Wisconsin is the New Egypt

[gogo]

I think the fuss would be that once the unions are crushed, then the next step would be to repeal some/all of those worker protections. And then the whole cycle starts all over again.

[Guest Speed Racer]

Okay, that's about what I was thinking too. Kind of like how conservatives are worried that if we repeal DOMA then all the gays will start the marrying.

 

By and large, I am all about not approving legislation that prohibits someone from doing something that does not harm others and would otherwise be legal (i.e. assembly, bargaining). I don't think we should be in the business of taking away rights.

[ih8music]

So then what's the fuss?

I agree that today, a worker does not need to be in a union in order to have a safe workplace. I also agree that without the power of organized labor, holding onto those safe workplace laws (aka "business-stifling government regulations") will be an increasingly difficult task.

 

But here's where people need to be honest about the political ramifications of what Walker is attempting to do. In 2010, the top political contributions made by outside organizations (PACs, 501Cs, 527s) were:

 

1. US Chamber of Commerce $32,851,997 C

2. American Action Network $26,088,031 C

3. American Crossroads $21,553,277 C

4. Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies $17,122,446 C

5. Service Employees International Union $15,795,194 L

6. American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees $12,631,170 L

7. American Future Fund $9,599,806 C

8. Americans for Job Security $8,991,209 C

9. National Education Assn $8,746,556 L

10. Club for Growth $8,240,060 C

 

http://www.opensecre...nding/index.php

 

So you see that 7 of the 10 largest political organizations support conservative/republican candidates and only 3 support liberal/democratic candidates. All 3 of those -- the SEIU, AFSCME & NEA -- are public labor unions.

 

The big money game is already heavily slanted in the favor of conservatives (thanks to the SCOTUS's Citizens United ruling) ... but without the public employee unions, it's entirely their game.

 

That's why this is a big deal, and why someone like Walker would be so eager to chat with someone like Koch.

[bjorn_skurj]

You don't need unions to have good working conditions. That's ridiculous.

The hell you don't. Without unions, we'd all be slaves, either wage or in the actual sense of the word.

[Guest Jules]

right now

[Sparky speaks]

[Sparky speaks]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFqrmlbp79k&feature=player_embedded#at=154

[Sparky speaks]

Walker Whacks Wisconsin Taxpayers With Bill for Wackenhut After Illegally Asserting Powers

 

MARK KARLIN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

BuzzFlash has been writing a series of articles exposing the Manchurian candidate that Scott Walker is, a man who costs taxpayers more than he saves, and whose goal is to be the errand master for his rich funders for crushing unions and privatizing public property in fire sales.

 

Kudos to Rachel Maddow for uncovering just one in many of Walker's wasteful stunts that left the taxpayers paying the bill. In essence, Maddow charges that Walker -- the then executive of the Milwaukee County Board -- did what he is doing now: claiming a fiscal emergency and taking action detrimental to people who pick up the tab; that is you and me.

 

It involves an unsavory private security company, Wachkenhut, that Greg Palast has exposed as an infamous union busting, low wage, low quality favorite of Republican privatizers (not to mention some Democrats too). Despite being prohibited by the Milwaukee County Board from firing public security staff employees, Walker unilaterally abolished a union contract and terminated the employment of security guards for the Milwaukee County Court House and two other buildings.

 

Walker replaced the guards with non-union Wackenhut, a division based in the UK. Walker claimed that there was a fiscal emergency and so he could do what he pleased. But, as Maddow reported, last month an arbitrator ruled that the county did not have a sufficient fiscal crisis at the time that would have allowed Walker to bypass the county board and cancel a union contract.

 

What should be more alarming to people who voted for Walker because they thought that he would save them money (which would never happen anyway, because whatever he "cuts" is going to show up in a rise in local or county flat taxes), but he overestimated the "savings" of busting the union by more than $300,000.

 

As Maddow notes, that's not all of the Walker damage to the taxpayer. The arbitrator ruled that the union security guards must be rehired and be paid a half a million dollars in lost wages, financed, of course, with taxpayer money. That's on top of the money already paid out to Wackenhut.

