{"id":4105,"date":"2011-02-18T08:06:14","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T16:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4105"},"modified":"2011-02-18T08:06:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T16:06:14","slug":"why-republicans-are-warring-on-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/18\/why-republicans-are-warring-on-unions\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Republicans are Warring on Unions"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been gone for a couple days, sick as a dog, probably due to quitting smoking after 52 years.  But during that time I did a lot of thinking about The Republican War on Unions<\/a>, in Wisconsin, and elsewhere.  I gave a lot of thought to why.  The Wisconsin budget shortfall was manufactured by Republicans\u2019 recent tax cuts to pay back their corporate cronies.  Why create the crisis?  Outlawing collective bargaining does not save a penny.  Why do it?  Everything Republicans do have one of two goals, establishing a permanent Republican Regime of one party rule, or making what they deceptively say will trickle down, gush up.  Outlawing collective bargaining destroys unions.  Since Citizens United<\/em>, Unions have been a weak foil to corporate spending, but the only big players Democrats have.  Bingo.  Republicans want criminal corporate power unopposed to establish their permanent regime.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"GOPOnly\"In a year when governors across the country are competing to show who\u2019s toughest, no matter what the consequences, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin stands out as the first to bring his State Capitol to a halt.<\/p>\n

Like many governors, he wants to cut the benefits of state workers. But he also decided a budget crisis was a good time to advance an ideological goal dear to his fellow Republicans: eliminating most collective bargaining rights for public employees<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, thousands of workers descended on the Capitol building, pounding on windows and blocking doors, yelling \u201cshut it down.\u201d So many teachers called in sick that public schools in Madison and more than a dozen other districts had to be closed. On Thursday, the Democrats in the State Senate refused to show up, vowing to prevent any action until the governor drops his plan<\/strong>. The state police were sent to find them. <\/p>\n

Mr. Walker has decried the chaos, but it was entirely self-inflicted<\/strong>. His plan to undermine the unions, which would have no direct impact on the budget, would take away nearly all of their rights to negotiate<\/font><\/strong>. <\/p>\n

They would be barred from bargaining about anything except wages, and any pay increase they win would be limited by the consumer price index. Contracts would be limited to a year, and union dues could no longer be deducted from paychecks. As President Obama correctly put it on Wednesday, that \u201cseems like an assault on unions.\u201d (The archbishop of Milwaukee and players for the Green Bay Packers have also come out in support of the workers.) <\/p>\n

Benefits for Wisconsin\u2019s state workers are currently quite generous, but they weren\u2019t stolen. They were negotiated by elected officials and can be re-negotiated at the bargaining table if necessary. <\/p>\n

Most pay only 6 percent of their health care premium costs and Governor Walker wants to double that. The average employee contribution to premiums around the country, public and private, is 29 percent. Most state workers contribute almost nothing to their pensions; he wants them to pay 5.8 percent, which is a little less than average for government workers around the country. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the governor is refusing to accept his own share of responsibility for the state\u2019s projected $137 million shortfall. Just last month, he and the Legislature gave away $117 million in tax breaks, mostly for businesses that expand and for private health savings accounts<\/strong>. That was a choice lawmakers made, and had it not been for those decisions and a few others, according to the state\u2019s <\/strong>Legislative Fiscal Bureau<\/strong><\/a>, the state would have had a surplus<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

Ed Schultz has been on top of this story from the beginning.  Here he brings us up to date and interviews two of the heroes that fled the Wisconsin Senate to focus national attention on this outrage.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Last night I listened to Rachel Maddow\u2019s take on the story.  I felt as though she had read my mind, because our conclusions are identical, but she documented it with impeccable  precision, hammering it home in a way that only a fool or a liar could deny.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Whatever it takes, this Republican war on unions must be stopped.  Unions vs the Chamber is already a David vs Goliath scenario, and David got his ass kicked in November.  But for the Republican Party, any opposition is too much.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been gone for a couple days, sick as a dog, probably due to quitting smoking after 52 years.  But during that time I did a lot of thinking about The Republican War on Unions, in Wisconsin, and elsewhere.  I gave a lot of thought to why.  The Wisconsin budget shortfall was manufactured by Republicans\u2019 […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}