CLT UPDATE
Monday, March 14, 2011
Government employee unions on the run ... everywhere but here
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Congratulations to Wisconsin Republicans, who
held together this week to pass their government union reforms
despite unprecedented acting out by Democrats and their union
allies. Three weeks ago we described this battle as a foretaste of
Greece come to America, but maybe there's hope for taxpayers after
all....
The collective bargaining reforms also mean that
this won't merely be a one-time budget victory. Government unions
know that financial concessions (and layoffs) they agree to during
recessions are typically won back when tax revenues increase and the
public stops paying attention. They merely need to elect a friendly
governor. Mr. Walker's reforms change the balance of negotiating
power in ways that give taxpayers more protection....
If Mr. Walker's effort can be faulted, we'd say
it's for not stressing enough the value of these collective
bargaining changes for taxpayers, and how public unions too often
end up on both sides of the bargaining table. Instead, he stressed
the short-term fiscal benefits of his bill. Yet his changes will pay
off in future years in Wisconsin in ways that reforms by GOP
Governors in Michigan or even New Jersey will not....
Mr. Walker and his allies have won a rare victory
for taxpayers, one which should be a lesson for other states and
Governors. The monopoly power of government unions can be broken.
The Wall Street Journal
Friday, March 11, 2011
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Taxpayers Win in Wisconsin
The monopoly power of government unions can be broken
In 2010, Megan Sampson was named an Outstanding
First Year Teacher in Wisconsin. A week later, she got a layoff
notice from the Milwaukee Public Schools. Why would one of the best
new teachers in the state be one of the first let go? Because her
collective-bargaining contract requires staffing decisions to be
made based on seniority.
Ms. Sampson got a layoff notice because the union
leadership would not accept reasonable changes to their contract.
Instead, they hid behind a collective-bargaining agreement that
costs the taxpayers $101,091 per year for each teacher, protects a
0% contribution for health-insurance premiums, and forces schools to
hire and fire based on seniority and union rules....
In Wisconsin, we can avoid the massive teacher
layoffs that schools are facing across America. Our budget-repair
bill is a commitment to the future so our children won't face even
more dire consequences than we face today, and teachers like Ms.
Sampson are rewarded—not laid off.
Taking on the status quo is no easy task. Each
day, there are protesters in and around our state Capitol. They have
every right to be heard. But their voices cannot drown out the
voices of the countless taxpayers who want us to balance our budgets
and, more importantly, to make government work for each of them.
The Wall Street Journal
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Why I'm Fighting in Wisconsin
By Scott Walker
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill into
law Friday eliminating most collective-bargaining rights for the
state's public employees, while boosting how much they will pay for
their benefits and making it tougher for public unions to retain
members....
"What we've effectively done is protect
middle-class jobs and middle-class taxpayers," Mr. Walker said in an
interview Friday. "When people realize that I think there's going to
be incredible support." ...
The new law calls for all public-employee
bargaining agreements to be terminated "as soon as possible," and
requires the first of 2,000 new union elections at state and local
workplaces to begin in April.
Under the law, unions said it will be more
difficult for them to retain members. The new law requires that 51%
of all eligible workers—including those who don't vote—approve a
union, which means unions can win a majority of votes cast, but
still be barred from representing workers.
Previously unions had to win a majority of votes
cast. The state also will stop collecting dues automatically as soon
as contracts end....
Many union members object to the tougher election
requirements. "Annual certification is just a complete tactic to
bust the unions," said Chris Fons, a 45-year-old high school teacher
from Milwaukee.
Mr. Walker defended the changes in union
elections. "It really puts the onus on saying if the union wants to
provide value they have to prove it," he said. "If people believe it
then they'll come out and vote."
The Wall Street Journal
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Restrictions on Unions Become Law
In the end, Wisconsin Democrats’ three-week
sojourn in the Land of Lincoln couldn’t win their state’s civil war
over public employee unions. Wisconsin Republicans this week turned
the tables on their AWOL colleagues by stripping monetary provisions
from Gov. Scott Walker’s legislation and then passing it without
need for a quorum....
When that noise has quieted, the reality that
will remain is this: Wisconsin lawmakers have delivered a clear win
for taxpayers, and perhaps as well a template for courageous
governors and lawmakers in other states to begin to curb the pay and
benefits of their own public employees.
Make no mistake: The mobs that occupied
Wisconsin’s state Capitol for weeks, likened Mr. Walker to Hitler,
threatened Republican state senators with physical violence, and
claimed that the legislation marked the death of democracy, were
playing a losing hand. Because, even after Mr. Walker’s legislative
win, public employees there enjoy excellent pay and benefits
vis-à-vis most workers. Noisy chants, crass or clever, cannot speak
more loudly than simple facts. Taxpayers and voters can do the math
for themselves.
