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.
Filed under Politics
Not surprisingly, Gov. Scott Walker rejected a compromise that would have delivered the budget savings he was seeking from public employees … showing once and for all that this whole debate is about union busting, and little else.
From the Journal Sentinel story:
“Gov. Walker has repeatedly said that we won’t negotiate the budget and we can’t balance the budget on a hope and a prayer,” Werwie said in the statement. “That remains true. State and local government need the flexibility to manage this and future budget crises. In addition, as government workers pay a modest amount toward their pension and healthcare premium, about half the national average, it is fair to give them the choice of additional savings on their union dues.”
Oh, so now the issue is more than just giving local governments the “flexibility” and “tools” they need to balance their budgets (tools we don’t need). It’s about giving public workers “the choice of additional savings on their union fees.” Sure.
Why can’t the governor just say that he wants to end unions in Wisconsin? I’d respect him for admitting it.
Filed under Politics
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.
Filed under Politics
I respect South Milwaukee State Rep. Mark Honadel.
I just happen to disagree, strongly, with his position on Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting plan.
Honadel was quoted in a story on WTMJ-TV a few days ago. From it:
Rep. Mark Honadel (R-South Milwaukee) could certainly hear the voices from his office, but they are unlikely to change his support for Walker’s budget plan. “They are going to pay a little more for their health care, but by golly, they’re still going to have a pension, unlike 80% of my friends in the private sector who lost their business or their company went belly up,” Honadel said.
Of course, a vote for Walker’s plan is more than just a vote for benefit givebacks (which I’d support). It’s also a vote to put an end to collective bargaining rights for public workers in communities across the state.
Walker told the Journal Sentinel in an interview on Friday that he is simply giving local governments “the tools to control their own budgets” and “flexibility” they need to deal with looming cuts in state aid.
He added: “I know as a local official, collective bargaining time and time again was the thing that stood in the way of local governments and school districts being able to manage their budgets.”
Really? We’ve managed our budget just fine while preserving collective bargaining rights. Now, it’s not been entirely pain free, but we’ve done it.
We did for the past two years with the help of our public safety unions, who, recognizing the financial situation of the city, agreed to no pay increases in 2010 and a 2 percent pay increase in 2011, as well as increased health insurance contributions.
And we’ll do it again in 2012 … hopefully with the partnership of our unions. Unions are not the problem. They can be part of the solution.
Filed under Politics
Common Councils across the state are preparing resolutions against Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to trivialize unions while at the same time cutting pay and benefits for public workers.
Check out a roundup of resolutions from the League of Wisconsin Municipalities here. And expect to see more added to this list in coming days and weeks.
It’s especially interesting to see others raise the same primary concern I do: The loss of local control and local say in how we negotiate with our unions. This should be something we decide, not Madison politicians.
As I’ve said, I don’t have major issues with the governor seeking givebacks on pay and benefits from unions, as long as they are negotiated. And many union workers, I’ve read, are in agreement.
My complaint, like the complaint of others, is with over-reaching to also strip unions of their rights going forward. Walker and Republican lawmakers have no business ramming that type of bill through the legislature in a matter of days.
Filed under Politics
Update: Here is a Journal Sentinel story, four days late.
Apparently, Tim Sullivan will not be sticking around Bucyrus International once the company is formally acquired by Catperillar Inc.
Check out the story from BizTimes.com here. From it:
In January, Bucyrus announced that it will be acquired by Peoria, Ill.-based Caterpillar Inc. When the acquisition was announced, there was speculation that Sullivan may stay with Caterpillar in some capacity.
But today Sullivan said that he and Craig Mackus, chief financial officer and secretary of the company, would not be staying with Bucyrus once its acquisition by Caterpillar is complete.
“We’re done at closing,” Sullivan said. “I think that’s for certain.”
This is concerning to me, given Sullivan’s close ties to the community and area charity efforts. Losing him in a public role with the company is a blow to South Milwaukee and the region.
I am anxious to see who the “new face of Bucyrus” will be once the deal is done, if there even is one. Indeed, how active will Bucyrus be in the city with new corporate ownership? That remains to be seen.
Filed under Local Business
As you can read below, I support the move by Democratic state Senators to boycott the hyper-speed, fast-tracked, ram-it-through debate going on in Madison around Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting plan.
I do not support teacher sickouts. It is wrong, hypocritical in fact, for teachers to argue that the ongoing debate is about the future of education in Wisconsin … and then hurt students by keeping them out of the classroom.
That gets to my point about unions. I support a lot of what they stand for, but certainly not everything, and certainly not all of the tactics they use. This is one of them.
One alternative solution: Go to work, do some informational picketing before and after school and during lunch hours , and then head to Madison once the bell rings. That’s what teachers in some districts are doing, and that’s the right call here.
Keep the doors to school open. As the parent of a Rawson Elementary student, I am glad to see class is still on in South Milwaukee.
