Commentary: Madison is our Cairo

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?article_1_263

By Peter Rachleff
22 February 2011

ST. PAUL - With the Koch Brothers footing his campaign, Scott Walker assumed the governorship of Wisconsin on January 7, 2011. Walker’s first action as Governor was obeisance to the corporate class that that put him in office: he gave $140 million in tax breaks to businesses, including WalMart, and then screamed “budget crisis!”

This move allowed him to introduce his “Budget Repair Bill,” which would require state workers to pay $5,000 - $7,000 a year towards their health insurance benefits and pensions.

Uninformed, public sector-bashing Walker supporters see this as an overdue comedown in public sector workers’ unfair advantages. But the scope of Walker’s bill is much broader than public sector wages, benefits and unions.


Peter Rachleff

It is a salvo in the broader Republican war against working people and all unions, proposing radical positions in the Right’s plan to create a permanent under-class of non-unionized workers: 1) reduce public employee collective bargaining strictly to wages; 2) prohibit all public employee strikes (the National Guard is on stand-by in Madison); 3) eliminate automatic deductions for union dues; 4) limit collective bargaining contracts to one year; and finally, 5) require union members to vote each year to “re-certify” bargaining units.

It is a salvo in the broader Republican war against working people and all unions, proposing radical positions in the Right’s plan to create a permanent under-class of non-unionized workers: 1) reduce public employee collective bargaining strictly to wages; 2) prohibit all public employee strikes (the National Guard is on stand-by in Madison); 3) eliminate automatic deductions for union dues; 4) limit collective bargaining contracts to one year; and finally, 5) require union members to vote each year to “re-certify” bargaining units.

Of course, the bill also proposes cuts in public education and public services. And right behind Walker’s “Budget Repair Bill” is an additional bill to make Wisconsin a “Right-to-Work” state, which would severely limit the powers of private sector unions. The one-two punch.

FULL story at link.

[lob1]

1. K&R.