Thread: Anti-Union Bill Set to Pass In Wisconsin; Massive Protests Move Into Day 3

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

I don't understand how some people fight tooth and nail for some groups of people to have every constitutional right --- corporations, but then have no compunction about limiting the rights of other groups of people --- unions. Corporations and unions are a 2 headed coin, both are manifestations of groups of people sharing a common purpose.

Good points. Private sector unions make sense and should be protected by law.

Public sector unions are different though. Because paying for public services is mandatory, that changes the nature of the market.

Originally Posted by Jason Marcel

And having a public job shouldn't mean you need to carry the load in bad times more than other jobs that have public unions.

I'm not all that familiar with Wisconsin state politics but I have a difficult time believing public employees are actually carrying the load.

Originally Posted by Donahue

Finding a public job shouldn't mean you're set for life no matter the economy.

Some of the laziest and most self-entitled workers I've ever witnessed work for the NYCTA.. railroad workers in particular. They really are set for life, and because of that, they don't actually need to do any work. One guy told me that the only way to get fired was to start a fight, or get caught using drugs. Other than that, they could sleep all day, watch movies, lift weights, etc.. They even had little living rooms set up in the shops, with old couches and TVs, fish tanks, coffee tables, etc.. They sit around for about 6 hours for every 8 hour shift, paid by the taxpayers (and ticket revenues, also paid by the public).

Personally, I think total compensation for all public employees should be straight salary, straight forward, up front, and voted on by the public.

Not a bad idea.

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

I don't understand how some people fight tooth and nail for some groups of people to have every constitutional right --- corporations, but then have no compunction about limiting the rights of other groups of people --- unions. Corporations and unions are a 2 headed coin, both are manifestations of groups of people sharing a common purpose. You can't restrict the rights of one and let the other have free reign and maintain a consistent position.

I would say the legislation is unconstitutional. The government can't forbid people from negotiating for pay increases beyond a threshhold.

If its determined that the rights of groups of people can be restricted, then say bye-bye to corporate executive pay insanity and corporate political money.

While extremely heavy handed and partisan, I don't see a particular section in the ABC News article that actually suggests rights are being infringed upon. ABC seems to be saying state employees will pay into their pension and benefits while being unable to seek salary increases beyond the CPI. In return they're guaranteed no layoffs or furloughs.

That seems pretty reasonable to me. Which rights are being denied here?

Originally Posted by Occam's Razor

I guess this is another issue I lean conservative on. I think public employees should be at the mercy of taxpayers.

If you're a private sector employee, you should have the right to collectively bargain.

If you're a public sector employee, you shouldn't have the ability to hold my tax money for ransom.

Where we all lean individually is beside the point.

The law is that public employees do have the right to collectively bargain, and you can't just pass a law and expect to have it held up when you go about discriminating one group.

The Wisconsin gov't wishes to force one collective bargaining group to be bound by new legislation while other groups remain bound by already established laws.

The country is not in the mess that it's in because of teachers unions, it's in a mess because of power grabs like this by Republicans who are very clear about their intention to redistribute wealth from the bottom to the top.

http://www.revenue.wi.gov/ra/CorpInc...ax20100714.pdf

Look at the bottom of page 21/top of page 22 of the most recent Department of Revenue statistic in Wisconsin regarding corporate tax revenue in the state. Over the last 30 years, as a share of "general purpose revenue", corporate tax revenue has gone down by half, from 10.4% of general revenue in 1980 to 5.2% last year.

Two-thirds of Wisconsin corporations effectively pay no taxes.

Improvements sure can be made in regards to education, but the Wisconsin bill is supposed to be addressing budget concerns, not the rights of public unions to exist or not exist or to be subject to the whims of a vengeful Republican Governor who is laying a smack down on the one public union that didn't endorse him.

Originally Posted by Jason Marcel

Wisconsin Senate to Vote on Anti-Union Bill - ABC News

Footage of the Wisconsin protests;

YouTube - Massive crowd protests at State Capitol on Wednesday

YouTube - MSNBC: 30,000 In Madison Protest Gov. Walker's Union Busting (Feb 16, 2011)

The most significant budget cut fight among budget cut fights in America today is playing out in Wisconsin, where a bill before the senate meant to cut costs has brought the state capitol to a stand-still because of an amendment in the bill that takes away the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

In the budget cuts, state workers are being asked to pay higher health care costs while being required to pay more for their pensions. Those are cost-cutting measures worthy of a discussion between employees and those managing them, but it's brand new Governor would prefer to not have to even deal with them. Ever.

Protesters numbered between 12 to 15,000 on Tuesday; those numbers swelled to upwards of 30,000 yesterday; meanwhile, schools in Madison, the state's capitol, will be closed today because of the massive union walkout. Yesterday, protesters stormed the capitol and held a rally inside. The numbers are expected to swell some more today as the state senate is about ready to vote on the legislation.

Budget cuts are one thing; taking away the negotiating rights of employees is another.

Fire them all.. then let them bitch and moan while on unemploymnet.

There are MILLIONS looking for work, and these people should be ahppy to even have a job...

Originally Posted by Jason Marcel

Where we all lean individually is beside the point.

