There should be two lasting lessons to emerge from the heroic labor-led protests in Wisconsin.
First, working people -- with our many allies, students, seniors, women's organizations, and more -- are inspired and ready to fight.
Second, we need to send a clear and unequivocal message to the right-wing politicians and those in the media suggesting further concessions from working people.
Working people did not create the recession or the budgetary crisis facing federal, state and local governments, and there can be no more concessions, period.
It should be apparent that the right wants to scapegoat workers and their unions, and is trying to exploit the economic crisis for an all-out assault on unions, public employees, and all working people in a campaign that is funded by right-wing, corporate billionaires like the Koch brothers.
Their goal is no less than to break unions and silence the voice of all working people to fight for better working conditions and improved standards for all working people.
For example, while demanding major cuts in public pensions, the right also wants to make sweeping cuts in Social Security , even though Social Security is in sound economic shape.
What all working families should know:
1. Who caused the economic crisis? Banks, Wall Street speculators, mortgage lenders, global corporations shifting jobs from the U.S. overseas.
2. Who is profiting in the recession? Corporate profits, third quarter of 2010, were $1.6 trillion, 28 percent higher than the year before, the biggest one-year jump in history. Meanwhile, average wages and total wages have fallen for all incomes, except the wealthiest Americans whose income grew five-fold.
3. Who is not paying their fair share? In U.S. states facing a budget shortfall, revenues from corporate taxes have declined $2.5 billion in the last year. In Wisconsin, two-thirds of corporations pay no taxes, and the share of state revenue from corporate taxes has fallen by half since 1981. Nationally, according to a General Accountability Study out today, 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.
4. Are public employees overpaid? State workers typically earn 11 percent less, local public workers 12 percent less than private employees with comparable education and experience. Nationally, cutting the federal payroll in half would reduce spending by less than 3 percent.
5. Would pay and benefit concessions by public employees stop the demands? The right has made it clear it wants A- cuts in public pay, pensions, and health benefits, followed by B- restricting collective bargaining for public sector workers, followed by C- prohibiting public sector unions.
6. Will the right be troubled if cuts in working standards make it harder to recruit teachers and other public servants? No. Take public teachers, many of whom have accepted wage freezes and other cuts in recent years. Many in the right have a fairly open goal of privatizing education, and destabilizing public schools serves this purpose. The right also salutes the shredding of government workforce, part of its overall goal to gut all government service and make it harder to crack down on corporate abuses or implement other public protections and services.
7. Will the right stop at curbing public workers rights? Employers across the U.S. are demanding major concessions from private sector workers, and breaking unions. Rightwing governors and state legislators are seeking new laws to restrict union rights for all private and public employees.
8. Does everyone have a stake in this fight? Yes. It's an old axiom that the rise in living standards for the middle class in the 1950s was the direct result of a record rate of unionization in America. It is of course unions that won the eight-hour day, weekends off, and many other standards all Americans take for granted that are now often threatened with the three-decade-long attack on unions spurred by that rightwing icon Ronald Reagan. The corollary is that increased wages and guaranteed pensions put money into the economy, with a ripple effect that creates jobs and spurs the economy for all.
So it's time for all of us to say it loud:
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Rev. Curt Anderson: Wisconsin Protests: God's Advocacy and Concern For Laborers
The very people who are getting thier homes forclosed on, are the people Walker is asking to take less pay and fewer benefits.
Why not make those who designed and benefited from the economic crisis pay for it?
The math doesn't work. Corporations are now considered "citizens" and they should pay their patriotic fair share of taxes. Taxes are not inherently evil, as the GOP would have you believe. I'm sure that if corporations paid just 1% more than they are currently paying, a) they would not be bankrupted, b) they would not leave the state or the country, and c) it would cover the deficit that is being asked to be covered by the unionized workers.
The Governor (or ANYONE) needs to also have the courage to ask corporations to pay their fair share; not send jobs overseas; close tax loopholes.... and reward those that keep jobs here, manufacture here, and keep their money 'onshore' via onshore investments. Give them tax incentives for every worker they have in the US vs. abroad...something!! The People are paying too high a price.