Filed under Politics
I want to know what you think of Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to restrict collective bargaining rights for public workers and reduce their benefits as part of his budget repair bill.
I’ve added a new poll on the right side of this page. Cast your vote!
Filed under Politics
So, where is Chris Larson anyway?
The South Shore state senator won’t say, but he did tell the Journal Sentinel in an interview Thursday afternoon why he and other state senators boycotted a potential vote on the union-busting proposal from the governor.
From the story:
State Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said Thursday afternoon that Democratic senators had left the Capitol out of frustration over Republican legislative leaders’ refusal to discuss meaningful revisions to Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed elimination of most collective bargaining rights for public employees.
Larson said the hope was that by leaving the Capitol, Republicans might agree to negotiations on the measure, which Walker included as part of a state budget repair bill.
“You saw this huge outpouring of support” from the public against Walker’s union measure, yet majority Republicans have been unwilling to budge on revisions, Larson said.
“They shot down debate when people had a right to be heard,” Larson said, referring to the 3 a.m. Wednesday cutoff of public testimony before the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee.
(Update: Larson told the Bay View Compass he was in Illinois.)
I congratulate Chris and his Democratic colleagues for taking a stand on principle, for standing on the fact that negotiation is the best and only reasonable path here, that ramming through a proposal to kill public unions with just a few days of debate is simply wrong.
As others have said today, it’s simply un-Wisconsin. We all deserve better.
I say this being married to a public school teacher who absolutely is not getting fat on pay and benefits. Far from it. With a master’s degree and more than 10 years of real-world experience, she could easily earn more in the private sector but chooses to teach because she is dedicated to a greater good: shaping young minds. And she is great at it.
So for anyone to suggest otherwise — that it’s time for her to somehow “pay her fair share” — is simply not willing to know the truth here, and Republican talking points suffice.
Would I, and she, support negotiated cuts in pay and benefits for public workers? Probably. But the key word is negotiated, not through the strong-arm, union-busting tactics like those on display from Madison Republicans right now.
It’s disgraceful … and it’s right that Senate Democrats are doing what it takes to call attention to it.
These lawmakers are doing what they need to do to right a wrong, and I stand behind them.
Filed under Community
WISN 12 was in South Milwaukee on Wednesday doing a story on potential local impacts of looming state budget cuts — and the ongoing crisis over Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to do away with collective bargaining for many employees.
Check out the video here.
Filed under Community
Update: School Superintendent Rita Olson has informed me that the School Board did indeed approve contracts for five of its unions on Wednesday. The deals still need to be ratified by each union. I will keep you posted when I get more details.
The South Milwaukee School Board is working to approve union contracts with teachers and other represented employees ahead of new restrictions on organized labor coming soon out of Madison.
Check out the Journal Sentinel story here. From it:
In South Milwaukee, Superintendent Rita Olson said her school system does not have a tentative agreement with its unions yet, but she hopes the board might be able to make offers that would be accepted by all of its employee bargaining units at the Wednesday meeting. She said the sides have been negotiating for a long time and are not far from settling anyway.
“We want to offer a voluntary settlement before everything goes into effect,” Olson said of Walker’s proposal.
School administrators have been told that Walker’s changes would go into effect immediately and affect any unsettled contracts.
I am anxious to see what kind of contract settlement is reached, if one is at all. I will keep you posted.
In the meantime, I commend the district for its willingness to work with its union employees in the 11th hour to get a deal done that I’m expecting will be fair. It goes back to the crux of my argument on this issue: Let local units of government decide what’s best when it comes to how they bargain with their unions and what they bargain for.
Let the School Board and school unions, in this instance, hammer out a contract how they see fit.
There is simply no room for the governor and state legislature to get involved here … except, of course, when the goal is to decapitate public sector unions, which is Scott Walker’s ultimate aim in this whole charade.
Filed under Politics
This was not your typical February primary … and that’s why voter turnout was a solid 20.8 percent in South Milwaukee on Tuesday.
In all, 2,279 of 13,378 registered voters came out to the polls, according to figures from the city clerk’s office on Tuesday night.
From the report:
The general election is April 5, when you’ll see local aldermanic and school board races on the ballot.
This includes my seat. I appreciate your support.
Filed under Politics
Be sure to get out and vote today in the primary elections for Wisconsin Supreme Court, Milwaukee County Circuit Court and county executive.
Check out my previous post on this for details on where, when and what you’ll need to vote.
And check back to my blog later tonight for updates on how South Milwaukeeans voted on Tuesday.
Filed under Politics
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.
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.
Filed under Politics
Tuesday is primary election day, and you can find out all you need to know about voting in South Milwaukee on the Election Information page on the city’s website. Here are some of the basics:
Of course, the Milwaukee County executive primary highlights the ballot. Who do you plan on voting for on Tuesday? Be sure to vote in the poll on the right-hand side of the page, and post your comments below.
See you at the polls!
