Free Republic

Teachers in Wisconsin's public schools have learned a major lesson from the state's landmark 2011 law neutering public sector unions, with more than a third dropping out of their labor organization. Given no choice but to join and pay dues to the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) for decades, teachers have for the last three years been able to opt out. And that is what tens of thousands have done as a result of Gov. Scott Walker’s Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, also known as Act 10. “Given the evidence, it shows that the union's hold is softening," Patrick Wright, vice...

In a long-awaited opinion, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin today rejected yet another attack on Act 10 brought by public sector labor unions. The case, Laborers Local 236, AFL-CIO v. Walker, was filed shortly after WEAC v. Walker was filed in the same court, raising some claims not brought in the WEAC case. In the WEAC case, the court held Act 10 unconstitutional in March of 2012, but was reversed the following January by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld Act 10 against all of the unions’ challenges. We have been awaiting a...

Wisconsin's recall election is on, pitting Gov. Scott Walker against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. If Mr. Walker is voted out of office on June 5, what other politician will be willing to step forward to address America's entitlement challenges? Mr. Walker's record is well known: He limited collective bargaining for government labor unions and trimmed health-insurance and pension benefits, bringing them more in line with private business. Organized labor thinks Mr. Walker's reforms should be the end of his career. They argue, first, that public workers just wanted to "have a voice" in their employment. But public-school teachers are more...

MADISON — Mary Bell calls herself an “unlikely advocate” — just a Wisconsin Rapids school teacher who heard the call. She speaks with an earnest edge to her voice, hoping to persuade Wisconsinites to the rightness of her cause. The image, of course, is contrived. She is a handsomely paid activist, who is years removed from the classroom. And she heads the state’s most powerful lobbying organization — the Wisconsin Education Association Council. But most Wisconsinites simply call it “the teacher’s union.” Long before Scott Walker came to the statehouse, Bell was a union firebrand. “This is a highly emotional,...

Madison -- Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is rejecting a criticism of him made by the state teachers union that he favors expanding school voucher programs. The claim was made in a mailing sent out to members by the Wisconsin Education Association Council, which supports former Dane County executive Kathleen Falk, Barrett’s opponent in the Democratic recall primary for governor. “There are many things in there that are completely false,” Barrett said of the flier. Barrett said he has consistently opposed expansions of the Milwaukee voucher school program because it negatively impacts property taxpayers in Milwaukee. The state program provides taxpayer...

Across Wisconsin, typically sleepy elections for local governments and school boards are being enlivened by a debate about how public workers should be treated now that most of their legal union rights have been repealed by Gov. Scott Walker's 2011 budget repair bill. Elected officials in hundreds of municipalities and school districts are rewriting pay scales, benefit plans, work rules and disciplinary procedures as contracts expire, and many public sector workers are upset about what they've lost and worried about the future. "Just because their rights as employees have been trampled on, they aren't going to sit there silently," said...

[Madison, Wisconsin] Gearing up for increased political activism on the cusp of a campaign to recall Governor Scott Walker, the State’s teachers’ union is being guided by the philosophy of radical leftist Saul Alinsky, the MacIver News Service has learned. On Friday and Saturday WEAC is sponsoring community organizing training seminars put on by the Industrial Areas Foundation. The IAF is a leftist community organizing network established in 1940 by Saul Alinsky. Alinsky, author of the book Rules for Radicals, remains a controversial political figure many years after his death. Opposed to many of the bloody revolutionary strategies supported by...

MADISON (WKOW) -- The president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council said her group deviated from its past practice of polling members on election recommendations when it recommended Kathleen Falk in an expected recall election of Governor Walker. But WEAC President Mary Bell told 27 News the campaign timetable in a recall election will be considerably shorter than under normal election circumstances, necessitating the state teachers union's swift action. "It's one of the things that is the hardest about this, because we would like to do this in any or the recall elections," Bell said. "It simply isn't part of...

Some rank-and-file members upset with WEAC endorsing a unproven candidate for statewide office who has lost twice already. As Wisconsin taxpayers are faced with an expensive recall election for governor, rank-and-file members of the state’s largest teachers union are fuming mad over the endorsement of a candidate that was hand-picked by their leadership. Kathleen Falk, the former Dane County executive, was endorsed by Wisconsin Education Association Council bosses on Wednesday, with one condition: Uphold a promise to veto the budget reforms instituted by Gov. Scott Walker. Hours after the endorsement, a petition on change.org was created to demand that the...

Leaders of the state's largest teachers union and the state employees union met privately with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett this week to discourage him from running in possible recall election next year against Gov. Scott Walker. But Barrett rebuffed the union bosses. According to an email obtained by No Quarter, Wisconsin Education Association Council President Mary Bell, WEAC Executive Director Dan Burkhalter and other top union officials had a face-to-face meeting with the Democratic mayor on Monday to discuss the potential Walker recall race. "Despite attempts to communicate the issues you laid out very clearly in our meeting on Saturday,...

