South Milwaukee Blog

Check this video out from Wisconsin Eye, courtesy of the Wisconsin State Journal, showing just how eager Republicans were on Friday to strip 50 years of collective bargaining rights away from public workers.

How eager were they? So excited that they decided to move Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill toward final passage without waiting for Democratic lawmakers to even enter the chamber and vote.

Amazing. Unprecedented. Insulting. Disgusting.

Public employees, including teachers, will apparently agree to Gov. Scott Walker’s request of benefit givebacks if Walker and legislators agree to take the removal of collective bargaining rights off the table.

That’s according to State Sen. John Erpenbach, a Middleton Democrat, in today’s Journal Sentinel.

This is a fair, common sense compromise that should win the support of lawmakers. Of course, I highly doubt it will.

Walker and Senate and Assembly Republicans are out to bust the unions, plain and simple. What they’re seeking to do is about 10 percent “budget repair” and 90 percent sticking it to the unions. I just wish they would admit it.  At least that way it can be an honest debate.

At this point, both sides are so entrenched that compromise seems a distant dream.

I support unions and their right to collectively bargain. Let me start by saying that.

Are unions perfect? Of course not. I have my share of concerns about how some unions operate and the tactics some of them use … and I do not support every reform they propose and every position they take.

Still, in the end, I believe in unions and believe strongly that workers should have the right collectively negotiate a fair and equitable contract with their employers when it comes to wages, benefits and work rules.

Knowing that, of course I have big problems with Gov. Scott Walker’s union-killing effort announced on Friday, a plan to gut organized labor under the guise of fixing the state budget. The proposal is draconian and mean-spirited, more political payback than sound policy, as it unfairly vilifies the workers who deliver the services we use every day and wrongly dictates to local governments how we should do business.

So, yes, I think his plan is bad for the state.

But, more importantly, I think his plan is bad for South Milwaukee.

At its core, I hate the fact that Walker is telling us what to do. He and the legislature should leave us alone and let city leaders – all local governmental leaders across the state, for that matter — decide what is in the best interest of our community.

• Why is it OK for the state to dictate what we can and can’t collectively bargain for with our unions?
• Why is it OK for the state to tell local governments that they must force union workers to pay more for their health and retirement benefits?
• Why is it OK for the state to tell local governments that they cannot give pay raises to union employees more than the consumer price index?

The answer? It’s not. Walker and state lawmakers should stay out of our business.

I hope many of my readers will at least agree with me on that point, no matter what you might feel about Walker, unions and what path the state should take to solve our budget crisis.

But, to me, this is much more than an argument in theory about local control. Walker’s proposal will have real negative impacts on how our city is run.

Will South Milwaukee save money on employee costs under his plan? I’m anxious to see the numbers, but I assume we will, especially because these changes will impact all city employees, not just unionized ones. Keep in mind that we typically pass the same wage increases and other important benefit changes on to our non-union workers that we do to our represented ones, so union worker restrictions are really restrictions on all employees.

At what cost do these savings come?

Consider, for instance, the linkage between pay raises and CPI. Consider what we would basically be telling our employees should the legislature pass Walker’s plan: No matter how hard you work, no matter how sound the city’s finances are, no matter the economic outlook of the city, you will never receive a pay raise higher than 2%, give or take a few bucks.

What message does that send to our hard-working city employees, the people who make the city go, the people who plow your streets, pick up your garbage and keep the city safe? What message does that send to the people who teach our children?

And how will that message resonate if and when these workers consider their future in the public sector vs. employment in private industry?

Of course, that’s just one concern I have with Walker’s plan. There are others, such as the proposal that public safety unions, the same unions who supported Walker during his campaign, be exempted from many of its provisions. This sets up a “have and have nots” scenario pitting employee vs. employee, where one class of workers receive more favorable treatment (not to mention wages and benefits) than the others. This benefits no one.

Then there is Walker’s plan to require yearly union certification and no longer require public workers to pay dues to their unions – two tried and true union-busting techniques that have nothing to do with fixing the state budget and everything to do with Walker’s vendetta against organized labor. The fact that Walker even included these provisions in his proposal at all show the real aim of his “budget fixing” plan more than anything.

Indeed, this much is clear: Walker is out to put unions out of business.

However, I urge you to keep in mind who these public workers are. They are your friends, your next-door neighbors, the people you sit next to at church. They are taxpayers. They are us … and they should not be made scapegoats and political commodities by elected officials who on one hand espouse small government and on the other impose new, unfair and unwelcome regulations on how local communities run their operations.

How hypocritical.