OMG! you want us to pay for pensions=fascist pig

[victory sabre]

Continuing to do "business as usual", which is what these protesters want, will only lead to bankruptcy. Government can not continue to spend like drunken sailors, and provide lavish benefits for employees. I'm sorry, I've seen my pay cut by 25% over the last year, and I have no sympathy for these protesters.

I, truly, wish that my Governor (Minnesota) had the courage of Governor Walker, to do what's right. It, almost, makes me want to move to "cheese land".

[smileyeagle1021]

You know, this reminds me a lot of Reno's transit strike back in the late 90s. Apparently everyone but the bus drivers thought the bus drivers had a good gig ($18 an hour, plus free insurance for the driver and heavily discounted for family, sick leave, vacation, and retirement). Well the regional transit commission had the nerve to say "we can't give raises this year" so they went on strike thinking they would have huge public sympathy... hah, half the accounting office at the RTC got fired because they came out in public saying that they were getting paid less than these "poor unfortunate bus drivers".
The only good thing to happen with that strike (and the gov over in WI may be able to do the same there if he plays it right), RTC drew the strike out long enough to practically destroy the union... the buses stopped running for less than 24 hours, within a day RTC had all core routes running on a sunday schedule, 3 days in all routes were restored to sunday level service, after a week saturday level service was restored, and two weeks full service was restored (thanks in part to extra board operators from the Utah Transit Authority who were more than happy to take the higher pay at RTC as a temp assignment, same with many other nearby transit agencies). In the end, workers were allowed to return when either they resigned their union membership or the union agreed to RTC's very generous terms.
Here's a raised glass to Wisonsion being able to bust the unions there too. All they do anymore is breed laziness and entitlement.

[Rapscallion]

Unions can be good depending on the situation. When the working conditions are against the worker, and they are actively sorting it out, that's a good thing. When they're lazy and corrupt as I keep hearing, that's bad.

We had to bust ours down a few years ago over here - under the Thatcher years. They have more reasonable authority and permissions now.

Rapscallion

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I just had on CNN and they say there's 30,000 protesters marching on the Capitol.

There's rumors that state Democratic representatives have fled the state in advance of the vote.

I'm starting to think if this passes, there may be riots in Madison and maybe elsewhere in the state.

Hang on, this could get rough. It isn't very often my state is in the news like this.

[victory sabre]

I just had on CNN and they say there's 30,000 protesters marching on the Capitol.

There's rumors that state Democratic representatives have fled the state in advance of the vote.

I'm starting to think if this passes, there may be riots in Madison and maybe elsewhere in the state.

Hang on, this could get rough. It isn't very often my state is in the news like this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110217/..._budget_unions

They have fled the State to try to stop this legislation. I hope they are found and hauled back to do the jobs they were elected to do. If not I hope their seats are declared vacant, and special elections are called.

[blas87]

If that's the way they want to play it, we can replace them with Republicans and get conceal/carry passed without an issue.

Wow. Run away and hide and refuse to do your job. How mature.

[protege]

If that's the way they want to play it, we can replace them with Republicans and get conceal/carry passed without an issue.

..and then they'll bitch and moan about that too. Why is it that these assholes aren't held accountable for either not doing their jobs, or fucking up said job? Anywhere else, if you refused to do what you're being paid for...you'd get fired. Instead, these idiots will probably get reelected. What the fuck?

I have *very* little sympathy for state and county workers, especially if they're unionized. Transit workers (again union), and the Teamsters are also on my shit list. They're too easily provoked into going on strike if they don't get their way. These people don't want to negotiate--they want to get as much as they can...with someone else paying for it.

Anyone want to guess what the newspaper strike in 1992 was about? Money. Up until then, the papers had always used kids to deliver their newspapers. The pay wasn't great, but it taught responsibility and the value of a dollar. Anyway, the Teamsters (who drove the delivery trucks) decided that $72,000 a year wasn't enough, and wanted the paperboy jobs as well. The paper told them to "get lost," which forced a strike. That $72,000 salary, I'd have killed for. All it required, was to drive a delivery truck, stop every so often, and drop a pile of newspapers at certain locations. That's it. I have a hard time believing that such a job is *worth* $72,000

Here too, the Port Authority (which runs our buses and trolleys) had a massive strike not much later. They thought that the public would be on their side, since they "had kids, bills, etc." to pay. Bills to pay, and $50,000 (the average bus driver's salary at the time) wasn't enough? Anyway, they couldn't figure out why the thousands of people who depended on the bus and/or trolley to get to *their* jobs...turned on them. IIRC, the city demanded an investigation into the transit agency's finances...and some of the things they found were truly shocking. People were being paid for doing nothing, maintenance wasn't being done...and once that all came out, several of the Authority's managers soon found themselves in trouble.