 

And who supervised the Wackenhut non-union employees? A man with a criminal record, who had done jail time, was appointed the security chief for Walker's replacement guards.

 

Those Wisconsinites who are concerned about how their taxpayer dollars are being misspent -- and their security endangered -- by Scott Walker better join the general uprising for democracy, because this is only one example of the privatized world of corporate sham artists, profiteers, and criminal supervisors, according to Maddow, that Walker has prepared for the people of Wisconsin.

 

Link:

My link

[LouieB]

Okay so you don't need unions to be protected, yet before there were strong unions people worked longer than 40 hours a week, children worked dangerous jobs, people were discrimiated against for trying to make things better (and for no reason other than their race, gender, or other factors). Those who think unions are a thing of the past and that they should be sent to the dustbin of history need to read some history. The rest of the folks here, well I guess you can go ahead and work until you die, without any pension, workers comp, government agencies that try and protect workers health and safety, or agencies that protect various folks from discrimination. Those things were by and large outgrowths of the trade union movement.

 

Me??? I hope to collect my pension and live and work my few remaining years with some degree of dignity. I know what side I am on. Even with my complaints about my union, I still pay my dues happily each month and hope for the best. My heart and soul are with those folks fighting these draconian laws coming down the pike.

 

LouieB

[Guest Speed Racer]

Okay so you don't need unions to be protected, yet before there were strong unions people worked longer than 40 hours a week, children worked dangerous jobs, people were discrimiated against for trying to make things better (and for no reason other than their race, gender, or other factors). Those who think unions are a thing of the past and that they should be sent to the dustbin of history need to read some history.

 

I think the word you're looking for is "progress."

[ih8music]

I am always absolutely floored when I see someone on Fox (usually Shep Smith) so bluntly telling the truth to their viewers.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuuUV94bOW0

 

 

[Sparky speaks]

Just look at the conditions in the sweat shops throughout Latin America and Asia to see what things are like without unions. The corporations which have relocated to these countries to exploit the cheap labor pool are sitting on billions of dollars in record profits at the expense of the American workers they have left behind. I guess all those involved in the labor struggle who fought and died for improved working conditions and wages the past century and a half in this country, are the ones to blame for that according to the sentiment of some here. Being an American History teacher who does cover the history of the labor movement pretty extensively, I agree there is a lack of historical perspective being expressed here. Look up The Homestead Strike, Pullman Palace Car Company Strike, The Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, The "Ludlow Massacre", Steel Strike of 1919, Massacre at River Rouge, The 'Battle of the Overpass', "Memorial Day Massacre", The Coal Strike of 1902, or any strike related to Harlan County, Kentucky. You'll see that all these events cost lives that were sacrificed to achieve the benefits that folks like Walker want to take away while his corporate masters reap hundreds of millions of dollars of tax breaks. Those of you who don't belong to unions and think things are just fine, you will soon see a deterioration of the few rights workers still have, including your own, if this trend toward austerity fascism continues in this country. Public workers are just the first in line. Do you think they will stop there? They seem to have succeeded in splitting this audience pretty well. We are all in this together folks. Put aside you left/right, Democrat/Republican paradigms. We are all the enemy of these corporate gangsters and their puppets from Obama on down. Soon they will be raiding your 401ks and your 403b's and as well as Social Security. That's next on their agenda after they raid the state teacher's retirement funds. But hey, what the hell do I know...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjRPqF4KV_s&feature=player_embedded#at=34

 

First they came for the teachers,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a teacher.

 

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

 

Then they came for the Bloggers,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Blogger.

 

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

[Analogman]

Okay so you don't need unions to be protected, yet before there were strong unions people worked longer than 40 hours a week, children worked dangerous jobs, people were discrimiated against for trying to make things better (and for no reason other than their race, gender, or other factors). Those who think unions are a thing of the past and that they should be sent to the dustbin of history need to read some history. The rest of the folks here, well I guess you can go ahead and work until you die, without any pension, workers comp, government agencies that try and protect workers health and safety, or agencies that protect various folks from discrimination. Those things were by and large outgrowths of the trade union movement.

