From The Nation
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's proposal to strip public employees of most collective bargaining rights, cut pay and gut benefits without any negotiation
the most radical assault yet by the current crop of Republican
governors on the rights of workers has inspired outrage in a
historically progressive and pro-labor state.
With unions calling on members an allies to "fight back" against a "blatant power grab," tensions
are running so high that the governor, who took office in January, is
threatening to call out the National Guard in case of industrial action
by state, county and municipal employees. "Even if you don't like
unions," says Rich Abelson, executive director of AFSCME Council 48,
the union that represents Milwaukee County workers, "surely we all can
agree that anti-freedom attacks that deny public employees the right to
negotiate a fair contract"are outrageous and wrong."
Even Republicans are unsettled, with a senior GOP legistator, state Senator Luther Olsen, describing the governor's announcement a "radical" move that threatens "a lot of good working people."
Walker never discussed ending collective bargaining during a campaign
in which he promised to work across lines of partisanship and ideology
to create jobs.
Instead, he has chosen to play political games.
The governor's budget repair bill, which includes the plan to gut
collective bargaining protections for public employees, does not seek to
get the state's fiscal house in order.
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Rather, it is seeks a political goal: destroying public employee
unions, which demand fair treatment of workers and hold governors of
both parties to account when they seek to undermine public services and
public education.
Former US Senator Russ Feingold decried the move, declaring that
"Governor Walker's request to the State Legislature to eliminate nearly
all of the collective-bargaining rights for thousands of Wisconsin
workers is big government at its worst. No private employer can do what
the governor proposes, nor should it. For decades, Wisconsin has
protected the rights of workers to collectively bargain with their
employer on wages, benefits, workplace rules, and many other aspects of
their employment. The governor is wrong to suggest that public workers
are responsible for the state's budget woes, and he is wrong to use that
bogus excuse to strip them of rights that millions of other American
workers have."
Feingold's reference to "American workers" is notable, as the
attention to what happens in Wisconsin is about more than the wrangling
between one governor and public employees in one state. If Walker
succeeds, his strategy is all but sure to be adopted by other Republican
governors in other states.
The claim in Wisconsin -- as it has been nationally -- is that
overwhelming fiscal challenges require public employees to take a hit.
But the hit Walker proposes has sewn the seeds of political, social
and economic instability in a state that has traditionally enjoyed good
relations between government and unions.
The economic threat may well be the most significant especially at a
time when Wisconsin needs to create jobs, as opposed to political
fights.
State Representative Mark Pocan,
a Madison Democrat, argues that: "Wisconsin is hardly "open for
business' if businesses can't attract employees because of a bad
employee climate in our state. The government banning employees from
negotiating through unions is a radical and dangerous notion that
Wisconsin simply shouldn't embrace. If high-tech and emerging industries
can't attract employees because of our bad employee atmosphere in our
state, they certainly won't locate here."
Despite expressions of concern even from some conservatives, Walker
wants to ram a change that Democrats and Republicans agree is radical
through the legislature this week, as part of the budget repair bill
with no serious hearings and little in the way of honest debate.
That's drawn bitter criticism from defenders of the state's progressive and small-"d" democratic traditions.
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John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.
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