Thread: Collective Bargaining in Wisconsin

Being a public sector employee, I have found myself drawn to the current debate going on in the capitol of Wisconsin. The hot issue at this time has to do with the Governor’s attempt to eliminate collective bargaining for public sector employees – teachers being the chief group in this situation.

My stance on this is probably not one that you might imagine. I am aware that, when I accepted a job offer for a position that was funded by the hard-earned money of the American tax-payer, I was, and should be, subject to a different set of rules that apply to the private sector employee.

Any time that public money is being used to purchase goods, or the compensation package of a public employee, it should come under the scrutiny of those who contribute to this financial resource.

It is a reality, in the real world, that markets will dictate their own prices. In the world of public sector jobs profits are not an issue. The intent of unions was to help the hard working men and women receive the slice of the pie they deserved for their contribution to the “profits” of a business endeavor. Tax money is not collected to create a profit for a private entity; it is collected to provide services for society/community.

I am, by no means, supporting the elimination of unions. I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood where most of my family was United Auto Workers union members. The profits of the companies that they worked for are what eventually became the pivotal factor in obtaining them the compensation that they received. In a private sector where there are “no profits,” and in reality there is a large budget shortfall, I fail to see how a union leveraging for a bigger slice of the taxpayer dollar is acceptable.

I know that many will be opposed to my opinion, so I would like to ask a question of those who have read this post. Do you think that those who are opposed to the ending of collective bargaining in the framework of a public sector job would be okay with the situation being solved with the following scenario?

Let the union remain as a representative to the public employee as long as any increase in compensation is only initiated after a majority approval, via vote, of the taxpayers. A no vote would end all discussion on the issue. The true voice of the tax payer would be heard. What do you think?

Originally Posted by ClosetWriter

Let the union remain as a representative to the public employee as long as any increase in compensation is only initiated after a majority approval, via vote, of the taxpayers. A no vote would end all discussion on the issue. The true voice of the tax payer would be heard. What do you think?

Your idea makes sense.

Here's an opinion of mine weighing in on the Wisconsin issue. I'm from and live in Milwaukee.

My handle is "BloodOnTheClaw" and my comment is on page 57 (scrolling down). Capitol camp-out continues - JSOnline

You'll see two people gave me the thumbs down. They didn't like my comment about abortion I guess or evoking the name of the Catholic Church and suggesting the Democratic Party is traitorous.

Here's an article about the direction of the Church on the issue of organized labor.

1. Keeping Faith With Labor: Can Unions and Churches Maintain Their Longtime Friendship?

Keeping Faith With Labor: Can Unions and Churches Maintain Their Longtime Friendship?

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ

For much of America's history, labor unions have enjoyed support from religious leaders and their followers. But those ties show signs of unraveling, as unions embrace the radical Left and oppose the priorities of church leaders.

Churches are increasingly concerned that unions are a leading source of funding for political candidates opposed to traditional values. In addition, unions' traditional bond of support for struggling blue-collar workers and immigrants is eroding as union membership in the private sector reaches historic lows and as unions focus their organizing on higher-income public employees, teachers and other professionals.

The AFL-CIO is attempting to reverse these trends and strengthen church-labor bonds. Its success is far from certain.

Statement from the Archbishop of Milwaukee on the issue.

2. Archdiocese of Milwaukee | Statement Regarding the Rights of Workers and the Value of Unions

Statement Regarding the Rights of Workers and the Value of Unions

Most Reverend Jerome E. Listecki, archbishop of Milwaukee and president of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, has issued the following statement regarding the rights of workers and the value of unions.

February 16, 2011

I got a feeling the union members wouldn't like this. The majority of taxpayers would probably vote 'no' on any increases in compensation. The union members could then vote out the union, and save the money they are paying for union dues. No - they wouldn't like this at all.