 

Me??? I hope to collect my pension and live and work my few remaining years with some degree of dignity. I know what side I am on. Even with my complaints about my union, I still pay my dues happily each month and hope for the best. My heart and soul are with those folks fighting these draconian laws coming down the pike.

 

LouieB

 

Thanks for posting again. And thank you Sparky.

 

I should know better by now, but I am amazed by some of comments I have read in this thread.

 

One of great things about people banding together is that no one stands alone.

[dark]

Alright the issue with Unions is multifaceted ... we are bankrupt, the unions have played a role in this....The Unions are so intertwined with the Democratic Party that when they negotiate with Democrats its a conflict of interest ...Public sector union members have better benifits and wages than many of the people who are paying their wages .. Unions promote and encourage the lowest common denominator ..poor employees are protected and the excellant employees arent rewarded .... the need for Unions in this country has waned from the early history of the unions .....I was a former Government Worker (22 Years) who benifited in many ways from the Union but in the end the Union helped contribute to me being an unproductive worker and I was was still one of the hardest workers.

 

 

[Sparky speaks]

Remember, many of those benefits that are being attacked now were granted at the expense of higher pay. There were trade-offs. Public sector workers had to play catch up for decades in the area of annual income compared to the private sector. We have witnessed a deterioration of those benefits the past decade even before the current bout of austerity fascism that is sweeping the nation. My take home pay is actually lower than it was four years ago due to increased medical deductions, pay freezes and increased state and federal taxes, etc. I'm not building a 7.7 million dollar mansion in Tampa anytime soon.

[dark]

Remember, many of those benefits that are being attacked now were granted at the expense of higher pay. There were trade-offs. Public sector workers had to play catch up for decades in the area of annual income compared to the private sector. We have witnessed a deterioration of those benefits the past decade even before the current bout of austerity fascism that is sweeping the nation. My take home pay is actually lower than it was four years ago due to increased medical deductions, pay freezes and increased state and federal taxes, etc. I'm not building a 7.7 million dollar mansion in Tampa anytime soon.

 

Aye but your Union Leaders maybe building a Mansion in Tampa

[Good Old Neon]

Aye but your Union Leaders maybe building a Mansion in Tampa

 

Not to mention the Bank CEOs who bled our economy (and pension funds, etc) dry. But hey, wrecking the global economy is hard work, and they deserve to be compensated for their efforts. I have an idea, rather than go after the real culprits, let’s take it out on those corporate bloodsucking teachers who’ve spent the last century pretty much just like raping this country.

[cryptique]

we are bankrupt, the unions have played a role in this

A very minor role. There are far bigger Goliaths that need slaying before anyone goes after unions ... but those Goliaths tend to donate very heavily to Republicans (or are manifestations of the longstanding Republican agenda), so here we are.

[Sparky speaks]

Here's another guy who has helped bring on the collapse of labor, as well as the economy, who should be in jail...

 

Obama's Top Economist Discloses Why The Administration Refused To Support U.S. Manufacturing

 

For the past two years, executives of domestic manufacturing companies -- along with their workers -- were in a daze, wondering why the Obama administration pushed no policies to counter the hemorrhage and the continued offshoring of American production.

 

Now it is clear.

 

Obama's outgoing chief economist Lawrence Summers does not think it necessary for the United States to mass-produce products that would be consumed by hundreds of millions of Americans. Summers justifies this position by stating that even the number of manufacturing jobs in China is declining, when in fact, they are not.

 

"We are moving towards a knowledge and service economy," said the departing director of Obama's National Economic Council in a brusque farewell address at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. "You don't succeed by producing exactly the same thing that other people are producing in the same way just at a lower cost," he added. "There is no going back to the past. Technology is accelerating productivity in mass production to the point where even China has seen manufacturing employment decline by more than ten million jobs over the most recent decade for which data is available."

