Wisconsin, the workers Waterloo

From CNN.com

by Rick Fantasia

There should be no illusions. What is unfolding in Wisconsin and a half-dozen other states may be the beginning of the end for American labor.

Both the corporate leaders who are funding these initiatives and their Republican Party valets feverishly trying to push them through state legislatures understand this. The billionaire Koch brothers, for example, have pumped money into the Wisconsin effort; their energy and consumer products conglomerate was a top contributor to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's election campaign.

They must be giddy with anticipation, knowing how close they are to their long-standing goal of removing any significant opposition to their rule in American society. Too dramatic? If anything, it is an understatement.

As anyone following the events in Wisconsin knows, it has not been a matter of public employee unions showing intransigence in the face of a state budget shortfall.

The public sector unions have agreed to the financial concessions Gov. Walker had claimed were necessary to right the fiscal ship. No, the prize he hopes to deliver to his corporate supporters and ideological soul mates is much larger and more important than a simple balanced state budget.

Shock and awe has been the method employed, but just like in the war through which the phrase entered our national lexicon, momentary disorientation can give way to obstinate resistance, and no one anticipated the counter-mobilization that has galvanized workers in Madison, Wisconsin, and elsewhere.

Union labor recognizes that this is it: a Waterloo for the working class in America. Up to now it has been mostly a one-sided class war as private sector corporations have systematically weakened or destroyed their existing labor organizations, while intimidating and firing their workers when they have sought to organize themselves into unions.

For three decades this war has mostly played out beyond the public radar screen, as corporations and their consultants have turned workplace after workplace across the country into battlegrounds over the rights of workers to have some voice in the conditions of their labor.

When Walker and other governors complain that public sector workers receive better pension or health care benefits than do private sector workers in their states, they may be right, but this is because workers in the much larger private sector -- with unionization rates now at about 7%, down from 35% in 1955 -- have already had their pensions, their health care benefits, and their working conditions gutted. (About 35 % of public sector workers are unionized.)

Until now this corporate assault was not aimed at the destruction of public sector unions and the decent jobs and benefits that they were able to negotiate for workers. Public employee unions have agreed to concessions in the face of state and municipal budget problems across the country, as they have in Wisconsin, but asking them for more -- taking away the right to organize and bargain collectively -- tramples Americans' human rights.

Americans may not fully grasp what is at stake here, but we fail to do so at our peril. Unions have made mistakes, but they are the only defense that workers have.

Without viable unions to serve as a counterweight to corporate power, America's working people and their families are at the mercy of the largest and most powerful economic organizations on the planet.

Ironically, while mobilizing to destroy unions here, U.S. corporations have been somehow able to thrive in foreign countries that have much higher unionization rates and where labor movements have much more influence in society.

Unionization rates are about twice as high in Germany and Canada, for example, and as much as five times as high in the Scandinavian countries, but U.S. companies have been able to do their business quite profitably for decades.

Strong unions in these countries mean that their citizens enjoy high quality health care for all without having to pay huge insurance premiums, free or inexpensive child care for working families, university educations that leave no one in debt, five to six weeks of paid annual vacations, and worker standards of living that are mostly equal to or higher than those of American workers.

Socialism? Hardly. The capitalists of Europe and Canada do perfectly well for themselves, thank you, even though their CEO's don't generally expect salaries and stock options reaching into the stratosphere, like ours do.

If there were no labor movement in the U.S., there would be no social security system, no Medicare or Medicaid as we know them (unions regularly provide power and push-back at attempts to privatize or cut back ), no limits to child labor, or hours worked, or safety standards, or any ability to prevent or respond to unfair or despotic treatment by employers.

Whether in unions or not, American workers hold these protections because of unions. How long will they last if the unions are destroyed? Wisconsin is either the beginning of the end or it's a beginning.

Which side are you on?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/24/fantasia.union.wisconsin/index.html?hpt=C2

Even if you hate unions, why you should be against what is happening in Wisconsin

From the Faithful Progressive.com

Even if you hate unions, there are many reasons that you should oppose the radical budget plans of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker--which appears to be a test case for the national GOP agenda. Out-of-state billionaires, including the infamous Koch Brothers, are whispering in Walker's ear from the close access tens of thousands of dollars in contributions has bought them. These folks have no stake in the future of this state, and appear intent on destroying unions as a counter-balancing national political force. But what will their agenda do to quality of life in this state? What does their agenda do to the future of our economy?

1.) Wisconsin public schools rank high on many important measures, including the rate of graduating kids and preparing them for college. That has long been at the heart of our economic success.

We wrote here about Walkers' planned cutbacks to school aids. There is no doubt that these enormous cuts will lead to lay-offs and and a decline in public education in Wisconsin. The cuts are too big to be absorbed by even the drastic decline in teacher benefits contemplated in Walker's bill. Further, poor school districts will take by far the biggest hits--leading to the wider gaps between the rich and poor that seem to be the driving force and goal of all Republican economic policies.

From the MSJO article: Butler pointed out that teachers in the Sparta School District pay 20% of their health premiums, limiting the district's ability to achieve savings through health insurance benefit reductions. In addition, the effect of the budget will be felt differently based on how much a school district's budget relies on aid from the state, an equation affected by property wealth. In that respect, MPS has more to lose than a district such as Fox Point. In 2008-'09, $7,237 of MPS' per pupil revenue of $14,211 came from the state. In Fox Point, per pupil revenue of $14,240 included just $747 from the state.

2.) Wisconsin currently ranks very high in the percentage of state residents who have health insurance, with 91.5% of residents having Health Insurance coverage. This contributes to keeping health insurance costs down for all. Oh, and it just happens to save some lives, as we wrote here.

"BadgerCare is Wisconsin’s award-winning Medicaid program that provides health care coverage for more than 750,000 men and women—and their children—from across the state. Established in 1997 as a bipartisan effort to encourage work and improve health care in Wisconsin, BadgerCare has proven to be a highly effective—and cost-effective—program, successful in both rural and urban communities, in good economies and bad."

At Saturday's Madison protest, we spoke to this young man who was protesting Walker's proposed cuts and sweeping power grab in the operation of Badger Care. Five years ago, he was given a 30 percent chance of living five years from a diagnosis of bone cancer--if he could afford promising treatments. The Badger Care program stepped up to get him the state-of-the art treatment, and he is now doing very well.

Walker's bill will likely gut both Badger Care and Medicaid programs in Wisconsin. (See: Save Badger Care coalition.)

3.) Unlike other states, Wisconsin's state pension system, which includes many local workers as well, is fully funded and contributes billions of dollars to the state economy. Will local municipalities continue to fully fund pension obligations as they face Gov. Walkers' massive reduction of local aid?

Wisconsin's state pension fund was recently ranked at the Top of the pension class by both a Minneapolis Federal Reserve publication and two national studies. As Pew Center Report writes: In 2000, just over half the states had fully funded pension systems. By 2006, that number had shrunk to six states. By 2008, only four—Florida, New York, Washington and Wisconsin—could make that claim.

http://faithfulprogressive.blogspot.com/2011/02/even-if-you-hate-unions-you-should.html