The Wisconsin Strongman Speaks

OK, so here's a brief recap of what's been going on in the lovely state of Wisconsin:

• Newly-minted Republican Governor/strongman Scott Walker signed a couple of tax bills that created a budget gap of at least $117 million. (I know, Californians, $117 million isn't that much,but in Wisconsin it counts as a state of emergency.)
• Walker unveils a budget that goes after Wisconsin state employees' unions:

But AFT-Wisconsin President Bryan Kennedy said Walker's move is part of a nationwide effort to kill labor unions.

"It is a power grab, a coordinated effort to kill the union here," said Kennedy, whose organization represents 17,000 state employees. "This is essentially the governor saying, 'Sit down, shut up and do what you are told.'" Walker said Friday his proposals were necessary to help the state overcome the $137 million hole in the current budget . . .

The governor wants to remove those rights for most of the 175,000 state and local employees in Wisconsin, allowing workers to negotiate only over salary. . . . By ending state employees' ability to negotiate for their pensions and insurance rates, the governor will be able to increase employee pension contributions to 5.8 percent of salary and more than double their health insurance contributions.

You'll recall from above that this was a current budget shortfall Walker himself helped create. As a retired nurse from Wisconsin writes, the budget mandates:

No collective bargaining over insurance (so employees can be given high deductible junk insurance with no say in the matter), benefits, pensions, holidays or personal days, vacation, working conditions, adequate staffing, class size, worker safety issues, mandatory overtime, shift selection, requests for days off, etc.

If that wasn't bad enough, union dues would no longer be collected through payroll deduction so the unions would have to collect the dues themselves member by member. On top of that, unions would need to recertify every year . This is the same process that is used when employees band together to form a union in the first place; a process already so onerous and difficult (therefore, profitable to the many union-busting firms across this country) that new unions and locals are rarely formed.

Think that's bad? The real hidden horror is that Scott Walker didn't stop with state employees, but extended the impact of the bill to all city, town, village, and county employee in the State of Wisconsin. That's the real reason that thousands of public employees are in Madison. It's why non-public employee unions are supporting us. It's why students, patients, and citizens in general have joined us.

• In response to Walker's obvious union-busting, tens of thousands of WI teachers and other state employees staged walkouts and other protests.
• Others soon supported the WI state employee protests with walkouts of their own, including 3,000 University of Wisconsin students, 100 Stoughton High School (Madison, WI) students, and others. The protesters are also supported by current and former members of the Green Bay Packers, and Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki.
• Wisconsin Democrats in the State Legislature, outnumbered by Republicans loyal to Walker and unable to stop the budget any other way, staged a walkout of their own, preventing quorum for a vote on the budget. (Some have criticized the Democrats for not staying and representing their constituents. This is a foolish way to look at the situation. If you can prevent a trainwreck by leaving the state, you leave the state. The Democrats are representing their constituents the best it is possible for them to do so under the circumstances.)
• Public worker protests have spread from Wisconsin to Ohio, in support of the Wisconsin protesters, and because newly-elected Republicans in that fine state are set to bust their state's state employee unions.
• And what is Walker's response? He and the WI GOP "wont be bullied" and that the protests "have made the Republicans in the Assembly and the Senate stronger."

That's the language of a thug, not someone who is interested in serving his constituents (and the 175,000 affected state employees are his constituents). It's the language of a strongman tightening his grip on power, not that of an elected official.

Make no mistake about it. Republicans have always hated unions because unions give workers power against the corporations Republicans work for, and tend to keep the state government honest, at least about how it deals with public employees. Republicans also have the mindset that certain people lead (they always believe it's them), and everyone else has to shut up, fall in line, and do what they're told.

And they are certainly not above manufacturing a crisis to get you there.