Wisconsin, like most states, has more work to do
to solve its budget problems. But as of today, public employees in
“America’s Dairyland” won’t be milking the taxpayers quite so much
as before.
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Friday, March 11, 2011
Walker wins
Wisconsin moves workers’ cheese
From the time that Wisconsin union members began
protesting until the Republicans outmaneuvered absent Democratic
lawmakers by stripping state workers of their collective bargaining
rights, union supporters went unhinged as Wisconsin Gov. Scott
Walker sought to restore fiscal sanity by reining in lucrative
benefits to public employees. Here are the Top 10 Ugly Moments in
the Wisconsin Union Battle. . . .
Human Events
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Top 10 Ugly Moments in the Wisconsin Union Battle
New England Cable News
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Broadside with Jim Braude
Fallout from Wisconsin Protests
(NECN) - Barbara Anderson, Executive Director of Citizens For
Limited Taxation
joins Jim Braude on Broadside to discuss the fallout from Wisconsin
protests.
The bill to strip collective bargaining rights
from public workers
passed the assembly Thursday afternoon.
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Momentum to confront unconscionable government
unions and reject their demands is spreading throughout the nation,
state by state.
An awareness of the schism between public and
private sector employees is growing by the day along with resentment
over the differential. More citizens are questioning why public
employees are and have been doing so much better than their
employers -- us taxpayers. The myth promoted for so long by
government employee unions, that their benefits are in exchange for
comparatively low pay, has been shredded. Their salaries today for
comparable jobs outside government are equal to or greater. Immunity
from the economic hardships that we in the private sector must
confront -- stagnant if not diminishing incomes, lay-offs and
joblessness, higher health insurance premiums, collapsing 401K
pension plans -- while always demanding more from us has finally
pushed taxpayers over the edge.
But we
taxpayers in Massachusetts are expected to remain indentured
servants to the public employee unions, accepting the status quo
without complaint. Here in one of the bluest states in the nation,
getting public employee unions to accept a simple less expensive
health insurance plan -- one good enough for state worker
satisfaction -- is asking for too much of a concession from
municipal government unions. Here in the People's Republic, as with
most things the incestuous political culture is too inbred to be
easily disrupted, even inconvenienced. This must change, now.
As it is, we work too long just to afford keeping
them living at a standard better than ours. They won't be satisfied
until we work JUST to keep government employees enjoying all
the fruits of our labor. This must be stopped, now.
The first place to stop this is, by our
Legislature quickly passing the municipal health insurance reform
bill without including the government
unions' kick-back demand.
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Chip Ford |
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The Wall Street Journal
Friday, March 11, 2011
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Taxpayers Win in Wisconsin
The monopoly power of government unions can be broken
Congratulations to Wisconsin Republicans, who held together this
week to pass their government union reforms despite unprecedented
acting out by Democrats and their union allies. Three weeks ago we
described this battle as a foretaste of Greece come to America, but
maybe there's hope for taxpayers after all.
The good news is that Governor Scott Walker's reforms have been
worth the fight on the policy merits. The conventional media wisdom
is that Mr. Walker "overreached" by proposing limits on the ability
of government unions to bargain collectively for benefits. But
before he offered those proposals, Democrats and unions had refused
to support his plan that public workers pay more for their pensions
and health care. Only later did they concede that these changes were
reasonable and will spare thousands of public workers from layoffs.
The collective bargaining reforms also mean that this won't merely
be a one-time budget victory. Government unions know that financial
concessions (and layoffs) they agree to during recessions are
typically won back when tax revenues increase and the public stops
paying attention. They merely need to elect a friendly governor. Mr.
Walker's reforms change the balance of negotiating power in ways
that give taxpayers more protection.
Unions can still bargain for wages, but annual increases can't
exceed the rate of inflation. Unions will also have to be certified
each year, which will give their dues-paying members a chance to
revisit their decision to unionize. No longer will it be one worker,
one vote, once. Perhaps most important, the state will no longer
collect those dues automatically and give them to the union to spend
almost entirely on politics. The unions will have to collect those
dues themselves.
If Mr. Walker's effort can be faulted, we'd say it's for not
stressing enough the value of these collective bargaining changes
for taxpayers, and how public unions too often end up on both sides
of the bargaining table. Instead, he stressed the short-term fiscal
benefits of his bill. Yet his changes will pay off in future years
in Wisconsin in ways that reforms by GOP Governors in Michigan or
even New Jersey will not. A future Wisconsin legislature can change
these laws again, but not without a big political reversal.
