Posted on 12/14/2010 11:10:48 AM PST by milwguy
A state union leader accused Governor-elect Scott Walker on Tuesday of wanting to extort public employees into taking lower benefits and suggested Walker risked sparking a war with rank-and-file workers.
"It seems to me Walker has kind of taken a lesson about this corporate extortion that went on at Merc Marine, Harley-Davidson, Sub-Zero/Wolf, and he's trying to implement it on the public-sector side," said Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union. "We won't have anything of extortion. We'll fight him on that."
Beil was referring to recent major changes in labor contracts at Mercury Marine and other manufacturers in Wisconsin. He talked to reporters after a Capitol news conference in which state workers called for the Legislature to approve no-wage-increase labor contracts in a rare lame-duck session.
Walker has said the Legislature should not consider contracts until after Jan. 3, when he takes office and his fellow Republicans take over the Legislature.
He has called for putting the pension and health-care benefits of state workers in line with the private sector. If the unions don't agree, he has raised the prospect of changing state law so that such benefits are no longer topics that can be negotiated.
Responding to that, Beil said: "Bring it on. If he wants labor unrest, labor disharmony -bring it on. We're ready for it."
Asked if such a dispute could lead to shutting down prisons or other functions of state government, Beil didn't respond directly. "When you push a person to a corner and there's no escape, people tend to push back," he said.
He said Walker has not responded to his requests to talk about labor issues, and he accused the incoming governor of talking to the unions through the media.
"All Walker wants to do is appear on 'Fox and Friends' in the morning with his buddy from New Jersey and a couple other right-wing whackos," Beil said, referring to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who campaigned for Walker.
Walker's transition office did not have an immediate response to Beil's comments.
A legislative committee is scheduled to consider the labor contracts Tuesday, but it is unclear if Senate leaders will agree with Assembly leaders to come into session to vote on the contracts before Democrats lose power Jan. 3.
The taxpayers have had it with the spoiled public sector workers, and when Walker takes over on Jan 3, look for him to confront the union head on. Think Ronald Reagen and the air traffic controllers head on. Walker is going to outsource these lazy sobs right out of their cushy gov't jobs, and if the union thinks the public will back them vs Gov. Walker, as Nancy Pelosi famously said 'elections have consequences'.
Now the shoe is on the other foot, all the millions the gov't unions threw into defeating Walker were wasted and it is payback time!
ping - looks like Walker is gonna out-Christie Christie. Ooh-rah!
If you read the comments at the JSOnline link, the taxpayers are overwhelmingly in favor of his confrontational approach
I might even be able to move back to Wisconsin one day!
Guy's like me...are tied to the ups and downs of the market...interest rates, the dollar, etc..etc..
I might even be able to move back to Wisconsin one day!
Marxist trade and public sector worker unions are a much bigger threat to national security than terrorists.
Effective immediately upon taking control of the WH, the GOP must move to destroy the unions that work to put marxists into positions of power in the Federal govt.
Zero tolerance for marxists in US Government.
By Executive Order, declare all states “Right to Work” states.
No more compulsory union dues in order to keep your job.
Give all union workers a raise, give them the option of keeping the money they were forced to pay in dues to the socialist crook union bosses.
Time to put the screws to these red sons of bitches, paybacks a bitch.
In this piece there might be a grain of real economic goodness...... Outsource many of the Wisconsin union bureaucrat jobs to somewhere less expensive, say Mississippi or maybe Tennessee.
The Accounting and payroll, certain tax related jobs, maybe DOT engineering, server banks, what ever.....
Walker seems to grasp the essential problem with compensation of government employees especially retirement compensation. Taxpayers face a vicious principal agent problem in which the agent (politicians and agency executives) acts in direct opposition to the majority of principals. Politicians receive votes for providing high compensation and agency heads often receive the same generous benefits.
With all due respect, sir....you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
When the SHTF then WI is as good a place to start as any other. Gov Walker, SICK ‘EM!!
Two words for ya Beil, and any of your compadres: "you're fired!"
I would disagree, I have relatives who work in the public sector. After working till they are the ripe old age of 55, my sister and her husband are retiring, each with pension benefits worth a minimum of 1.5 million$, plus health care. They contributed next to nothing for their pension and for at least the last ten years we have had this argument at family gatherings.
When the stock market was high and my 401k was doing well, I still contributed 75% of the money for my pension. When the market tanked and my 401k took a hit, their pension was not affected. They always told me that they took LESS money in return for pension and benefits. The extra 6.2% I pay on my ‘higher’ wages for social security, PLUS the higher income taxes I pay for being in a higher wage bracket will not mean a damn thing when it is time for me to retire.
Of course I don’t know what I am talking about, I have only been posting about the coming public pension collapse on FR for at least 5 years!@
oh, and if you are referring to my characterization of public sector workers as lazy sobs, I would respond that the business I currently run is doing the same amount of sales as two years ago with labor costs reductions of 15%.
How is it that private sector employers are seeing huge prodcutivity gains, and doing more with less headcount, while the public sector is growing? Where are the efficiency gains in gov’t? The answer to that is gov’t keeps strangling the private sector with ever more regulations and laws, and they need more pencil pushers to think up those regualtions, and more still to enforce them.
The only city in Wisconsin booming right now is Madison, and that is because the rest of the state exports our tax dollars there to support the gov’t and top heavy UW Madison.
The Union thug is correct about one thing:
Wneh people are pushed into a corner, they will fight back!! The voters are fighting back & Walker is at the head of their spear!!
There are far more TAXPAYERS in Wisconsin than there are Union state workers.
This is a battle between the PRODUCERS & the PARASITES.
I put my money on Walker & the PRODUCERS of the tax money.
This union thug needs a reminder course about Studebaker: There are still union workers in South Bend, Indiana, who are sitting on their porches & waiting for Studebaker to ‘come back to town”.
I'll re-state....with all due respect....you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
NO, I am making an observation that many others are making. The public sector is growing while the private sector contracts. The private sector is becoming MORE productive, while the evidence is that the public sector is becoming LESS productive. Are all public sector employees lazy sobs? Of course not. Are public sector employees overcompensated when you include their lavish health and pension benefits, number of days worked per year, hours of work they put in, banked sick days, etc. The answer to that is yes.
Another little story about a captain on the local fire dept. In his last year of work before retiring, he makes over 100k a year, and has so many days banked, he will not work 40 days in the next 12 months before retirement. 100k a year for less than 80 hours a month of work? Are you kidding me? Of course, he and his wife already have their Florida condo to escape to after next October. Heavens, they can’t live here, the taxes are too high! It is well known in Milwaukee that the cops retire to Arizona and the Firefighters to Florida. Gimme a break
ping!
Fulfillment of these "contracts" depends on action by legislatures not yet elected. It is well established that one legislature cannot bind its successors.
If this were not true, then the People, whose representatives the legislators are, would not be sovereign.
A judge asked to rule for the union in a lawsuit to enforce the "contract" has no power to tax and no power to legislate.
The sooner as it is recognized that these contracts are fictitious, the sooner they can be cancelled outright.
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