As a long time member of the AFL-CIO, I've found that there is a great disconnect between your everyday American, Joe Union member, and the Union's Upper Echelon. Most of the Unions have now been co-opted by the extreme left and union dues are going to support views that aren't the same as many of the average members views. What started as a good idea in support of the working man, has evolved into a strong armed political machine, that is extremely corrupt.

Originally Posted by Gumby

As a long time member of the AFL-CIO, I've found that there is a great disconnect between your everyday American, Joe Union member, and the Union's Upper Echelon. Most of the Unions have now been co-opted by the extreme left and union dues are going to support views that aren't the same as many of the average members views. What started as a good idea in support of the working man, has evolved into a strong armed political machine, that is extremely corrupt.

Wow, that's a strong statement, Gumby, from someone that is a dues paying member of the AFL-CIO.

I've never had any big beef about unions other than the fact some are more powerful than others. The ones that seem to be weak don't seem to really have the power to justify taking dues out of their members paychecks. At least that's the way it has seemed to me.

I'm a former dues paying member, Writ. However, even when I was a dues paying member, I rarely agreed with the political stance that the AFL-CIO took on issues, and I didn't appreciate the money I paid being used to support far left agenda's that I felt undermined the Constitution.

It's easy to get caught up in the "us" against "them" mentality that the Union fosters in the membership, in regards to Management of the company. The Unions on a local level were much more attuned to the members, but even then, they were held accountable to the National level, who set the stage and controlled the players. If you weren't a "dues paying member", they weren't terribly concerned if your rights were violated, so there went the claim of being concerned with the "working man's" rights.

I do believe that unions were a good idea, but they've simply become corrupt and extremely biased. They've used the membership dues to buy politicians who support extreme left views and their so called collective bargaining is often done with those very same politicians. Even on a local level, the Union Officers wheeled and dealed in the back room with management when it suited them.

I do feel compelled to say that this was my personal experience with the AFL-CIO, and I don't speak for anyone other than myself.

Originally Posted by ClosetWriter

Let the union remain as a representative to the public employee as long as any increase in compensation is only initiated after a majority approval, via vote, of the taxpayers. A no vote would end all discussion on the issue. The true voice of the tax payer would be heard. What do you think?

I'm somewhat confused by this-hold a large expensive referendum to decide to give a raise ol Manny at the State Treasurer's Office because he comes to work on time ?

I think what you're asking is to hold a public referendum to decide to give a collective raise to all state employees, regardless of attendance or performance ?

At the last place I worked at, twice, there was only enough money to give raises to 12 people, each time. The raises went to people with perfect attendance + they frequently volunteered for overtime. Over a period of time, it leaked out to a few people that only twelve had received raises. One person, with spotty attendance and who never ev er volunteered for overtime +refused to work it, protested to the heavens about the raises. That person felt that they should be given a raise to give them incentive to come to work on time.

(shakes head in disbelief)

In every organization there are good workers and there are loafers. It would defy logic to give raises to loafers, unless you want to incite the Bible parable about the first being last and the last being first.

What is at stake in Wisconsin is that the state can no longer afford to give generous pay & benefits to a state labor force. that is sucking the state coffers dry during a time of austerity. The unions are trying to spin this that it's only a union busting law. In fact, it's a law to rein in excesses.

Working in the private sector I don't fear the economic situation as is, but it never leaves my sight that I keep my job strictly based on performance. If I don't produce, I'm out. It brings to mind a scene from the first Ghostbusters movie when the profs are given their walking papers. "Man, we're going to have to work in the private sector. We're actually going to have to produce." (shudders)

Dudester... My point must not have been clear. I agree with you one hundred percent. The only reason I made the comment that you used in your response was because I believe that if the Wisconsin Governor would just say okay if you think I am just trying to be a union buster find out how good your union is by seeing what the people think about your compensation. They will find out that the average citizen isn't going to allow any union to take more money out of their pocket, so then the teachers will see how much their union dues is getting them.

