In what has unquestionably been a busy first month and a half for any politician, our new governor has been occupied with taking from the working many and giving to the wealthy few.
There is no doubt that Governor Scott Walker came into a budget situation that is less than favorable. However, he has recently implemented a $140-million cut of state revenue by reducing taxes for the citizens of Wisconsin who are the most wealthy in the midst of a budgetary shortfall.
So how does our governor propose filling this hole he personally created? By making state employees take a six-percent cut in order to pay for their pensions and increase their personal healthcare costs to almost 13 percent. These actions are taken against the same state workers who were forced in the last two years to take eight unpaid furlough days each year.
To be fair, these employees were much better off in the last two years than the Milwaukee County employees, who were obligated to take a whopping 26 unpaid furlough days this past year, under then-County Executive Scott Walker.
Meanwhile, Walker has used this statewide budget crisis as a way to push through restrictions on Wisconsin unions. These constraints would deliberately keep their income low and deny them the right of collective bargaining – a workers’ right in the United States since the federal National Labor Relations Act was implemented in 1935 under FDR in order for rights to be maintained during a national economic catastrophe.
The Wisconsin Club for Growth has joined in on this harassment of state employees, stating in an ad that public workers “need to pay their fair share.” It is common knowledge that nurses are overworked, teachers are underpaid, and far too many state employees work for far less than they would if they were in the private sector (university faculty and staff come to mind). Yet Walker and the Club for Growth feel that overworked and underpaid workers who are forced into unpaid furlough days should be legally obligated to “pay” for further tax cuts.
The governor’s legislation against state workers should not come as a big surprise. He’s made workers take what totals to over a month of unpaid furlough days in Milwaukee. He’s blocked the construction of high-speed rail and, as a result, blocked the creation of thousands of jobs that would have come with it. And now he’s giving benefits to campaign contributors while making working families foot the bill in the middle of an economic recession.
Scott Walker is not ignorant of what he’s doing. And because he knows the people of the state of Wisconsin won’t like this legislation passed and that they will want to let their voices be heard, he said he would call upon the National Guard to fill in for protesting state employees. And he’s doing this in order to push through an agenda against Wisconsin families.
Protests and outrage over what is happening to our state should be expected. When these things do happen, we need to do what our governor refuses to do: listen to his constituents. They are our children’s teachers, our nurses, our public university employees and our neighbors. When they are being attacked, we all get hurt. So let’s listen to Wisconsin’s workers.
Jay Burseth is a UWM alumnus and former UWM Student Association president.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemoller(1892-1984)
@Jay Burseth – Aren’t you a waiter these days? No one cares what you think.
@Joe the Plumber — Aren’t you a plumber/small businessman? People seem to care what you think directly because of your blue collar occupation. It was my understanding that waiters are also usually blue collar employees. It would seem to me that people are VERY interested in what blue collar employees have to say.
Additionally, the statements offered in this editorial are mostly facts, not opinions.
I wish I were a cool, liberal hipster.
“listen to his constituents”
What about the people who support him? You could say he is listening to them.
Dude, I would happily take a 25% pay cut and give up ALL my bargaining rights if I could have a pension worth a guaranteed $800,000. Sorry but I’m just not seeing the sympathy.
@Daniel,
Once you give up your collective bargaining rights, you give up any ability you ever had to encourage the state to provide that pension. It will take a few years, but expect to see the pensions disappear too.
Workers in the private sector should not be saying: “Give up your cushy benefits–I don’t have them so you don’t deserve them!”
Workers in the private sector should be saying: “What can I do to get those cushy benefits too? Why am I choosing not to do things (like be part of collective bargaining units) that would help me get those benefits?”
I love Walker’s threat of laying off a ton of state employees. Didn’t he promise to create 250k jobs or some such thing? He’s already in the hole by refusing funds for the train, now he’s going to cause more job loss because he refuses to negotiate? What a brilliant plan, layoff workers and put them on unemployment and other state aid services, that will balance the budget.
The workers are willing to negotiate, but they shouldn’t have to give up decades hard fought gains because a college dropout on a power trip feels like doing some union busting.
@Kurt: _theoretically_ this will save jobs (if it gets passed, which it can’t until the Democrats come back to lose a vote on it). Rather than cut workers to save money, this is cutting the ability of workers to have any real say over how much they make, which means that there is more money in the state’s pockets, which means they don’t NEED to cut workers to make up the deficit, although that is always a possibility anyway. If you really want to save money, why not cut jobs and cut pay?
Unions are some of the largest contributors to Republican campaigns. There is a definite political incentive to crippling the unions, as opposed to doing something else that would save money and cause less disruption like a pay-freeze, a greater cut of state aid to pensions and benefits, or even a temporary suspension of collective bargaining rights.
With salary increases capped at CPI and collective bargaining gone, total compensation for state employees will go down more and more each year. If you are looking to become a state employee, expect your total compensation–adjusted for inflation–to decrease every single year, because there is no way to encourage the state to continue paying what they do now.
Regardless of how much you believe state employees should be paid, I don’t know many people are interested in taking jobs that pay them less every year. I guess we’ll just find out.
Whoops–meant to say that unions were large contributors to DEMOCRATIC campaigns.
@David the reason that people in the private sector aren’t asking for those benefits is that people in the private sector actually see the price tag for that stuff and decide it’s not worth it. I’m sure I’d enjoy driving a brand new Mercedes, but I looked at the price tag and decided it’s not worth it. Same with health insurance. A $100 deductible would be nice, but it’s not worth the price. Imagine what kind of a pay raise we could give these folks if we could leverage some of their pension or switch to a health savings account.
@Joe the Plumber – Burseth was most recently an “electoral organizer” for United Council, and not coincidentally, the United Council Executive Director was wasting her time protesting at the capital this past week with the other impotent fist wavers. (Or maybe the fist logo actually represents a union worker’s hand clasping the pull chain for a lunch break?) Legislative aides tally the number of phone calls and letters, not the number of times a mob chants. What’s the point of protesting when most controversial policies were interpreted in the courts? It’s a better use of time to draft a legal brief, but that’s not emotional enough for the average Wisconsinite.
@David Freitag –Because there is greater labor supply than job supply, job demand is too great to simply convince segments of the labor force to boycott non-union jobs. That will not work because the more eager workers will swoop in. Presuming some of the new workers are not entirely qualified for technical positions, those entry-level workers are ready for the company to train. Corporate training of those non-union workers pays off because the lower wage premium, relative to unionized workers who might already have given training, compensates in the long run.
@Kurt – Private contractor jobs can easily make up the difference in total jobs once the state employees are no longer operative. Why pay a janitor $12 an hour, with benefits, for an eight-hour shift when you can pay a flat project fee to a contractor crew of roughly the same hourly rate and not pay benefits?
Jay, there’s no place for Robin Hood in government either.