That's exactly what Democrats and unions now want to engineer, as
they promise to launch recall campaigns against state senators who
voted for the reforms. Our email inbox has been filling up all week
with Democratic fund-raising appeals screaming about Wisconsin. Mr.
Walker's poll numbers have slumped amid the raucous debate, and
unions will go all-in to punish the GOP.
But under Wisconsin law, only eight of the 18 Republican senators
who voted "aye" have served the requisite one year to be subject to
recall. And only one of those is in a truly vulnerable district.
Republicans would continue to hold 60 of the 99 seats in the state
assembly, and if Wisconsin's budget is balanced and the economy is
growing a year from now, voters may dismiss the predictions of
Apocalypse as hyperbolic.
The real game for unions and Democrats is 2012. After their rout in
2010, they are pursuing what we'd call the Mayhem Strategy to
mobilize their base and sour independents on the GOP. Cry havoc and
create enough tumult, and many voters may sue for labor peace. This
is exactly the strategy that government unions have used to block
any welfare-state reforms in Europe. The public is held hostage to
government workers who shut down services to stop even modest
changes in their workload or benefits.
Mr. Walker and his allies have won a rare victory for taxpayers, one
which should be a lesson for other states and Governors. The
monopoly power of government unions can be broken.
The Wall Street Journal
Thursday, March 10, 2011
OPINION
Why I'm Fighting in Wisconsin
We can avoid mass teacher layoffs and reward our best performers.
But we have to act now.
By Scott Walker
In 2010, Megan Sampson was named an Outstanding First Year Teacher
in Wisconsin. A week later, she got a layoff notice from the
Milwaukee Public Schools. Why would one of the best new teachers in
the state be one of the first let go? Because her
collective-bargaining contract requires staffing decisions to be
made based on seniority.
Ms. Sampson got a layoff notice because the union leadership would
not accept reasonable changes to their contract. Instead, they hid
behind a collective-bargaining agreement that costs the taxpayers
$101,091 per year for each teacher, protects a 0% contribution for
health-insurance premiums, and forces schools to hire and fire based
on seniority and union rules.
My state's budget-repair bill, which passed the Assembly on Feb. 25
and awaits a vote in the Senate, reforms this union-controlled
hiring and firing process by allowing school districts to assign
staff based on merit and performance. That keeps great teachers like
Ms. Sampson in the classroom.
Most states in the country are facing a major budget deficit. Many
are cutting billions of dollars of aid to schools and local
governments. These cuts lead to massive layoffs or increases in
property taxes—or both.
In Wisconsin, we have a better approach to tackling our $3.6 billion
deficit. We are reforming the way government works, as well as
balancing our budget. Our reform plan gives state and local
governments the tools to balance the budget through reasonable
benefit contributions. In total, our budget-repair bill saves local
governments almost $1.5 billion, outweighing the reductions in state
aid in our budget.
While it might be a bold political move, the changes are modest. We
ask government workers to make a 5.8% contribution to their pensions
and a 12.6% contribution to their health-insurance premium, both of
which are well below what other workers pay for benefits. Our plan
calls for Wisconsin state workers to contribute half of what federal
employees pay for their health-insurance premiums. (It's also worth
noting that most federal workers don't have collective bargaining
for wages and benefits.)
For example, my brother works as a banquet manager at a hotel and
occasionally works as a bartender. My sister-in-law works at a
department store. They have two beautiful kids. They are a typical
middle-class Wisconsin family. At the start of this debate, David
reminded me that he pays nearly $800 per month for his family's
health-insurance premium and a modest 401(k) contribution. He said
most workers in Wisconsin would love a deal like the one we are
proposing.
The unions say they are ready to accept concessions, yet their
actions speak louder than words. Over the past three weeks, local
unions across the state have pursued contracts without new pension
or health-insurance contributions. Their rhetoric does not match
their record on this issue.
Local governments can't pass budgets on a hope and a prayer. Beyond
balancing budgets, our reforms give schools—as well as state and
local governments—the tools to reward productive workers and improve
their operations. Most crucially, our reforms confront the barriers
of collective bargaining that currently block innovation and reform.
When Gov. Mitch Daniels repealed collective bargaining in Indiana
six years ago, it helped government become more efficient and
responsive. The average pay for Indiana state employees has actually
increased, and high-performing employees are rewarded with pay
increases or bonuses when they do something exceptional.