 

The argument that it's okay for the United States to be losing manufacturing jobs because even China is losing them has been used by free-market economists for the past eight years to justify the de-industrialization of America.

 

The Obama administration's top economic policy maker's argument is not correct, however. The latest data available from the Department of Labor's International Labor Comparisons Program found that China's manufacturing employment is not in decline but instead rose by an astounding 11 million workers between 2002 and 2006, to 112 million. In four years, China added as many manufacturing jobs as exist in the United States.

 

But the Obama administration's economic policy team does not care about foreign labor rates. In its 2011 budget submission to Congress, Obama called for the elimination of the International Labor Comparisons program.

 

In his 3,982-word speech before the Economic Policy Institute, Summers only mentioned the word "manufacturing" once, in the above reference to Chinese manufacturing workers. He did not use the word "imports" or the words "trade deficit."

 

Read more:

My link

[Sparky speaks]

How Walker’s Wisconsin Plan Allows For the Selling of Energy Assets With No Bids.

By Mike Konczal, courtesy of New Deal 2.0

 

Have you heard about 16.896?

 

The fight in Wisconsin is over Governor Walker’s 144-page Budget Repair Bill. The parts everyone is focusing on have to do with the right to collectively bargain being stripped from public sector unions (except for the unions that supported Walker running for Governor). Focusing on this misses a large part of what the bill would do. Check out this language, from the same bill (my bold):

 

16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state−owned heating, cooling, and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state−owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (. (Emphasis mine – Ilene)

 

The bill would allow for the selling of state-owned heating/cooling/power plants without bids and without concern for the legally-defined public interest. This excellent catch is from Ed at ginandtacos.com (who, speaking of Madison, took me to the Essen Haus on my 21st birthday, where the night began to go sideways). Ed correctly notes:

 

If this isn’t the best summary of the goals of modern conservatism, I don’t know what is. It’s like a highlight reel of all of the tomahawk dunks of neo-Gilded Age corporatism: privatization, no-bid contracts, deregulation, and naked cronyism. Extra bonus points for the explicit effort to legally redefine the term “public interest” as “whatever the energy industry lobbyists we appoint to these unelected bureaucratic positions say it is.”

 

In case it isn’t clear where the naked cronyism comes in, remember which large, politically active private interest loves buying up power plants and already has considerable interests in Wisconsin. Then consider their demonstrated eagerness to help Mr. Walker get elected and bus in carpetbaggers to have a sad little pro-Mubarak style “rally” in his honor. There are dots to be connected here, but doing so might not be in the public interest.

 

It’s important to think of this battle as a larger one over the role of the state. The attempt to break labor is part of the same continuous motion as saying that the crony, corporatist selling of state utilities to the Koch brothers and other energy interests is the new “public interest.”

 

My link

[Guest Jules]

Just look at the conditions in the sweat shops throughout Latin America and Asia to see what things are like without unions. The corporations which have relocated to these countries to exploit the cheap labor pool are sitting on billions of dollars in record profits at the expense of the American workers they have left behind.

What a load of crap.

 

Regarding Latin America, specifically Mexico, you couldn't be more wrong. Most of South America too. Also, btw, Mexico and many other Latin American countries have national unions which do a pretty good job at "protecting" the workers from the evil corporations.

[Sparky speaks]

Another corporate schill Gov. spews bullshit...

 

Gov. Christie Brags About State Layoffs: ‘Unions Are Trying To Break The Middle Class’

 

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) has been gaining lots of attention at the moment for his attempt to strip collective bargaining from many of his state’s public employees, essentially busting their union legislatively. But he is far from alone among Republican governors in trying to take a pound of flesh from his state’s working people.

 

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), for instance, proposed a budget yesterday that holds property tax rebates for seniors hostage to benefit cuts for public employees: if public sector workers don’t agree to the cuts, property tax rebates don’t go out. And of course, Christie has rhetorically bashed teachers’ unions since he came into office, in order to score political points. During an appearance on MSNBC today, Christie actually bragged that his state leads the nation in terms of public sector layoffs, claiming that “unions are trying to break the middle class”:

 

USA Today recently said that New Jersey has shed by percentage more public sector jobs in the last year than any state in America. And the reason we’ve done this is because our government was bloated and too big at every level…In New Jersey, we’re not trying to break the unions, the unions are trying to break the middle class in New Jersey, through the expenses. And they’re close to doing it.

