Wisconsin teachers protesting for their rights.

Wisconsin teachers expressed anxiety Thursday as the state's Legislature nearly wiped away their collective bargaining rights in an effort to cut down state employee costs.

Tens of thousands of protesters, consisting of public workers from all over the Wisconsin, marched down State Street in Wisconsin's capital of Madison on Thursday in hopes of preventing the passing of Wisconsin's latest budget repair bill.

The measure would effectively eliminate collective bargaining rights for public sector employees while forcing them to make higher payments to pension and health care plans. This has created an uproar within the state, prompting entire school districts to cancel school on Thursday, citing lack of staff.

A few teachers in the Mequon-Thiensville School District--Brook Brown, social sciences teacher at Homestead High School, Benjamin Sloma, another social sciences teacher at Homestead, and Todd Spindler, band director at Homestead--were willing to offer their thoughts about the situation.

Brown said the atmosphere at Homestead High School was one of anxiety. The loss in collective bargaining would potentially keep teachers on edge about job security, since administration could fire employees at any time. 

Brown and Spindler, who's brother and father were actually in Madison protesting, talked about how the current government is looking for a short-term fix to the budgetary problem. 

Interestingly enough, Brown mentioned that the effects of the bill could actually hurt the state's economy, because of money that would have been allocated to teachers could have gone into Wisconsin businesses. This would effectively reduces the flow of money in the state's economy. 

Spindler, on the other hand, was very concerned about the impact of this bill in the long term.

"They don't care about us," he said, talking about the state in regards to the teachers. Spindler said this is an attempt at privatization in the public sector, since the employees have no say in issues that affect them directly. 

Sloma provided information about the previous teacher salary issues, particularly concerning a Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) system, which allows schools to avoid arbitration with the teachers if the union receives said QEO. This program has been considered flawed since it's initial passing, and has been repealed since.

Wisconsin public school educators have been dealing with adverse conditions regarding salary rights for a prolonged time, and now the collective bargaining rights are under fire. 

Sloma found the anti-collective bargaining provision to be oddly placed inside a budget repair bill, considering the fact that it would not necessarily save or generate any revenue for the state. He feels that this provision may simply be an attempt at weakening labor from in terms of a political agenda.

As Brown said, "They are not fixing the problem," which is the real issue at hand.

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