Originally Posted by ClosetWriter

Let the union remain as a representative to the public employee as long as any increase in compensation is only initiated after a majority approval, via vote, of the taxpayers. A no vote would end all discussion on the issue. The true voice of the tax payer would be heard. What do you think?

A very bad idea indeed.

A direct democracy for what is essentially a made-up tax payer issue would be really really messy. Perhaps if tax payers were honest with themselves as well as better informed, then what you propose might stand a chance. But it's really unnecessary anyway. A more straight-forward solution is to simply pay public employees about the same as their private sector counterparts, meaning those with comparable education and experience. Don't you agree?

If so, then most public-sectors employees would be in for a raise as they now earn 11% less nationally than the private sector and somewhere between 6-8% less in Wisconsin. But then these percentages do not take into account those highly suspect public sector benefits, namely the ever sinister 'pension plan'. Here’s how that works…

If a public and a private sector employee both earn a meager $40k annual gross, before taxes – because public sector employees are taxpayers too – then the public sector employee will still take home less per check because he elects to do so through collective bargaining so he can save more for tomorrow, as in retirement. Yes it seems like he’s getting a hell of deal at a glance, but in reality, it is 100% of his hard earned money whether you think he deserves it or not.

However I do realize there is more than one way of looking at this, for example, 70% of firefighters across America are volunteers. Maybe that’s a better model?! That the people who police our streets, fight our fires, rescue (our) dumb asses who get trapped in ragging rivers after attempting to drive their SUVs across flooded bridges during heavy down pours after they were warned not too, as well as the people who educate our children and clean up our streets should be more than happy to just to do these things sans compensation. Personally, I think they deserve higher pay that the average salary.

The true voice of the tax payer would be heard

Yea, there's nothing more I love to hear than the voice of the tax payer, over and over and over....

The Republican Strategy: Split the vast middle and working class (Robert Reich)

Written by Robert Reich | Friday, February 25 2011 11:21 Last Updated on Friday, February 25 2011 11:25 by Francis Goodwin

Feb. 17, 2011 (RobertReich.org) -- The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.

By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans want Americans to believe that we can no longer afford to do what we need to do as a nation. They hope to deflect attention from the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.

Republicans would rather no one notice their campaign to shrink the pie even further with additional tax cuts for the rich – making the Bush tax cuts permanent, further reducing the estate tax, and allowing the wealthy to shift ever more of their income into capital gains taxed at 15 percent.

The strategy has three parts:

The battle over the federal budget.

The first is being played out in the budget battle in Washington. As they raise the alarm over deficit spending and simultaneously squeeze popular middle-class programs, Republicans want the majority of the American public to view it all as a giant zero-sum game among average Americans that some will have to lose.

The President has already fallen into the trap by calling for budget cuts in programs the poor and working class depend on – assistance with home heating, community services, college loans, and the like.

In the coming showdown over Medicare and Social Security, House budget chair Paul Ryan will push a voucher system for Medicare and a partly-privatized plan for Social Security – both designed to attract younger middle-class voters.

The assault on public employees

The second part of the Republican strategy is being played out on the state level where public employees are being blamed for state budget crises. Unions didn’t cause these budget crises — state revenues dropped because of the Great Recession — but Republicans view them as opportunities to gut public employee unions, starting with teachers.

Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker and his GOP legislature are seeking to end almost all union rights for teachers. Ohio’s Republican governor John Kasich is pushing a similar plan in Ohio through a Republican-dominated legislature. New Jersey’s Republican governor Chris Christie is attempting the same, telling a conservative conference Wednesday, “I’m attacking the leadership of the union because they’re greedy, and they’re selfish and they’re self-interested.”

The demonizing of public employees is not only based on the lie that they’ve caused these budget crises, but it’s also premised on a second lie: that public employees earn more than private-sector workers. They don’t, when you take account of their education. In fact over the last fifteen years the pay of public-sector workers, including teachers, has dropped relative to private-sector employees with the same level of education – even including health and retirement benefits. Moreover, most public employees don’t have generous pensions. After a career with annual pay averaging less than $45,000, the typical newly-retired public employee receives a pension of $19,000 a year.