And if you expect public employees to accept a 20% cut in pay, will you also demand the oil companies cut their gas prices by 20%? the utilities to cut home heating bills by 20%? supermarkets cut food prices by 20%? insurance companies give a two month holiday on paying insurance bills? thought not
I'm not promoting any "-isms", but it is a fact that our greatest progress as a country happens when we band together. When we are United.
I agree with much of what is written above. I support unions. I belong to a union.
but...
It's also true that some unions have gotten too much power.
When I lived in NYC, a bus driver, for instance, could do lots of overtime his/her last couple of years and retire, at age 50, making more in retirement than their working base pay had been. That's not right. I think also that the huge retirement obligations to UAW workers hurt Detroit's ability to make good cars at competitive prices. I also think a good number of teachers work less hard when they get tenure.
Do I think most bus drivers, auto workers, and teachers are hard-working, good, decent people? Sure I do.
Do I think some corporations, much of Wall St and some of the rich have too much power?
You bet.
But that doesn't mean that all blame should be put on those powerful entities, and that none of the new sacrifices should go to those bus drivers or tenured teachers.
It wasn't huge retirement obligations to UAW workers that hurt Detroit. Health insurance benefits do run up the cost of vehicles in this country, but look at the hue and cry when we try to talk about a single-payer system as other countries have. Without it you remain tied to the employer-paid system and you will never be able to compete with the other countries who don't need to add that cost to their vehicle prices. Big auto makers in the US also mismanaged money and chose not to go down the path of making better mileage vehicles as Japan and others did. Union workers have no say in their employer's business plan, but we bear the results of it.
It would really help all of us if we dealt more with what the facts truly are, vs. resorting to what 'I think.' Otherwise even without meaning to we regurgitate neocon talking points.
Let's all be pissed at the right people. It's not the workers. It is those who have defrauded us--the banksters and Wall Street CEOs.
In fact, it has a lot to do with it. The Wisconsin dispute and Gov. Walker are an interesting case study re politics, election campaigns and money.
Big money and big corporations understand that they have a huge stake in the outcome of congressional elections. .
Contrast this with Wisconsin’s elections. In those, BIG money does not feel it has a big stake, when it comes to the election of city council and county commissioner election campaigns.
Union dues are collected by payroll deduction and handed over to the union’s officials. Hence the unions support of candidates for local office is arguably disproportionate. That may lead to Wisconsin public employees' representatives having a warm reception in labor management bargaining sessions.
These public employees are ready and willing to give Walker all he now asks for in regard to all issues EXCEPT collective bargaining.. They will not accede to his union busting demand to end collective bargaining rights. !
For the sake of argument, suppose we stipulate that these employees have gained too much bargaining power because of how money impacts LOCAL elections. Some bargaining power balance must be reached. However this could be obtained by merely changing the State law so that the public employees unions would have to collect their own dues. In Wisconsin, pity the anti labor local candidates who do not have the beneift of the deadly “CITIZEN‘S UNITED” weapon in purely LOCAL elections.
" In a move meant to lure boycotting opposition senators back to Wisconsin, the Republican leader of the state Senate threatened Monday to force a vote soon on a bill that is abhorred by Democrats: requiring people to show an ID at the polls.
Meanwhile, the National Guard has toured at least one state prison – presumably in preparation for taking over if needed – as thousands of correctional officers, teachers and other public workers continued Monday to protest at the Capitol to stop a budget-repair bill that would take away most of their union rights. Correctional officers insisted they have no plans to strike and called the Guard visit unwarranted.
Monday’s events presaged a hectic week, with the Assembly set to vote Tuesday on the budget-repair bill and the Senate planning at the same time to take up other bills to try to force Democrats in that house to return to the state. At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Walker – who has shown no sign of relenting – will address voters directly in a “fireside chat.”
The push on the photo ID bill by Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) is the latest example of Republicans pressuring Democrats in hopes of ending the standoff over the bill on union rights. Senate Democrats disappeared to Illinois on Thursday to prevent a vote on that bill."