 

My link

[Sparky speaks]

Here's some more crap...

 

Sweatshops in Developing Countries

 

Abroad, exploitation is endemic in agriculture, mines, and factories producing garments, shoes, rugs, toys, chocolate, and other products. The same abuses are common — 60-80 hour workweeks, sub-poverty wages as low as pennies an hour, and no benefits in hazardous environments. Workers are harassed, intimidated, forced to work overtime, prevented from organizing, and fired if they complain.

 

Global sweatshops are mostly in Asia, Central and South America employing tens of millions of workers. It’s also a children’s issue as the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 250 million between the ages of 5-14 work in developing countries — 61% in Asia, 32% in Africa and 7% in Latin America, but scattered numbers show up everywhere. Many are forced to work, at times abducted, work for less pay than adults, and are denied an education and normal childhood. Worse still, some are confined, brutally exploited, beaten, and sexually abused with no one looking out for their welfare...

 

NLC Report on Bangladesh Sweatshop: The Kabir Steel Yard, Chittagong

 

In September 2009, an NLC report was titled, “Where Ships and Workers Go To Die: Shipbreaking in Bangladesh & The Failure of Global Institutions to Protect Worker Rights.” NLC Executive Director Charles Kernaghan wrote a preface saying “If There Is a Hell on Earth, This Is It,” calling the Kabir site “one of the strangest, most striking and frightening (ones) in the world.”

 

About 30,000 workers dismantle enormous decommissioned tanker ships — 20 stories high weighing 25 million pounds, up to 1,000 feet long, and from 95-164 feet wide. They perform the world’s most hazardous jobs 12 hours a day, seven days a week for 22-32 cents an hour “handling and breathing in dangerous toxic waste and with no safeguards whatsoever and under conditions that violate every local and international labor law.” Serious injuries happen daily, in some cases paralyzing, for others deaths every three or four weeks. Over the past 30 years, as many as 2,000 have been killed. Life is cheap, and no one cares.

 

Employing mostly young men, but also children as young as 11, the operation has been ongoing for over 30 years under horrific conditions. Workers use hammers to break up 15,000 pounds of asbestos in each ship, then dump it on the sand to wash away.

 

Four to six of them share primitive rooms, often sleeping on a filthy concrete floor. No one can afford a mattress. Roofs leak so, on rainy nights, they have to sit up covering themselves with plastic sheets. Their shower is a hand water pump. They deserve better and don’t ask for much — 60 cents an hour, legal overtime wages, one day a week off, sick days, holidays, and healthcare to cover job injuries...

 

National Labor Committee (NLC) Sweatshop Report on a China Factory

 

On February 10, 2009, Jason Chen headlined, “Your Keyboards May Have Been Made in Appalling Conditions,” then explained that Microsoft, IBM, Dell, Lenovo, and HP keyboards likely were made under horrific working conditions at a Meitai Dongguan City, China factory.

 

“Workers are prohibited from talking, listening to music, raising their heads, putting their hands in their pockets.” They’re fined for being one minute late, not trimming their fingernails, and for stepping on the grass. They’re searched on entering or leaving the facility, and anyone handing out flyers or discussing working conditions with outsiders are fired.

 

The assembly line never stops, so workers needing bathroom breaks must wait for the scheduled time. Overtime is mandatory, “with 12-hour shifts seven days a week and an average of two days off a month.” Anyone taking Sunday off is docked two and a half days’ pay. Including unpaid overtime, workers average up to 81 hours a week on site for a 74 workweek, including 34 hours of overtime, 318% above China’s legal limit.

