Posted on 02/18/2011 4:18:26 AM PST by Kaslin
Welcome to the reckoning. We have met the fiscal apocalypse, and it is smack dab in the middle of the heartland. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation. Let us pray it does not go the way of the decrepit welfare states of the European Union.
The lowdown: State government workers in the Badger State pay piddling amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits. Faced with a $3.6 billion budget hole and a state constitutional ban on running a deficit, new GOP Gov. Scott Walker wants public unions to pony up a little more. He has proposed raising the public employee share of health insurance premiums from less than 5 percent to 12.4 percent. He is also pushing for state workers to cover half of their pension contributions. To spare taxpayers the soaring costs of Byzantine union-negotiated work rules, he would rein in Big Labor's collective bargaining power to cover only wages unless approved at the ballot box.
As the free-market MacIver Institute in Wisconsin points out, the benefits concessions Walker is asking public union workers to make would still maintain their health insurance contribution rates at the second-lowest among Midwest states for family coverage. Moreover, a new analysis by benefits think tank HCTrends shows that the new rate "would also be less than the employee contributions required at 85 percent of large Milwaukee_area employers."
This modest call for shared sacrifice has triggered the wrath of the White House-Big Labor-Michael Moore axis. On Thursday, President Obama lamented the "assault on unions." AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union bosses dubbed Walker the "Mubarak of the Midwest" while their minions toted posters of Walker's face superimposed on Hitler's. Moore goaded thousands of striking union protesters to "shut down" the "new Cairo" while the state's Democratic legislators bailed on floor debate over the union reform package.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan spurned the opportunity to condemn thousands of Wisconsin public school teachers for lying about being "sick" and shutting down at least eight school districts across the state to attend capitol protests (many of whom dragged their students on a social justice field trip with them). Instead, Duncan defended teachers for "doing probably the most important work in society." Only striking government teachers could win federal praise for NOT doing their jobs.
Yes, the so-called progressives truly believe that bringing American union workers into the 21st century in line with the rest of the workforce is tantamount to dictatorship.
Yes, the so-called progressives truly believe that by walking off their jobs and out of their classrooms, they are "putting children first."
If ever there were proof that public unions no longer work in the public interest, this is it. Big Labor dragoons workers into exclusive representation agreements, forces them to pay compulsory dues that fatten Democratic political coffers and then has the chutzpah to cast itself as an Egyptian-style "freedom" and "human rights" movement.
Meanwhile, union leaders elsewhere are quietly forcing their low-wage members to share the sacrifice in order to preserve teetering health funds. In New York state, Skidmore College campus janitors, dining service workers and other maintenance employees received late notice from the SEIU that 4.15 percent of their gross earnings will now be deducted from their paychecks to cover the cost of the health plan provided through the behemoth 1199 SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund. (If the name sounds familiar, it's because this is one of several privileged SEIU affiliates that has received an Obamacare waiver.)
These workers are forced to join the union in order to preserve their jobs, and unlike non-union workers, they are locked into a single health plan. The SEIU has now decreed that they must pay new fees to include spouses on their plans and has hiked employee co-pays for doctor visits and prescription drugs.
What's necessary for New York union workers is necessary for Wisconsin union workers -- and for the rest of the protected union worker class in bankrupt and near-bankrupt states across America. The "persuasion of power" so ruthlessly and recklessly exercised by the SEIU and its thuggish allies must be broken by the moral courage of fiscal discipline. It's now or never.
I sense the pendulum swinging back and believe that we will look back in 5-10 years and conclude that Wisconsin was the anti-California: a classic, liberal state where faulty ideas collided with fiscal reality and the electorate revolted, starting first with a rejection of public employee unions, a modern abomination and per se irreconcilable conflict of interest.
Today we are all Badgers.
From Scott Walker vs. Public Sector Unions by Stephen F. Hayes (The Weekly Standard)
February 17, 2011 —
”Walker is unapologetic. These are difficult times. Wisconsin is facing a budget crisis. And there have to be cuts. Walker believes the changes he’s proposing are relatively modest. “I’m asking them to contribute 5.8 percent of their salary to their pension – right about the national average for contributions. And I’m asking them to pay 12 percent of their health care premiums – up from 6 percent. The national average is around 25 percent.”
