass.
Unions serve a necessary purpose, NOW more so than ever, given the consolidation of wealth and power in our country.
Unions are extremely inefficient, but given the current alternatives, I'd prefer to deal with the unions........
Unions came into being because of "managerial decisions" that lead to incidents like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, and the lack of any government regulations and enforcement that prevented those types of abuses. That is what we are heading back to if we continue with the deregulation and union busting.
All of the teachers, police, firefighters & gov. workers who called in "sick" and can be proved, through video, to have been at the protests during work days should be immediately fired. Period. No hearing or review. Immediately fired.
Personally, as a conservative Catholic, I believe the Catholic Bishops {not priest, Bishops} have a grave moral burden to speak. Specifically to make clear the grave moral hypocricy of those teachers who are also Catholics that have over the years remaind silent and at home when it came to abortion yet are now protesting. They should make specific note of those teachers who use their position to influence children on this topic.
The fact is that falsehoods regarding Catholic Church social justice teachings are used by politicians, priests, nuns, etc. to claim rights of man that are simply immoral lies.
For the record, and to ensure no confusion, this situation is completely different than private person/private company situations. If works want to join unions/collective bargaining to negotiate with a private company, so be it.
But, it is an ethical and moral conflict of interest to have gov. worker unions when government grows to sufficient size that the workers in effect gain a greater than "one man one vote" impact upon elections and can hold the people of the state hostage to the desires of the gov. workers.
What should happen is that the contract of employment for all gov. worker positions be publically available and require a 2/3 approval of the electorate.
For those of you who think "privacy" is being violated by making such contracts public, then you are ignorant in the extreme. For pay/"employment contract" of every member of the military is publically available. And by the way, any member of the military who engaged in the lying behavior these WI teachers are behaving would rightly be punished under the UCMJ; most likely be reduced one pay grade and fined one month of pay.
The bottom line fact is the teachers who are not sick but called in sick to protest, are liars who are not deserving of the privledge to be teachers.
I hope the gov. of WI finds the guts to call for a Saturday day of protest against these teachers. I think he and the teachers would be very surprised by what occurs.
Centurion
Good call.
Kayman
Hand wave. Back of the room. "I second the emotion."
J.R.
"Specifically to make clear the grave moral hypocricy of those teachers who are also Catholics that have over the years remaind silent and at home when it came to abortion yet are now protesting."
Your trying to link teacher's unions to abortions!!!!!!!
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes" Thomas Jefferson.......
as a conservative catholic, what do you think should be done about all the child fucking that goes on in the priesthood?
Leave it to a "conservative catholic" to think throwing people in the street for missing a day of work to fight for their rights is a proportionate response...
rational.
i keep reading and cannot find the RIGHT to collective bargaining. Would you mind posting a link to that RIGHT?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights
See article 23 Ben
Maybe they should take vacation days. I am in complete disagreement with this article. Without unions, we'd all be slaves to big business. Wait...
It isn't a right. Also, those jokers are public employees and they serve at the pleasure of the voters, whom they have tried to manipulate - a focused, special interest placing politicians, who will serve their ends, for their own political command, control and accounts. Conflict of interest, bitchez! These aren't legitimate trade unions, which actually do serve a valid purpose. Count the percentages of public employee and NEA flacks on the floor of the previous D-Party national conventions. They also own a fair number of R-Party legislators I might add. Been there, done that.
Why is that? Unions have become irrelevant. Stroll down to any union hall and you will still hear rhetoric from the 1930s
I'm sure you stroll through a lot of union halls...just making it up as you go along I guess...
Unions serve no real purpose today other than to keep wages and benefits artificially higher than what the market has determined
A market consists of a buyer "management" and a seller "labor". Unions negotiating a wage for their labor is no different than an investment banker negotiating his bonus. Union members see collective bargaining as a way to set off the advantages of the collective on the other side of the table - management.
Unions actually harm the economy. Artificially high wages were one of the factors that drove GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy
Unions and management went hand-in-hand to creating not "artificially" (whatever that means) high wages, but unsustainable benefits. Management knew they could collect their "artificially" high bonuses and leave the mess for the next guy.
It is uncontrovertibly true that jobs and are being exported to low-wage regimes and that has severly sapped the power of unions - although events like the wave of chinese suicides show the limits of "the market" in exploiting labor. Public sector jobs obviously cannot be exported so labor retains more leverage.
The need to organize is demonstrated by the penchant for right-wing union-busting without negotiation on the one-hand, while awarding budget-busting tax breaks to cronies on the other.
I am a recovering member of Local 400, Grocery Workers Union. Yes they still talk the same way they did in '45 when they bricked my mom for brininging Grandfather his lunch during the telephone strikes. She was 15 YO.
Union leaders are the slave traders of modern times disallowing the slave to bargin for his/her own worth. Disallowing dessent within the ranks. using balckmail as a bargaining tool. Holding monopoly over the hiring process.
Do you seriously beleive I should have been paid $21 per hour to scan your groceries and have a $15 per hour guy stuffing in bags?
