As I mentioned before I am not a republican, but what I have here is a different way of looking at the mess that is going on in Wisconsin. One that I don't think has been raised on this thread. It also is some facts that have conveniently been omitted. Many of the states are in a mess as far as their finances are concerned and the fiscal conservatives are trying to stave off a colapse of the system since bnkruptcy is not allowed(yet). If and when it is, all contracts are on the table to be renegotiated. Spending cuts have to be taken. And sometimes the bigger the spending the greater the fall. At any rate here is a different way of looking at it. Lets try and be gentlemen and discuss it. Leave the vitriol out.Having said that, have at it.
How did Governor Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans use a procedural tactic to pass their bill. Instead of passing the original spending bill that included the changes for government union employees, the Republicans proposed a separate bill solely dealing with the union issue. Why was that? Because the Senate needed a quorum in order to vote on
spending bills ... but they don't on other issues. So they created a separate bill and .. tada! .. it passes. So this has some all upset.
These government employee unions have been using their political power coupled with their collective bargaining rights to brutalize the taxpayers for far too long. Is Wisconsin now an anomaly? Hardly. Government workers have collective bargaining rights in about 30 states. In some states collective bargaining was actually banned by law ... Virginia and Texas. Interestingly enough, a Democrat Governor killed off collective bargaining rights in Virginia. Funny how the media isn't mentioning that. In addition, several more states are considering ending collective bargaining for government workers.
Here's a rundown from Reuters:
<CENTER><TABLE border=1 cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=3 width="80%"><COLGROUP><COL width=256><TBODY><TR><TD width="100%">* OHIO: Ohio's bill goes farther than Wisconsin's, prohibiting collective bargaining for 42,000 state workers plus 19,500 college system workers. For local governments, bargaining with unions representing some 300,000 workers including police, firefighters, and public school teachers, the bill takes healthcare and some other benefits out of the negotiating process. It denies them the right to strike.
The bill passed the Senate March 1. The Ohio House of Representatives will hold at least one more week of hearings on the bill, according to the spokesman for Republican speaker William G. Batchelder. A date for a vote has not been set. Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich has said he supports the measure.
* IDAHO: The Idaho state legislature has approved a bill to limit collective bargaining by public school teachers. The measure restricts collective bargaining to salaries and benefits, removing from negotiations such provisions as class sizes, teacher workload and promotions. Republican Governor Butch Otter was expected to sign it into law quickly.
* IOWA: The state House of Representatives is debating a bill curbing collective bargaining rights for public workers that was passed by the labor committee. The bill would exclude health insurance from the scope of collective bargaining, along with other changes. Democrats who control the Senate said they do not intend to bring the bill up for debate.
* MICHIGAN: Both chambers of the Michigan legislature have approved measures to give the state emergency powers to break union contracts to revive failing schools and cities. There are slight differences between the bills passed by the two chambers which must be reconciled. New Republican Governor Rick Snyder has said he supports the measure.
* INDIANA: Republican state lawmakers are pushing several measures that curb organized labor influence. The state Senate passed a bill that will narrow the scope of public school teachers' collective bargaining rights. The measure still needs to be approved by the state House, but House Democrats have left the state to deny votes on bills they say restrict workers' rights. One bill would create a state-wide school voucher system.
* NEW HAMPSHIRE: A right-to-work bill that refers only to public sector workers prohibits collective bargaining agreements that require employees to join labor unions. It also says that no public employee union is required to represent employees who elect not to join or pay dues. It passed the House and next goes to the Senate. Both legislative bodies have Republican majorities, but Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, has said he does not support the bill.
* KANSAS: The Kansas House has passed a bill that would outlaw employee payroll deductions for union dues and political action committees.
* TENNESSEE: A Republican-backed state bill would end teachers' rights to negotiate their working conditions with boards of education through collective bargaining. The bill has passed through the Senate Education Committee.
* OTHER STATES: Limits on public worker collective bargaining have been introduced in several other states as of last week, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. These include Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Washington, Alaska and Arizona.
Factbox: Several states beyond Wisconsin mull union limits, Reuters.com
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></CENTER>The government employee unions lost in Wisconsin. That includes a loss for the teachers union in Wisconsin. Now we can't blame them for asserting their power as they have in the past. The parents who send their children to these people to be educated deserve some of the blame as well. You willingly submit the most precious thing in your life - your child - to these people every day and expect your child to become a competent, well-educated, hard-working individual.
Did you notice all the students in the capital building? Nobody was very impressed with their ability to occupy a public building while shouting "shame, shame, shame" and waving their fists in the air. This scene occupied about 10 seconds on the national news
Students think that they have all of the right answers to the world's problems.
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute did a little test .. a civic literacy test of more than 28,000 students .. to see how smart these college students really are.
Here are a few of their findings. By the way, this was a multiple-choice test.
- Less than half knew about federalism, judicial review, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and NATO.