The district attorney who filed a lawsuit challenging Wisconsin's law passed this year effectively ending collective bargaining rights for most public workers said Thursday he is considering asking the state Supreme Court to rehear the case. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne told the Associated Press he was looking at making the request after learning that Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman had received free legal services from a firm that defended the law in that case decided in June. Gableman was part of a four-justice majority that upheld the law, which generated massive opposition protests and made Wisconsin the center...

Madison - The top four spenders on lobbying the Legislature during the first half of 2011 were labor unions fighting against Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to curb collective bargaining, a report released Thursday showed. The four unions spent $6.3 million in the first six months of the year, the Government Accountability Board reported. Walker introduced his plan in February and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed it in March. The unions helped organize rallies at the Capitol in protest over the bill that grew as large as 100,000 people. The debate, which captured the nation's attention, also spurred Democratic senators to leave...

Wisconsin's largest teachers union has a problem. A union problem. This week, National Support Organization, which bills itself as the world's largest union of union staffers, posted an online notice discouraging its members from seeking work with the Wisconsin Education Association Council. "Don't apply for WEAC vacancies!" screams the headline. The reason for the boycott? Chuck Agerstrand, president of the National Support Organization, is accusing WEAC officials of "breaching staff contracts and destroying any working relationship with its employees." "WEAC management is taking a page out of Gov. (Scott) Walker's playbook and making up new employment rules not in the...

With the practice of paying forced union dues soon to become a relic of the past for many public employees, officials of the Wisconsin Education Association Council have reportedly contacted members in a bid to convince them to continue paying up through automatic bank withdrawals. That's not surprising because the revenue stream the state's largest teachers' union is trying to protect is substantial. In fact, the organization collected more than $23.4 million in membership dues in fiscal year 2009 from its approximately 98,000 members. The numbers are included on WEAC's IRS forms for the year. Fiscal year 2009 was the...

[Madison] - The Republican Party of Wisconsin filed a verified complaint with the Government Accountability Board today against Shelly Moore for knowingly violating state law by using taxpayer funded resources for political activity. Moore, a public school teacher and WEAC union leader, is challenging incumbent candidate Sheila Harsdorf in the 10th senate district recall election. Several overtly political emails were turned over to the Republican Party of Wisconsin following an open records request into Moore’s official Ellsworth School District email account. Moore explicitly states in one exchange: “We’re not supposed to use school email, but since all of our rights...

Madison - One day after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered the reinstatement of collective-bargaining legislation that potentially affects thousands of public-sector employees, a coalition of unions filed suit in federal court seeking to block it.The Wisconsin State AFL-CIO on Wednesday joined a number of other unions seeking to halt Gov. Scott Walker's controversial collective bargaining legislation.The groups include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 24, AFSCME Council 40, AFSCME Council 48, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), the Wisconsin State Employees Union, The Wisconsin State AFL-CIO and the Service...

Wisconsin's ongoing crisis is exposing the channeling of taxpayer money to unions, and thence to Democrats. Taxpayers are being swindled by a system in which their interests come second. Though there are currently moves afoot to alter some of the procedural details contained in Governor Walker's Budget Repair Bill, nothing of any substance has emerged thus far as the Democrat "fleebaggers" are still camped out in Rahmland and show no evidence of returning to Wisconsin to vote on the bill. The budget, which Walker believes is critical if fiscal sanity is to be injected into an out-of-control spending process, also...

Far Left protester Patrick J. Knauf, 43, of Eau Claire was arrested on Wednesday for the violation of making a bomb scare under state statute 947.015. He was released on a $3,000 signature bond. On Wednesday a bomb threat was made at an aviation business in Eau Claire just hours after Governor Scott Walker spoke there. Police brought in a man who was protesting this week against the Republican governor. The Pierce County Herald reported: An investigation continues into a bomb threat made this week at an aviation business in Eau Claire, just hours after Governor Scott Walker held a...

Just days after Gov. Scott Walker introduced his budget repair bill, public-sector-union leaders said they would accept Walker’s financial demands as long as he kept collective bargaining intact. However, in the time bought by the flight of 14 Democratic state senators, local governments have been quickly adopting new contracts in advance of Walker’s bill becoming law. In effect, the unions are spraying their benefits with Walker repellent. (In fact, an investigative report shows that there may have been collusion between the missing state senators and City of Madison officials to delay the bill so contracts could be signed.) Three days...

WEAC PAC Spending - Consistently #1 in all elections - far surpassing all other PACs combined ($11,449,803 since 2000 - All on Democrat candidates.). 2010 Wisconsin Election Cycle - Total Spending: $1,599,094.00 http://www.wisdc.org/index.php?module=wisdc.websiteforms&cmd=pacspending&year=2010&pac=500189 2009 Spring Elections - Spent: $564,993 In the 2009 race for state school superintendent, WEAC supported candidate Tony Evers over Rose Fernandez, Lowell Holtz, Van Mobley and Todd Price. On March 24 WEAC also reported spending nearly $16,000 on brochures and mailings to support Evers and to oppose Fernandez. http://www.wisdc.org/ind09pacs.php 2008 Fall Elections - Total Spending: $2,099,984 Direct PAC contributions to 2008 candidates 2007-2008: $39,531 Minimum conduit...