Get outta here with your public jobs can't be exported. Someone in India could do a more accurate job of data entry than half the 'diots at the DMV/water authority/parking controll.....
You gotta come at it with more than this to pry a greater % of my work than 42% outta my hand.
My apologies to my nephews that I'm not a higher wage earner. Stuff happens in life.
++
Hey rational,
The Chinese icrap making factory owners solved the suicide problem with the slave wage workers...
The put metal netting over the windows so they couldn't throw themselves to their deaths...
Not because they cared...it was making for bad publicity.
Obviously they don't care, neither did 19th century capitalists in the west, that's how we got unions...
But I think there is even more to the story than your detailed anaylsis reveals, although you may have to consider the source:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/wage-inflation-rampant-china-more-provi...
Companies are forced to bargain with unions by law. In non-right to work states, workers are forced to be members of unions. Look, if workers want to willingly join a union, fine. Just don't force anyone to deal with them if they don't want to. Current law equals union coercion. Simple fact.
You're a corporate stooge.
This so-called budget repair bill has a hidden element other than union busting.
It has a little notice provision to sell-off state assets in no-bid deals with corporaions.
A pay-off to Walker's corporate masters.
Little wonder he tried to ram it through with virtually no time to read it or comment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/21/scott-walker-wisconsin-budget-p...
While there has been significant attention devoted to the fact that Walker's 144-page budget repair bill would strip away collective bargaining rights for public employees, a less noticed provision that would allow the state to sell or contract out any state-owned energy asset in no-bid deals with private corporations.
It's unclear what "the best interest of the state" is.
But if this deal goes through, one of the companies that could stand to benefit significantly is Koch Industries. Koch already has several companies in the state, including a coal subsidiary, timber plants and a large network of pipelines.
During the 2010 election cycle, Walker received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC, his second-largest contribution. The PAC also gave significantly to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn helped out Walker considerably in his race. Koch also contributed $6,500 to support 16 Republican legislative candidates in the state.
The Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity has also been standing with Walker throughout his budget battles, busing in Tea Party activists and launching the site, Stand With Walker. After the election, Walker and other Republican governors received guidance from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that is also funded by Koch dollars and has pushed anti-union measures.
Cass Sunstein,
You dirty motherfucker!!! I can't stand see you bounce around this website. You have HuffPost, you have MoveOn....just stay there.
Leave the rest of us alone.
Agreed.
Unions are not "actually damaging the economy". A country is not only a sum of (short term) profit, it's an interconnected web of different interests and market forces, balancing each other out. Take out one group (workers) and you have an imbalance, that, left unchecked, will floor the whole giant.
Perhaps you'd like to comment why FDR, that great champion of the people, outlawed public sector unions during the Great Depression? (Declaring, I believe, that their goals were 'incompatible' with those of America.) Failing that, perhaps you'd like to address the overtly Communist roots of the union movement? Or maybe that the Ff#$^&*( President's 'Organizing for America' was materially behind the protests in WI?
Can you really claim with a straight face that unions are not, at the least, Socialist? Or perhaps you have another word for redistribution?
"Can you really claim with a straight face that unions are not, at the least, Socialist?"
Do you own a dictionary? Ever use it?
I imagine FDR outlawed unions for the same reason he outlawed lots of free-market activities - because they conflicted with the virtual command economy he inflicted on the US during his disastrous tenure.
A Government Employee Union is a "free-market activity" ?
Let's see this again:
On one side of the table is a politician (who receives a government check). On the other side is a government employee who receives a government check.
Oh... yeah the money for the checks comes from the taxpayer at the point of a gun. Some free market !
@ Kayman:
If only we could privatize breathable air, the world would be perfect, eh?
IE At the risk of being labelled a 'heretic' (or misnomed a Stalinist) some things shouldn't be left to the 'free market'. If you weren't so thick you'd realize that the reason the US is as effed as it is is because it's leaders were bought and paid for in the 'free market of talking heads'.
Are you learning yet? Nm, I didn't think it was likely anyway.
Priceless!
@pslater
I too have another word for redistribution, I call it "dumbass". It's defined as you 'redistributing' what meagre wealth you have left to a handful of plutocrats while they goad you on as you try to eat your neighbours.
Guess who's laughing (hint: it's not you, dumbass)
Yeah, I have another word, or rather phrase, for redistribution:
Scott Walker's attempt to sell-off state wealth producing assets to his corporate owners with no-bid and no review.
How's that?
That's NOT redistribution, that's called "trickle down economics"! <snark>
Corporate stooge. Hey, thanks flattrader, I kind of like that.
No prob.
By alll means, if the shoe fits...
So, how do you feel about the "theft" element? The transfer of state wealth producing assets to corporations with no-bid and no-review?
[There are some who believe that THAT was the real point of the bill. That the "union-busting" was a smoke screen to deflect attention given the fast tracking of the legislaion. At least we know what the false flag operations will look like. They can now tear this page out of the playbook since it isn't working.]