Passing our budget-repair bill will help put similar reforms into
place in Wisconsin. This will be good for the Badger State's
hard-working taxpayers. It will also be good for state and local
government employees who overwhelmingly want to do their jobs well.
In Wisconsin, we can avoid the massive teacher layoffs that schools
are facing across America. Our budget-repair bill is a commitment to
the future so our children won't face even more dire consequences
than we face today, and teachers like Ms. Sampson are rewarded—not
laid off.
Taking on the status quo is no easy task. Each day, there are
protesters in and around our state Capitol. They have every right to
be heard. But their voices cannot drown out the voices of the
countless taxpayers who want us to balance our budgets and, more
importantly, to make government work for each of them.
Mr. Walker, a Republican, is the governor of Wisconsin.
The Wall Street Journal
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Restrictions on Unions Become Law
By Kris Maher and Douglas Belkin
MADISON, Wis.—Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill into law
Friday eliminating most collective-bargaining rights for the state's
public employees, while boosting how much they will pay for their
benefits and making it tougher for public unions to retain members.
Mr. Walker said the law will save workers' jobs and help get the
state on a better financial footing. He rescinded layoff notices to
1,500 state employees Friday, and said the bill would save $30
million through June.
"What we've effectively done is protect middle-class jobs and
middle-class taxpayers," Mr. Walker said in an interview Friday.
"When people realize that I think there's going to be incredible
support."
House Democratic Minority Leader Peter Barca countered that the
governor could have achieved the cost savings without eliminating
bargaining rights, because unions already had agreed to contribute
more for benefits. He said the governor, instead, chose to pursue a
"radical assault on the rights of Wisconsin's working families."
Democratic lawmakers said the 14 Senate Democrats who left the state
Feb. 17 to boycott the bill plan to return to the Capitol on
Saturday and speak at a labor rally.
The new law calls for all public-employee bargaining agreements to
be terminated "as soon as possible," and requires the first of 2,000
new union elections at state and local workplaces to begin in April.
Under the law, unions said it will be more difficult for them to
retain members. The new law requires that 51% of all eligible
workers—including those who don't vote—approve a union, which means
unions can win a majority of votes cast, but still be barred from
representing workers.
Previously unions had to win a majority of votes cast. The state
also will stop collecting dues automatically as soon as contracts
end.
Peter Davis, general counsel of the Wisconsin Employee Relations
Committee, the state agency that oversees union elections, said he
didn't believe any other state requires unions to win a majority of
eligible voters.
He also said the huge number of new elections will overwhelm his
20-person agency, which typically handles 50 elections a year. The
agency doesn't have the resources to conduct 2,000 elections in
April for 200,000 workers affected by the bill, he said.
Many union members object to the tougher election requirements.
"Annual certification is just a complete tactic to bust the unions,"
said Chris Fons, a 45-year-old high school teacher from Milwaukee.
Mr. Walker defended the changes in union elections. "It really puts
the onus on saying if the union wants to provide value they have to
prove it," he said. "If people believe it then they'll come out and
vote."
Now that the bill is passed, lawmakers will begin to debate Mr.
Walker's two-year budget. Andrew Welhouse, a spokesman for Senate
Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, said because of the high level of
interest in the governor's two-year budget proposal, which cuts more
than $1 billion in funding to schools and local governments, large
venues like the Bradley Center, home of the Milwaukee Bucks, are
being considered for public hearings in April.
"We don't want to turn anyone away," he said.
The (Worcester) Telegram & Gazette
Friday, March 11, 2011
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Walker wins
Wisconsin moves workers’ cheese
In the end, Wisconsin Democrats’ three-week sojourn in the Land of
Lincoln couldn’t win their state’s civil war over public employee
unions. Wisconsin Republicans this week turned the tables on their
AWOL colleagues by stripping monetary provisions from Gov. Scott
Walker’s legislation and then passing it without need for a quorum.
Stand by now for a week or so of dueling opinion pieces, commentary
and news stories focusing on charges that the Republican move was
somehow illegal or undemocratic, with countercharges that democracy
began to unravel the day the Democrats fled the state in a futile
effort to thwart the governor.
When that noise has quieted, the reality that will remain is this:
Wisconsin lawmakers have delivered a clear win for taxpayers, and
perhaps as well a template for courageous governors and lawmakers in
other states to begin to curb the pay and benefits of their own
public employees.