- Ten percent thought that 'we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' came from the Communist Manifesto.
- Harvard students failed the test, scoring on average 69, which is a D.
Columnist Mark Tapscott says, "Since the vast majority of the students tested are products of public schools, the results represent a comprehensive indictment of public education, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.”
But it's hard to imagine how becoming a competent, well-educated, hard-working individual could be accomplished when these teachers unions care only about one thing: power. And they know they have power, and they admit they have this power.
One has to ask the question, what were those teachers unions fighting for after the bill was passed in Wisconsin? They were fighting for our children, right? Somehow our children were going to be denied a good education from that evil, governor of Wisconsin since he succeeded in taking away the teacher's collective bargaining rights. Remember the Repubs and Walker were voted in because they basicly said they wanted to do something about the out of control spending and the amount of debt that was going to be shifted onto the states with Obamacare among other things. Well, what is the most sending on,,,, government workers. So this was nothing new to the Dems. They knew that this was where the Repubs would go.
Now if you believe that nonsense that was being spouted by the teachers unions - if you believe that this is all about your precious children -- perhaps you might take the time to listen to something said by "Bob Chanin, General Counsel to the National Education Association. This comment was maid at his farewell address to the NEA convention last summer --- last summer, before Governor Scott Walker's move in Wisconsin.
Here are the words of Mr. Chanin.
Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas; it is not because of the merit of our positions; it is not because we care about children.... and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child.
The NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 8.2 million people that are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year because they believe that we are the union that can most effectively represent them.
And remember Albert Shanker, a past-president of the American Federation of Teachers. After an AFT convention reporter asked Shanker why all the emphasis on teachers and so little emphasis on the children at the convention. He replied that he... "would start paying attention to the children when they could vote in union elections."
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Now do you really think that this fight between the unions and Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin was about collective bargaining? If you do, you're sadly mistaken. The real issue was something called a dues check-off, not collective bargaining. What is a dues check-off? That's a system whereby your employer, in this case the government, deducts union dues from your paycheck before you actually get paid. The dues are then forwarded to the union. Unions, of course, love this because they know that sometimes people just aren't all that thrilled about paying their union dues; especially when those dues get close to $1000 a year as they do for some Wisconsin teachers.
Virtually all of the media coverage in Wisconsin has been about collective bargaining. Scott Walker wanted to take the collective bargaining rights away from government workers on all issues except basic pay. The unions, and the Democrats who supported the unions, would love for you to believe that this was the real issue. It was not. The real issue was how union dues would be collected.
Under the law before Gov. Walker signed his new bill last week, the union dues were collected by the employer -- the government.
Now the workers will get to make up their own mind whether or not they want to pay the union dues. That is because they're going to have to write a check for these dues every month, every quarter, or however they pay them. What really troubles the union leaders is the fact that about 50% or so, of union members have clearly indicated that they would rather
not be paying union dues, and, in fact, would rather not be union members at all. In these tough economic times, many of these government union members can find a lot better things to spend their money on than union dues. They know that their jobs are protected by the Wisconsin civil service system. They also know that, generally speaking, they're making more than their counterparts in the private sector(with benefits). The new law provides that they will pay what amounts to a pittance
toward their health care, and they're going to be paying
towards their own retirement just as private sector workers do. I think they retain the benefits they already have. So all-in-all they know that they don't have it quite so bad. So, for many of them, paying dues will be problematic.
This presents a big problem for the union leaders, and an even bigger problem for Democrats. The problem for the union leaders is obvious. Most of them earn salaries in the six figure range -- salaries that come from union dues. Without the government collecting these union dues from the workers, the union leaders may find the financial cupboard running a bit bare. That puts their fat paychecks in jeopardy. But there's an additional problem. Union leaders also derive a huge amount of power from how they decide to spend union dues. Its about political campaign donations. Surveys during the midterm election process of 2010, showed that Wisconsin government union members pretty much split their vote between Democrats and Republicans. The union leaders weren't quite so bipartisan. Wisconsin government employee unions made about 93% of their campaign donations to Democrats. This might sit well with the union members who supported the Democrats, but remember about half of them supported Republicans. These might be the very union members who will rethink this idea about paying union dues, especially if they can't control how those dues are spent. So now you see why this is a huge problem for Democrats as well. You can also understand why The Community Organizer mobilized his Organizing for America volunteer squad to head to Wisconsin for the purpose of promoting and beefing up the demonstrations.
The collective bargaining argument was quite easy to sell to the public during the controversy. Trying to protect the dues check-off system wouldn't have been quite so easy..
Sometimes the argument and the goal, are not the same thing.
As I said, a different way of looking at it. Since a lot of you have a different point of view, how would you tackle the problem of cutting spending? What would you eliminate/cut/do away with.
Bill
epper: !! They don't have to share my political views, they just have to share the passion for the GT40!