“So Wisconsin’s public employees will still have benefit plans more generous than most workers across the country. And these steps are being taken with the express purpose of avoiding major layoffs and dramatic paycuts. But the unions don’t like it.
“… What’s more, Wisconsin teachers pay as much as $1100 each year in compulsory union dues. If the legislation passes, they will no longer be required to pay those dues – returning that money to their own pockets.”
“Welcome to the reckoning. We have met the fiscal apocalypse, and it is smack dab in the middle of the heartland. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation. Let us pray it does not go the way of the decrepit welfare states of the European Union. “
Her first paragraph says it all. Come to counter protest this Saturday from noon till three at the south Capitol building steps.
More info here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=142039272524888
Then why are they protesting, if they wouldn’t have to pay those fees anymore? Were they told by their Union to protest or else?
The teachers seem to be squawking the most.
Others have posted information that the salary and benefit cost for an average Wisconsin teacher is around $100,000 per year.
Some questions we need to ask those teachers:
1. How many days do the kids go to school?
2. How many hours per school day is the teacher teaching?
3. What is the dollar per teaching hour cost?
My back of the envelope computation shows the cost is $110 per teaching hour.
The bottom line that if supposed “teachers” were doing what they are intended to be doing our nation would not be in the situation it is now and our children would have some understandings of justice, the constitution, pride in their nation instead of global guilt and would not be more concerned about what Snooki is upto and more concerned with preserving their right as a soul to breathe, enjoy freedoms and have their wealth untaxed instead of believing it is owed to anyone but fire, sanitation, police, courts and military DEFENSE and not empires.
The bottom line is just like charities most unions have become what they hate...concentrated power that takes advantage. That is why democracy is a fail always an a republic is our best hope.
The best educations need to be at home.
The gov should lay this directly into obamacares lap...” we cannot afford the premium increases caused by obamacare..”
The compulsive interest in what Snooki is doing is not the teachers’ fault, it’s the result of poor parenting and a degenerate culture.
I agree with the rest. But you argue for WAY too much teacher influence over kid’s lives - it’s none of their business what kids do or watch out of school, it’s their parent’s business #1 and, I believe, society’s business #2.
Ich bin ein Badger!
Oh, I see. I hadn't quite understood what was going on with the collective-bargaining issue.
An alternate view:
1. A homeschooled child is in school 365 days a year - every life experience has academic value.
2. The national average for homeschoolers is about $585.00 per child per year (in addition to taxes taken from our pockets for publik skoolz).
3.A little over six and a half cents per hour.
Note to the union organizers: keep tossing the Bieber brains out in front as examples of your fine product...
As Rep. Ryan from WI has said, “Cairo” has come to Madison.
The horror! We should fight this battle now in Wisconsin. Bring it on libs!
Here’s a searchable database with teacher salaries and benefits for 2009-2010.
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/dataondemand/33534649.html
State employee pay database.
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/dataondemand/33532074.html
Waukesha County pay database.
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/dataondemand/94622064.html
Public Service doesn't mean you're to be serviced by the public for life
President Kennedy’s Executive Order 10998, allowing Federal unions, is what opened the door for public sector unions at the state and local level, which is leading to bankruptcy from bloated public sector salaries, benefits, and retirement plans. Businesses that offered plans like many governments have would go bankrupt. Gov’t entities will, too, eventually, but it will be much more painful.
This is why unions should again be outlawed for public employees.
When collective bargaining was brought into American schools in the 1960s, it was a revenue stream and power base for Big Labor. Suddenly, union bosses became more interested in building political muscle than educating children.
At that point the battle between unions and school boards became more focused on salary, benefits, pensions and working conditions for adults, and less about students.
Kids are only pawns in the self-serving union game.
What is the purpose of teacher unions? To work for children? Establish new and better requirements? Push their members to better serve parents and children?
"Despite what some among us would like to believe, it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees" ...National Education Association's just-retired General Counsel Bob Chanin. (The NEA is the County and State Association's parent body).
NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin Says Farewell:
As legendary New York teachers union leader Albert Shanker said, "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
All government unions should be banned. The idea that government workers need protection from guess who?? THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, is ridiculous. remember, teachers are government employees. Ban government unions.
.
If we don’t someday outlaw public sector unions - as in, codified into the Constitution, this problem is going to keep coming back. This kind of crap is the precursor to violence.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.