Wisconsin: “Taking Away Public Employees’ Bargaining Rights Is Crazy”
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Labor activists in Wisconsin (Creative Commons).
Public employees and labor activists in Wisconsin continue to demonstrate against Republican Governor Scott Walker's plan to curb spending by cutting out collective bargaining rights for many state workers. The plan would also require them to pay more for their pensions and health care.
Chris Tilly, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, weighs in on the situation in Wisconsin and the impact it may have on labor politics in the near future.
Benjamin Gottlieb: What are the implications of the union protests in Wisconsin?
Chris Tilly: In Wisconsin, there is a proposal to wipe out collective bargaining rights for public employees. So, this has a number of significant implications. For pubic employees, there’s the possibility that conditions of employment could be under attack. Also, public services as a whole are being threatened. If you start slashing pay benefits and pensions, it’s going to have a negative effect on public services. Look, it’s hard enough retain good teachers, yet in Wisconsin, we’re threatening to cut their benefits and remove their bargaining rights.
BG: Will this have a broader impact in the U.S.?
CT: For the broader economy, it’s kind of a negative stimulus. Essentially, the Republicans and the right wing want to cut pay, jobs and benefits with regard to public employees. We have to be mindful of the 1930s economy, when the federal government increased spending to stimulate the economy while state governments were facing budget problems. To deal with their budget problems, states were forced to slash programs and spending. The two essentially cancelled each other out and there was no net stimulus. There is a real chance of that happening.
BG: Aren’t some these public employees overpaid and working jobs that are no longer relevant?
CT: I think there is public opinion that there is waste, fraud and abuse with some of these jobs. There are also widespread beliefs that many public employees aren’t working that hard. Studies show, however, that pubic employees on the whole get paid less. On the other hand, pubic employees tend to have better benefit packages. The tradeoff here is that they are taking lower pay for better benefits, including some of the best pension plans in the country. I think it makes a lot more sense to support all our population in retirement, instead of tearing down people who have a good deal in retirement.
BG: Boiling it down, what is at stake for Wisconsin’s public employees?
CT: Collective bargaining rights. Even if you think they are overpaid, to say that these employees should have no voice in their workplace – to take away collective bargaining rights – it just seems crazy to me. We’re talking about a basic human right here. There are other ways to limit some of the privileges for public employees, such as the ability to strike for example. A good example is that for police and protective services, there are limits to the rights to strike. But to remove collective bargaining is to remove one’s voice, and we can’t do that.
BG: Are these public employees in Wisconsin looking out for themselves, or speaking for a larger agenda?
CT: I think both. They want to be seen and advocate for the quality of public service jobs: education, healthcare and public safety.
BG: What about for California? Can you see a similar situation emerging in the near future?
CT: Right now, we have a Democrat as governor and a democratic majority in the legislator. So no, I don’t see this immediately spreading to California. What you are seeing is two political movements squaring off. Similar to how Prop 13 caught [Gov.] Jerry Brown by surprise, its certainly possible that an anti-government workers movement could come to California and push California politicians who are sympathetic to adopt certain types of restrictions. I don’t think we can predict to what extend each movement will spread across the county.
The UCLA Labor Center offers innovative programs that offer a range of educational, research and public service activities within the university and in the broader community. For over forty years, the center has especially focused on low-wage and immigrant workers.
[[Editor's Note: This is not the full interview transcription. Some questions and answers were omitted.]]
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Comments
WISE UP AMERICA?
Unrest is spreading into different States over the collective bargaining with the public sector unions, but the main spotlight is on Wisconsin the smaller of the States where teachers and local workers are up in arms over pensions and promised benefits. Democrats run off with their tail between their legs, afraid to confront the assembly over this issue. Some unions are packed with illegal alien labor, that should be replaced with the ten million workers looking for job-wanted signs. The crux of the matter started mainly with the collapse of the real estate industry , Freddie Mac-Freddie Mae threatened by radical groups demanding they give mortgages to the lower income people, including illegal alien families who were unable to afford the properties and yet still qualified for a large, expensive home. The aftermath is millions of Americans are out of work, unable to afford their mortgages and hundreds of thousands heading for foreclosure.
Unlike the majority of the American citizens-legal residents, illegal aliens in possession of ITIN (DeFacto Social Security number) issued by the IRS, where able to purchase houses, and then with the deterioration of the market vanished into oblivion, leaving yet another property waiting for a foreclosure notice. Since when is the IRS above the law, aiding and abetting allowing illegal aliens to buy homes? All US Citizens should read the consequences of giving ITIN numbers to foreigners, that was part of the real estate chaos, http://tinyurl.com/64s59w4 and in addition read about the huge billion dollar fraud with Child Tax Credits at http://tinyurl.com/69s7yhk
My distant family in California has seen the housing market collapse as prices fell, and the banks tightening their lending procedures. Before the bubble burst lending institutions would lend with a fiscal score of just 520, now risen to 620 with no allowance for small irregularities. One buyer earning $100 thousand a year, with a good job and stable employment, was not accepted because he had a $32.00 dollar payment outstanding from Macy's. The Banks have become increasingly Scrooges and are now part of the massive problem, with the real estate market almost dormant., yet they received massive bailouts by the Obama Liberal-Democrats before the 2010 election.