 

Their base pay is 64 cents an hour, way below their basic needs, and after deductions for “primitive room and board,” take-home wages are 41 cents an hour. For 75 hours a week, including overtime, it comes to $57.19 or 76 cents an hour. Routinely, workers are cheated of up to 19% of pay due them.

 

They’re also docked two hours wages for “not lining up correctly while punching time cards or at the cafeteria,” 4 and a half hours for taking personal phone calls, not working “diligently,” raising their head to look around, putting personal possessions on their work desk, listening to the radio, “not parking bicycles according to company regulations,” riding them at the facility not according to company rules, and returning to dorms after curfew.

 

They’re penalized seven hours wages for switching beds without permission, one and a half day’s pay for arriving over one hour late, riding the elevator without permission, using dorm electricity without permission, using company phones for personal calls, producing low quality, socializing with other employees during working hours, entering or leaving the factory without being inspected, or treating supervisors “with an arrogant attitude.”

 

They lose three days’ pay for leaving their workstation without permission, putting up notices or handing out flyers, or “revealing confidential company or production-related information....”

 

My link

 

 

Unfinished business: Sweatshops, oligarchs and the fear of a new constitution in Honduras

 

For the last 10 years, Juana López Nuñez (not her real name) has spent most of her waking hours making T-shirts for the Canadian company Gildan Activewear at the company’s San Miguel factory in Honduras.

 

Today, at age 44, she has little use of her arms and experiences constant pain in her shoulders, neck and hands. She takes painkillers throughout the day, and has had one surgery, which didn’t ease the chronic tendonitis that keeps her up at night.

 

“I thought that when I started to work for a company, it would make life better. I didn’t realize that I was going to get injured,” she says, holding back tears. López is a single mother of five children, including a 10-year-old daughter who helps her with housework. She makes the equivalent of $47.50 a week.

 

López isn’t the only Gildan employee who is facing troubles at the workplace. “The others don’t want to talk. They are scared and they don’t say anything,” said López. “They are scared to talk to the management because they think they will get fired or get a lower grade of pay,” she said...

 

Six months after the coup, workers in the maquilas were facing much more difficult conditions than they previously were, said Maria Luisa Regalado, the director of the Honduran Women’s Collective (CODEMUH). Health and safety issues are falling on deaf ears now that industry friendly representatives have replaced people in the Ministry of Labour who possessed knowledge of the issues.

 

“They’ve fired all of the people who had an understanding of health issues,” Regalado, who works closely with Gildan employees, told Briarpatch.

 

“Public health in this country is in total abandon right now. It’s worse than ever.”

 

Before the coup, the situation for sweatshop employees was already difficult. Julio Zapata Paz (not his real name) lives in the city of Choloma and was fired from his job at a plant for trying to unionize the workforce, an act which is supposedly legal and protected in Honduras. Today, he’s on a “red list,” unable to find work because of his union activities. The family of four gets by on his wife’s income.

 

“To have a dignified – poor, but dignified – life, you need at least 7,000 lempiras (C$382) a month, and our income is only 4,000 lempiras (C$218) per month,” he said. “Our diet is precarious. We don’t have a balanced diet because of our economic situation,” said Zapata, whose family survives primarily on rice and beans...

 

Globalization, structural adjustment and neo-liberal economic policies imposed with increasing efficacy since the Second World War mean that life in Honduras has gotten more and more difficult for a significant segment of the population. United Nations figures for 2007 indicate the average annual income was $3,796, with one-third of Hondurans living on less than $2 a day. Remittances from Hondurans working abroad make up a staggering 24.5 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product and outweigh foreign direct investment by more than three to one...

 

My link

[Guest Jules]

You said "Latin America" and "Asia". Very general and misleading; hence my "load of crap" comment. At least this article cites specific countries and specific people. It is irresponsible, however, to imply that this is the norm in every location outside the US. That's just not the case.

[jff]

You said "Latin America" and "Asia". Very general and misleading; hence my "load of crap" comment. At least this article cites specific countries and specific people. It is irresponsible, however, to imply that this is the norm in every location outside the US. That's just not the case.

 

Nobody did that.