Make no mistake: The mobs that occupied Wisconsin’s state Capitol
for weeks, likened Mr. Walker to Hitler, threatened Republican state
senators with physical violence, and claimed that the legislation
marked the death of democracy, were playing a losing hand. Because,
even after Mr. Walker’s legislative win, public employees there
enjoy excellent pay and benefits vis-à-vis most workers. Noisy
chants, crass or clever, cannot speak more loudly than simple facts.
Taxpayers and voters can do the math for themselves.
Wisconsin, like most states, has more work to do to solve its budget
problems. But as of today, public employees in “America’s Dairyland”
won’t be milking the taxpayers quite so much as before.
Human Events
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Top 10 Ugly Moments in the Wisconsin Union Battle
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=42247
From the time that Wisconsin union members began
protesting until the Republicans outmaneuvered absent Democratic
lawmakers by stripping state workers of their collective bargaining
rights, union supporters went unhinged as Wisconsin Gov. Scott
Walker sought to restore fiscal sanity by reining in lucrative
benefits to public employees. Here are the Top 10 Ugly Moments in
the Wisconsin Union Battle.
1. Fleeing the state: Fourteen Democratic Wisconsin state
senators dealt a blow to democracy by fleeing the state to avoid a
vote on the union reform measure. For three weeks, they abdicated
their responsibility to do the job they were elected to do. In
November, Wisconsin voters elected a GOP governor and large
Republican majorities in the statehouse. As President Obama once
said: “Elections have consequences.”
2. Nasty signs: The mainstream media was in a tizzy about
signs at Tea Party rallies that pictured Obama with a Hitler
mustache, but there was no similar outrage about the intemperate
signs at the Wisconsin protests. Here is a sampling: “Hitler
Outlawed Unions Too,” “Scott Walker = Adolf Hitler,” and “Walker
Terrorizes Families.”
3. Damage to capitol: The state capitol in Madison sustained
$7.5 million in damage from the tens of thousands of protesters
gathered to voice opposition to the union reform vote. Most of the
damage came from tape used to attach signs and placards to the
marble walls inside the capitol rotunda. When the Republicans
finally passed the collective bargaining measure, mobs of protesters
broke into the state capitol, climbing through windows and creating
further damage.
4. Fake doctor’s notes: It was bad enough when schoolteachers
abandoned their students in already underachieving schools in order
to protect their pension benefits, but they compounded the sin by
excusing their absences with fake doctor’s notes handed out at
protests.
5. Town hall shoutdown: Rep. James Sensenbrenner and state
Sen. Leah Vukmir had to end a town hall meeting in Wauwatosa after
screaming protesters kept interrupting the event. Pro-union hecklers
continually shouted during the proceedings and chanted “Shame” as
the Republican lawmakers exited the meeting.
6. SEIU scuffle: The owner of the Easy Street Cafe in Madison
called 911 when a group of union protesters, led by members of the
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1199, stormed his
restaurant and verbally accosted seven Republican state senators who
were sharing a meal after a vote at the capitol. The group of about
10 people chanted and shouted obscenities at the legislators. When
asked to leave by the owner, they refused and got into a scuffle
with the restaurant staff.
7. FreedomWorks scuffle: Unions protesters—including members of SEIU,
NEA, AFSCME, CWA, and the Teamsters—descended upon the Washington,
D.C, offices of FreedomWorks, a pro-Tea Party organization that has
been outspoken in favor of Gov. Walker’s union-reform measures. One
union member took a video camera from FreedomWorks staffer Tabitha
Hale, threw it to the ground and then hit her with his protest sign,
which said, “CWA: Taking a Stand for Justice.”
8. “Get bloody”: Apparently Rep. Mike Capuano (D.-Mass.)
never got the message after the Tucson shootings that political
speech containing violent references was inappropriate. At a Boston
rally in solidarity with the Wisconsin union protests, Capuano told
the crowd: “I am proud to be here with people who understand that
it’s more than just sending an e-mail to get you going. Every once
in a while you need to get out on the streets and get a little
bloody when necessary."
9. “You are [expletive] dead”: After a vote on union reform
that ended a 60-hour Democratic filibuster in the Wisconsin State
Assembly, state Rep. Gordon Hintz turned to Republican state Rep.
Michelle Litjens and said, “You are [expletive] dead.” Litjens later
told radio talk show host Laura Ingraham that Democrats were
“throwing fits on a regular basis, looking like a group of toddlers
throwing a temper tantrum.”
10. Michael Moore rants: Director Michael Moore, who has made
millions with his left-wing movie screeds, is using the Wisconsin
controversy to stoke class warfare. He said that private wealth is a
“national resource” that belongs to all the people, called for
jailing the rich, and wants a national “student walkout” in response
to the Wisconsin union vote.
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Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
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