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Tea & Cheese Party
Feb. 23rd, 2011 12:26 pmI'm finding Wisconsin to be a fascinating event right now. After a couple of years of rallies dominated by the far right, with heavily armed whites lapping up rhetoric about death panels and the socialist takeover of the United States, it's intriguing to watch organized labour actually seize the narrative for once and push back hard against what isn't even thinly disguised union busting.
A little profile for those not currently watching from home. The new governor of Wisconsin, Tea Party darling Scott Walker, has decided to address the upcoming deficit in the state's budget through fairly severe cuts to services and by leveraging a greater percentage of pension and health care costs for public employees back on to them. Also in his bill is a provision that removes the right of collective bargaining and the ability to strike from public employees.
The plan cuts pension and health care benefits for current public workers, and restricts new wage increases unless approved by a voter referendum. Contracts would be limited to one year, with wages frozen until a new contract is settled. In addition, Walker's plan also changes rules to require collective bargaining units to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union, stops employers from collecting union dues, and allows members of collective bargaining units to avoid paying dues. Law enforcement, fire employees and state troopers and inspectors would be exempt from the changes.
In short, it strips away pretty much any power that public sector workers have to negotiate with the state, and to effectively organize. The justifications for the necessity for these measures have been flying fast and furious from Madison, and have flown with all the success of a lead balloon. Walker's call for austerity comes on the back of an estimated $200M tax cut which will add to the 2011-2013 budget shortfall. Further, his demands for shared fiscal sacrifice have been accepted by the union, making the measures to curtail collective bargaining rights superfluous to his main argument. Next was an attempt to paint Wisconsin public workers as overpaid, swiftly debunked by showing that on average, they made about 80% of what their private sector counterparts make. There was the threat to call out the National Guard, which had some fairly stern warnings from local officials, as well as a viral comparison to uprisings in Africa and the Middle East. Finally, the anti-union heavyweights Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity announced the investment of millions in advertising to support Walker's agenda. Koch Industries has substantial infrastructure in Wisconsin, and one of their lobbying groups - the American Legislative Exchange Council - has been a key figure in dismantling Wisconsin's environmental regulations to be more favourable for pollution heavy businesses such as Koch Industry owned coal plants in Green Bay, Ashland, Sheboygan and Manitowoc, six pulp and paper mills and a statewide pipeline network.
In response to this, the state capitol building has been pretty much under seige with protests for days now, with at least twenty thousand protesting. State Senate Democrats have fled the state in order to deny the House a quorum in order to vote through the bill, and while Walker is refusing any shift or negotiation in his position, similar protests have broken out in Ohio and Indiana over other overt attempts to remove collective bargaining rights. What is fascinating is the broad spectrum support, especially at a time when union membership is at its lowest point in the last 80 years in the US, and reported public opinion in general has remained at sustained anti-union support.
There's a chart making the rounds these days looking at the distribution of wealth in the US, and what Americans believe it is, and what Americans describe as an ideal, and the disconnect between the ideal and the reality is striking.
The interesting thing is that the narrative on fiscal responsibility has been dominated by the policies that reinforce wealth inequities; lower corporate taxes, lower tax rates on higher incomes, outsourcing of public services to non-union private sector companies, right to work legislation. Everything touted as a cost control in today's market fails to look at modern corporate monetary practice, and shows a dangerous naivety about the underpinnings of the American free market economy. The worst is the overall loss of equity in the US, disproportionately affecting the middle class, and strangling the credit market.
With Wisconsin and now to a lesser degree Ohio and Indiana pushing on a pro-union message (something that hasn't been seen since the late 70s), it will be interesting to see if this provides the same kind of transformative moment on the left as Obama's election did on the right; where the Tea Partiers saw the rise of socialism, the unions are looking at open movements to regress worker's rights to turn of the century levels.
EDIT: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-labor-union-decline?page=1#
A little profile for those not currently watching from home. The new governor of Wisconsin, Tea Party darling Scott Walker, has decided to address the upcoming deficit in the state's budget through fairly severe cuts to services and by leveraging a greater percentage of pension and health care costs for public employees back on to them. Also in his bill is a provision that removes the right of collective bargaining and the ability to strike from public employees.
The plan cuts pension and health care benefits for current public workers, and restricts new wage increases unless approved by a voter referendum. Contracts would be limited to one year, with wages frozen until a new contract is settled. In addition, Walker's plan also changes rules to require collective bargaining units to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union, stops employers from collecting union dues, and allows members of collective bargaining units to avoid paying dues. Law enforcement, fire employees and state troopers and inspectors would be exempt from the changes.
In short, it strips away pretty much any power that public sector workers have to negotiate with the state, and to effectively organize. The justifications for the necessity for these measures have been flying fast and furious from Madison, and have flown with all the success of a lead balloon. Walker's call for austerity comes on the back of an estimated $200M tax cut which will add to the 2011-2013 budget shortfall. Further, his demands for shared fiscal sacrifice have been accepted by the union, making the measures to curtail collective bargaining rights superfluous to his main argument. Next was an attempt to paint Wisconsin public workers as overpaid, swiftly debunked by showing that on average, they made about 80% of what their private sector counterparts make. There was the threat to call out the National Guard, which had some fairly stern warnings from local officials, as well as a viral comparison to uprisings in Africa and the Middle East. Finally, the anti-union heavyweights Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity announced the investment of millions in advertising to support Walker's agenda. Koch Industries has substantial infrastructure in Wisconsin, and one of their lobbying groups - the American Legislative Exchange Council - has been a key figure in dismantling Wisconsin's environmental regulations to be more favourable for pollution heavy businesses such as Koch Industry owned coal plants in Green Bay, Ashland, Sheboygan and Manitowoc, six pulp and paper mills and a statewide pipeline network.
In response to this, the state capitol building has been pretty much under seige with protests for days now, with at least twenty thousand protesting. State Senate Democrats have fled the state in order to deny the House a quorum in order to vote through the bill, and while Walker is refusing any shift or negotiation in his position, similar protests have broken out in Ohio and Indiana over other overt attempts to remove collective bargaining rights. What is fascinating is the broad spectrum support, especially at a time when union membership is at its lowest point in the last 80 years in the US, and reported public opinion in general has remained at sustained anti-union support.
There's a chart making the rounds these days looking at the distribution of wealth in the US, and what Americans believe it is, and what Americans describe as an ideal, and the disconnect between the ideal and the reality is striking.
The interesting thing is that the narrative on fiscal responsibility has been dominated by the policies that reinforce wealth inequities; lower corporate taxes, lower tax rates on higher incomes, outsourcing of public services to non-union private sector companies, right to work legislation. Everything touted as a cost control in today's market fails to look at modern corporate monetary practice, and shows a dangerous naivety about the underpinnings of the American free market economy. The worst is the overall loss of equity in the US, disproportionately affecting the middle class, and strangling the credit market.
With Wisconsin and now to a lesser degree Ohio and Indiana pushing on a pro-union message (something that hasn't been seen since the late 70s), it will be interesting to see if this provides the same kind of transformative moment on the left as Obama's election did on the right; where the Tea Partiers saw the rise of socialism, the unions are looking at open movements to regress worker's rights to turn of the century levels.
EDIT: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-labor-union-decline?page=1#