The law is that public employees do have the right to collectively bargain, and you can't just pass a law and expect to have it held up when you go about discriminating one group.

The Wisconsin gov't wishes to force one collective bargaining group to be bound by new legislation while other groups remain bound by already established laws.

The country is not in the mess that it's in because of teachers unions, it's in a mess because of power grabs like this by Republicans who are very clear about their intention to redistribute wealth from the bottom to the top.

http://www.revenue.wi.gov/ra/CorpInc...ax20100714.pdf

Look at the bottom of page 21/top of page 22 of the most recent Department of Revenue statistic in Wisconsin regarding corporate tax revenue in the state. Over the last 30 years, as a share of "general purpose revenue", corporate tax revenue has gone down by half, from 10.4% of general revenue in 1980 to 5.2% last year.

Two-thirds of Wisconsin corporations effectively pay no taxes.

Improvements sure can be made in regards to education, but the Wisconsin bill is supposed to be addressing budget concerns, not the rights of public unions to exist or not exist or to be subject to the whims of a vengeful Republican Governor who is laying a smack down on the one public union that didn't endorse.

I'm not suggesting that this move will fix Wisconsin's fiscal issues. I agree that the governor might just be supporting this for a petty reason as well.

If Wisconsin law protects public unions and the legislature wants to pass a law that differentiates in treatment between public ones and private ones, that's not unconstitutional. Your source of employment is not a protected class.

Federal discrimination laws only apply to gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation.

I side with the idea of restricting public unions on principle, because the public market is different from a private one. When consumers don't have a choice as to whether they can pay for something or not, the rules have to be different from ones governing the open market.

Originally Posted by CSA

Fire them all.. then let them bitch and moan while on unemploymnet.

There are MILLIONS looking for work, and these people should be ahppy to even have a job...

Proponents of these unions are ignoring the fact that labor doesn't always get what it wants in negotiations but that doesn't mean negotiations don't exist. New York State is being held hostage by teachers and administrators with ridiculous salaries, benefits, and pension plans but those ridiculous salaries, benefits, and pension plans caused our youth to go to school for education and we now have a surplus of fully qualified and certified unemployed teachers willing to do th work for a fraction of the cost.

This highlights the underlying problem with public employment.

A surplus in talent in a given private sector field would cause salaries to fall until that surplus disappeared. The public sector artificially keeps salaries disproportionately high regardless of supply and demand.

"It would end collective bargaining for state, county and local workers, except for police, firefighters and the state patrol."

There's no other way to interpret that combined with the fact that only a public referendum could allow them to have raises. Would it be on every ballot or just special ballots? Would it be voted on every year or whenever politicians feel like it?

You can't discriminate against one group and let all the others be allowed to operate under existing laws like this, it's completely ludicrous. The state senate can pass it and the Governor can sign off on it, but it'll never stand up in the courts.

Originally Posted by Jason Marcel

"It would end collective bargaining for state, county and local workers, except for police, firefighters and the state patrol."

There's no other way to interpret that combined with the fact that only a public referendum could allow them to have raises. Would it be on every ballot or just special ballots? Would it be voted on every year or whenever politicians feel like it?

You can't discriminate against one group and let all the others be allowed to operate under existing laws like this, it's completely ludicrous. The state senate can pass it and the Governor can sign off on it, but it'll never stand up in the courts.

I'm not so sure of that. Again, the rules are different with government. A law that treats one industry a certain way vs. all other industries probably wouldn't hold up in court, but when it comes to regulating organs of government, there's a general understanding that the government has more flexibility in doing what it pleases.

Some government employees have always been more regulated than others. Some enjoy far more benefits than others. Again, if the legislature was more consistent in its application of these regulations, they would seem less petty about it, but as far as I can tell, there's nothing illegal about this.

Originally Posted by Occam's Razor

I'm not suggesting that this move will fix Wisconsin's fiscal issues. I agree that the governor might just be supporting this for a petty reason as well.

If Wisconsin law protects public unions and the legislature wants to pass a law that differentiates in treatment between public ones and private ones, that's not unconstitutional. Your source of employment is not a protected class.

Federal discrimination laws only apply to gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation.

I side with the idea of restricting public unions on principle, because the public market is different from a private one. When consumers don't have a choice as to whether they can pay for something or not, the rules have to be different from ones governing the open market.

I completely disagree. The people who teach, keep us secure and put out fires are groups are all public oriented groups that deserve to be on the same level with each other.

If you're going to take away the teachers union ability to even negotiate pay increases, but you're going to let police and firefighters have that right, you're clearly discriminating one group and favoring others while all of those jobs are public jobs.

If only public referendums can determine whether teachers get a pay increase, than it should be the same with all public sector jobs.

We're either pissing in the same pool here or we're not.

But the bigger picture narrative here is about an ideology that clearly wants to take away from the bottom and give to the top.

Originally Posted by Jason Marcel

There's no other way to interpret that combined with the fact that only a public referendum could allow them to have raises.

The very article you cited specifically says it would only go to a public referendum if unions seek pay increases above the CPI.

Originally Posted by Jason Marcel

But the bigger picture narrative here is about an ideology that clearly wants to take away from the bottom and give to the top.

From my point of view, this is more about union employees getting far, far more than they deserve, on our tax dollars.