Posted on 02/22/2015 12:28:03 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Almost immediately following Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald's announcement that the Legislature will take up a right-to-work bill next week, speculation about the size and intensity of the opposition from unions and labor allies arose.
That speculation will end on Tuesday noon when the first of two rallies planned by the Wisconsin AFL-CIO takes place at the Capitol in Madison.
"Republicans are planning to ram this legislation through in an extraordinary session at lightning pace. An extraordinary session changes the rules, limits debate and makes a mockery out of our democracy," reads a statement on the WI AFL-CIO blog. "A Right to Work bill could pass both houses and be signed into law by the Governor in days."
A pair of noon rallies on the State Street corner of the Capitol Square are scheduled for Tuesday, when the bill will first be debated by the Senate Committee on Labor and Government Reform, and Wednesday, when the bill is anticipated to reach the Senate floor.
Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, expressed concern this week that the legislation could lead to unsafe conditions at the Capitol.
"The Democrats said months ago if we decide to take up right-to-work it will be another Act 10 or possibly even worse," Nass said to a WISC-TV reporter Friday. "So knowing that, I think I have an obligation, and Sen. Fitzgerald also, to make sure that people in this building are safe."
Nass' statement aligns with statements made by Gov. Scott Walker which paint labor activists as intimidating and potentially violent in their opposition to legislation like Act 10, which effectively eliminated most collective bargaining rights for public workers in 2011. Debate over that measure brought tens of thousands of public employees and their supporters from around the state and country to the Capitol, with many activists living in the building for several days.
Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, objected to those statements on Friday.
"I don't expect Act 10-level protests, but at the same time when you have Sen. Nass saying the timeline is to protect people's lives around the Capitol, that's a real eighth-grade way to look at something," Erpenbach said to WISC-TV.
Fitzgerald's openly stated reasoning for fast-tracking the bill — the Senate plans to take it up in an extraordinary session with special rules late Wednesday or early Thursday — was to push it through before unions could apply much pressure to Republican senators.
Right-to-work laws end the practice of tying union membership to employment and automatic union dues collection from paychecks in the private sector.
Labor unions hold that right-to-work laws lead to the dissolution of collective bargaining and, along with it, a decline in protections, wages and benefits for workers. Meanwhile, conservatives insist workers desire more freedom to choose whether they want to join a union. Allowing employers to function outside a collective bargaining framework allows them to create more jobs and be more flexible in their hiring and management practices.
"Claimed advantages of Right to Work are unproven," reads the WI AFL-CIO blog. "Nationally recognized economists agree Right to Work provides no discernible economic advantage. By lowering wages, Right to Work would weaken consumption and may undermine Wisconsin’s small businesses which depend on workers having wages to spend."
Thank you. They seem to know what they were doing and handled it well.
We musn’t forget — its ALL about the union. The non-union worker, the taxpayer, the student doesn’t matter.
Union dues need to fall to be in line with services requested and provided.
All the picket signs will be professionally made and the demonstrators will be there during what are ordinarily “working hours”.
Democracy chooses the governor of the state, and the elected representatives, and being that the governor went through a union sponsored recall election, then won re-election, it would indeed be mobs demonstrating against democracy. The people have spoken, curtailing union rule is not only acceptable but encouraged, and the sore losers are whining about the results of democracy, and the resulting legislation by their republic.
Unions are fine...form a group, have people volunteer to join it, and send them a monthly, or better yet annual, bill for their dues....lots of organization do it that way.....lots of luck there.
And ironically not one day of work will be missed by the protestors.
“Republicans are planning to ram this legislation through in an extraordinary session at lightning pace. An extraordinary session changes the rules, limits debate and makes a mockery out of our democracy,” reads a statement on the WI AFL-CIO blog.
Rammed through??????
Bwa Ha Ha Ha ...
obamacare ... passed without being read, passed with bribes, passed without Republican participation or amendments .....
Bwa Ha Ha Ha
I guess it’s true ... it depends on whose ox is being gored.
Is that true? I thought it just allowed public employees a choice.
No, that’s the Leftist Lie they keep spouting. And Act 10 doesn’t effect cops or firefighters from bargaining. Neither will the Right to Work bill.
At least the WI Republicans are following the proper proscribed steps in making this law. Just on an expedite timeline.
When the AFL-CIO comes out as strongly against Obama’s unilateral exercise of power for amnesty, they’ll begin (only just tho) to have credibility on the matter.
Write the editor and demand they print the truth.
The show starts at High Noon, today!
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