Bargaining rights for public employees haven’t caused state deficits to explode. Some states that deny their employees bargaining rights, such as Nevada, North Carolina, and Arizona, are running big deficits of over 30 percent of spending. Many states that give employees bargaining rights — Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Montana — have small deficits of less than 10 percent.

Republicans would rather go after teachers and other public employees than have us look at the pay of Wall Street traders, private-equity managers, and heads of hedge funds – many of whom wouldn’t have their jobs today were it not for the giant taxpayer-supported bailout, and most of whose lending and investing practices were the proximate cause of the Great Depression to begin with.

Last year, America’s top thirteen hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion each. One of them took home $5 billion. Much of their income is taxed as capital gains – at 15 percent – due to a tax loophole that Republican members of Congress have steadfastly guarded.

If the earnings of those thirteen hedge-fund managers were taxed as ordinary income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of 300,000 teachers. Who is more valuable to our society – thirteen hedge-fund managers or 300,000 teachers? Let’s make the question even simpler. Who is more valuable: One hedge fund manager or one teacher?

The Distortion of the Constitution

The third part of the Republican strategy is being played out in the Supreme Court. It has politicized the Court more than at any time in recent memory.

Last year a majority of the justices determined that corporations have a right under the First Amendment to provide unlimited amounts of money to political candidates. Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission is among the most patently political and legally grotesque decisions of our highest court – ranking right up there with Bush vs. Gore and Dred Scott.

Among those who voted in the affirmative were Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Both have become active strategists in the Republican party.

A month ago, for example, Antonin Scalia met in a closed-door session with Michele Bachman’s Tea Party caucus – something no justice concerned about maintaining the appearance of impartiality would ever have done.

Both Thomas and Scalia have participated in political retreats organized and hosted by multi-billionaire financier Charles Koch, a major contributor to the Tea Party and other conservative organizations, and a crusader for ending all limits on money in politics. (Not incidentally, Thomas’s wife is the founder of Liberty Central, a Tea Party organization that has been receiving unlimited corporate contributions due to theCitizens United decision. On his obligatory financial disclosure filings, Thomas has repeatedly failed to list her sources of income over the last twenty years, nor even to include his own four-day retreats courtesy of Charles Koch.)

Some time this year or next, the Supreme Court will be asked to consider whether the nation’s new healthcare law is constitutional. Watch your wallets.

The strategy as a whole

These three aspects of the Republican strategy – a federal budget battle to shrink government, focused on programs the vast middle class depends on; state efforts to undermine public employees, whom the middle class depends on; and a Supreme Court dedicated to bending the Constitution to enlarge and entrench the political power of the wealthy – fit perfectly together.

They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention from the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top, and conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and power.

The Republican Strategy: Split the vast middle and working class (Robert Reich) - World News Trust

Originally Posted by Blood

A very bad idea indeed.

A direct democracy for what is essentially a made-up tax payer issue would be really really messy. Perhaps if tax payers were honest with themselves as well as better informed, then what you propose might stand a chance. But it's really unnecessary anyway. A more straight-forward solution is to simply pay public employees about the same as their private sector counterparts, meaning those with comparable education and experience. Don't you agree?

If so, then most public-sectors employees would be in for a raise as they now earn 11% less nationally than the private sector and somewhere between 6-8% less in Wisconsin. But then these percentages do not take into account those highly suspect public sector benefits, namely the ever sinister 'pension plan'. Here’s how that works…

If a public and a private sector employee both earn a meager $40k annual gross, before taxes – because public sector employees are taxpayers too – then the public sector employee will still take home less per check because he elects to do so through collective bargaining so he can save more for tomorrow, as in retirement. Yes it seems like he’s getting a hell of deal at a glance, but in reality, it is 100% of his hard earned money whether you think he deserves it or not.