[Andara Bledin]

I hadn't been aware that the 2-year budget shortfall that Wisconsin is expected to have is almost entirely created by tax cuts that Walker signed into being in the first place.

October opinion piece on the lack of fiscal responsibility of the tax cuts.
An article on who the $3bil worth of tax cuts actually covers.

^-.-^

[Tanasi]

Yesterday evening I was visiting with an old friend. He used to work at local chemical plant but was kicked upstairs to management was moved away. The local plant's contract was up and the union was threatening to strike. The company brought in management from all over the nation and they've run the plant for the last few weeks and are doing a better job. Late yesterday evening the union agreed to what the company was offering. No money, no extra beneifits they just found out they're not as valuable as they thought.

[Rageaholic]

As much as I support workers rights, I find some of these protesters hard to take seriously. Mubarak was an evil dictator, the governor of Wisconsin is just some political douche.

With that said, I think the links Andara posted shed some light on this. If he's willing to give tax cuts to the rich, while taking away benefits from the working class, they have a reason to be a little poed. We have something similar going on in Michigan where the governor here wants to tax pensions. It would be understandable if it was for something that can benefit everyone, but all I see is those who are already rich getting breaks at the expense of everyone else.

[AdminAssistant]

If he's willing to give tax cuts to the rich, while taking away benefits from the working class, they have a reason to be a little poed.

This. I don't necessarily support the WI protesters, but I have little doubt that the governor is a douche. This brouhaha just covers up any slashes to vital social services or tax breaks for the wealthy he'd like to pass. It's a wonder that the dumbass Kansas just elected hasn't thought of the same thing....oh wait, he did, except he's going after the Kansas Arts Commission, NPR, and PBS. While the liberals are busy protesting that (and with good reason...I should start a thread on that), there's no telling what he and his cronies are doing.

As I said, these protesters don't have my support, but I also don't trust a Republican as far as I can throw him.

[Greenday]

Protests Fail to Sway Wisconsin Governor

Should have titled it, "Wisconsin Governor Gives Unions the Big Middle Finger".

For once, a politician with a spine who is standing up for the right thing.

[FArchivist]

They have fled the State to try to stop this legislation. I hope they are found and hauled back to do the jobs they were elected to do. If not I hope their seats are declared vacant, and special elections are called.

That won't happen. Leaving the state to prevent a quorum being called is a very common political tactic that's been used here in the USA since the Founding Fathers, who came up with it. I'm not inclined to call for special elections when they're using a textbook tactic that the Republicans have been just as guilty of in other states.

[AdminAssistant]

Y'know, the more that I read, the more I'm on the side of the protesters. If it were just the pay cut and the increased health insurance costs, okay, fine. But he's trying to strip them of their collective bargaining rights, which means that he can later go in and cut their pay further or maybe cancel their health insurance and they won't have any recourse. And he isn't doing this to *all* the unions.

But public safety officers' unions, which have members who are more likely to support Republicans and who also tend to have the highest salaries and benefits, are exempted from the new rules. Meanwhile, a series of tax breaks and other goodies that Walker and the Republican legislature passed just after his inauguration dramatically increased the deficit that Walker now says he's trying to close.

From: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/...nsin-explained

So, I don't think this is about saving money so much as it's about yet another Republican governor feeling drunk with power and being a dickhead. Oh, and the Koch brothers that financed a good part of his campaign? They also financed our Gov. Brownback. Here's hoping I still get a paycheck next year....

[ThePhoneGoddess]

So, I don't think this is about saving money so much as it's about yet another Republican governor feeling drunk with power and being a dickhead.

Actually what this is is an attempt to gut the Democratic party in Wisconsin. Republican party gets most of their funding from corporations, while Democratic party gets most of their funding from unions. If the unions are completely stripped of their rights, it will be much harder for them to continue collecting money and donating it to the Dem party, leaving the Rep party holding absolute power.

When the corporations and unions are in balance---meaning they each have enough power to keep the other in check---the workers prosper. When they are out of balance the workers suffer. Corporations always have a lot of power, as they are the engine that keeps our economy going. Unions were originally designed to protect the workers from being exploited by the corporations. Unfortunately, many unions now are working for the good of the unions, not the good of their members, and this is why so many people are angry at them. But many people also do realize that completely destroying the unions will swing the pendulum back the other way, giving corporations---and hence the Republicans---much more power over them with very few protections.

The common sense thing to do would be for union members to restructure unions and throw the bosses of the unions out so the unions will start doing what they are supposed to do, which is protect the rights of the workers and keep them from being mistreated by corporations. Then restructuring the laws so that corporations and unions are on equal footing again, as they were in the fifties. Unfortunately, it seems like nobody is interested in compromise or hard work anymore. Everyone just wants to destroy the other side and both sides are saying 'my way or the highway'.