Even today the financial house a refusing to lend and are using every means possible to delay transactions, causing a major disruption for agents and brokers alike. Many small builders have been driven to the edge of bankruptcy. Both Democrats and Republicans must make a stand against the malleable use of the ITIN number. It should not be allowed in qualifying for a property by foreign nationals. The ITIN number had a whole mortgage product built around it, which has now fallen apart. The United States is a land of laws yet the IRS organizes a program to tax illegal behavior in the ITIN. The banks were literary forced to lend money to people living in the country illegally based on their tax Returns. They say that illegal aliens are hard-working, tax-paying people, according to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. So why did these foreigners evacuate hundreds of thousands of homes and vanish, leaving a bloody mess. One of the "masterminds" who served the chronic largely unpublicized situation, in the Liberal-oriented newspapers is the role of Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo in this present economic meltdown. http://tinyurl.com/667zwkv Please--read this information, as it applies to the massive foreclosures caused by one man and covered up.
American has been fooled for years by every administration that has catered to foreign nationals, giving hundreds of billions of dollars to families who never paid into any welfare pool. Even now illegal aliens parents are receiving (SSI) Supplementary Social Security Income having never paid taxes for them. One buyer earning $100 thousand a year, with a good job and stable employment, was not accepted because he had a $32.00 dollar payment outstanding from Macy's. The Banks have become increasingly Scrooges and are now part of the massive problem, with the real estate market almost dormant., yet they received massive bailouts by the Obama Liberal-Democrats before the 2010 election.
Even today the financial house a refusing to lend and are using every means possible to delay transactions, causing a major disruption for agents and brokers alike. Many small builders have been driven to the edge of bankruptcy. Both Democrats and Republicans must make a stand against the malleable use of the ITIN number. It should not be allowed in qualifying for a property by foreign nationals. The ITIN number had a whole mortgage product built around it, which has now fallen apart. The United States is a land of laws yet the IRS organizes a program to tax illegal behavior in the ITIN. The banks were literary forced to lend money to people living in the country illegally based on their tax Returns. They say that illegal aliens are hard-working, tax-paying people, according to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. So why did these foreigners evacuate hundreds of thousands of homes and vanish, leaving a bloody mess. One of the "masterminds" who served the chronic largely unpublicized situation, in the Liberal-oriented newspapers is the role of Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo in this present economic meltdown. http://tinyurl.com/667zwkv Please--read this information, as it applies to the massive foreclosures caused by one man and covered up.
American has been fooled for years by every administration that has catered to foreign nationals, giving hundreds of billions of dollars to families who never paid into any welfare pool. Even now illegal aliens parents are receiving (SSI) Supplementary Social Security Income having never paid taxes for them. Unbelievable amounts of money have been generously spirited from taxpayers to support foreign nationals by both the Federal and State governments. Do not believe they don't receive Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, low income housing. US citizens and legal non-citizen immigrants should be ushered to the front of pension lines and public benefits. Explain to me why we have veteran’s soldier’s homeless, single mothers with children and pensioners living on the streets. Yet illegal alien Mothers who intentionally slipped past the border or entered America by plane or ship pregnant, to later have more 14th Amendment citizenship children are allotted low income housing?
Every State is hurting now from years of neglect, for not confronting the illegal alien invasion of this country. But finally the 50 States subjected to this unparalleled occupation have started to fight back, against the reckless federal government. First it was the courageous border State of Arizona that even though it enacted policing laws, was attacked by the Department of Justice Czars and thrown to the liberal wolves in the 9th Federal District Court in San Francisco. The illegal alien occupation is like a prism of negative light, which streaks out in every direction causing maximum damage to every element of American life and costs that are impracticable to keep serving up anymore. We are educating foreign government’s children, offering them free health and even adding to the populations of our prisons. There is a Pdf file "Illegal Aliens and American Medicine. “ that every American should assimilate on Google. Its ultimately important that the 2006 Secure Fence act be funded and not cut back by the Liberal Parrots in Congress. If the US government and HS Secretary Janet Napolitano really wanted to protect the American people from the foreign invaders including middle Eastern terrorist murderers, they provide the US military along the border as a permanent deterrent with the necessary fire power.
But the momentum of anger is climbing as more and more states have come to the conclusion, that these drains on their treasuries is caused by illegal immigration welfare benefits and the amnesty of 1986. A large majority of Americans sit back and do nothing, which is unacceptable when Liberal progressives are mainly to blame for the hundred billion dollar debt that grows annually We must all become activists and join the TEA Party, or pro-sovereignty groups such as NUMBERSUSA, who are fighting for you to keep more of your tax dollars. Once you are an anonymous member, you can fax you Federal, State or local Representative. Or hold accountable your Senator or Congressman in Washington, by calling 202-224-3121