However I do realize there is more than one way of looking at this, for example, 70% of firefighters across America are volunteers. Maybe that’s a better model?! That the people who police our streets, fight our fires, rescue (our) dumb asses who get trapped in ragging rivers after attempting to drive their SUVs across flooded bridges during heavy down pours after they were warned not too, as well as the people who educate our children and clean up our streets should be more than happy to just to do these things sans compensation. Personally, I think they deserve higher pay that the average salary.

Yea, there's nothing more I love to hear than the voice of the tax payer, over and over and over....

Fine post. Especially the bold.

I am not sure why, but this issue really gets my blood boiling. I have done a lot of research, so that I can respond in a half-way intelligent manner. The real issue with me is the fact that a union represents public sector employees. I have a huge problem with that.

I decided I really need to know the facts about where the Wisconsin teachers rank in terms of average income (you can argue all you want that it is irrelevant, but, I am sorry – it is very relevant). The average salary of a teacher in Wisconsin is $46,390. I searched high and low, in articles that are backing the merits of unions for the public sector employee, and the underlying tone that I keep hearing is that the teachers are making less, about $4000 a year less, than the average income. The funny thing is: every one of them are referring to information that is really about the “median household income.” As we all know – most household incomes are not derived from a single worker. In fact I know that in many cases teachers are married to other teachers meaning their “median household income would be over $92,000, but I agree that this is irrelevant. I just wanted to make sure we are comparing apples to apples.

I constantly am being told that teachers deserve more because they had to pay for an education that was required for them to perform their job. Guess what – I had to pay for an education as well; it was required for me to do my job, and I make less than the average teacher. Yes – I know – you are right; it was my choice. That is why I am not complaining. (A side note: My job is in the technology field, and I have had to help many educators that didn’t know that changing their monitor wouldn’t cause their desktop icons to disappear.)

I also hear the argument that losing collective bargaining will also hurt the education of our children. I have a hard time understanding how that would work, but if you say so. I do, however, understand how giving a raise to a poor performing teacher, just because he or she is in the union, takes money away from what might truly benefit the student. I also understand how awarding a teacher tenure, who may be sub par at their job, hurts the education of a whole classroom of children.

So, you say you want to keep your union. I say go ahead, and keep paying that union dues, but you do not deserve raises based on a calendar, nor do you deserve job security based on tenure. When you think about it – what good does union dues get you if you lose those two things? Oh, now I get it!

In closing I would like to tell you about a conversation I heard while at dinner last Friday:
My wife and I were dining with another married couple, whom are good friends of ours. They are both teachers, and I believe their “household income” is somewhere around $130,000. As we were finishing up dinner a couple of their friends walked up to the table to say hi. They were also teachers. One said to the other, “Do you believe that they made me use part of my personal time to go to the dentist (as opposed to sick time which they wanted to use)?” They then discussed how the contract was purposely left vague to better serve those awful administrators. Guess what their conclusion was… File a grievance with the union.

Originally Posted by ClosetWriter

The funny thing is: every one of them are is referring to information that is really about the “median household income.”

I could not find one such article that compares Wisconsin's public teacher salaries to "median households."

Originally Posted by ClosetWriter

The average salary of a teacher in Wisconsin is $46,390.

If that's the average then that's the average, I'll take your word for it, but just remember that all that really means is that many teachers are earning below that and some are earning above that.

I have no problem with public school teachers earning $60,000 a year. And as I've stated before... in my opinion and one teaching in college with a Ph.D. should make about $100,000 or more a year.

I don't know how true it is but someone (adult student) told me tenured professors at UW-Milwaukee with their doctorates earn around $40,000 a year.

I'm hoping that's incorrect information I've heard. I don't have the motivation to find out for myself how true it is.

But I think the U.S. is too anti-teacher. It will probably pay for this in the future. And I'm not particularly speaking about this Wisconsin issue. I'm talking about a certain frame of mind people on the political right tend to have about public school teachers.