=================
Workers draw the line in Wisconsin
February 16, 2011
Some 20,000 people rallied against Gov. Scott Walker’s sweeping attacks on unions and workers’ living standards (Emily Mills)
WISCONSIN SAW its biggest labor rally in memory Tuesday as an angry crowd estimated at as many as 20,000 turned out to oppose Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to gut public-sector unions of their bargaining power, break them financially and force workers to pay for the state budget deficit.
The rally–one of several labor protests scheduled for the state capital of Madison–was intended to build momentum for an even bigger labor demonstration set for the following day.
Mike Imbrogno, a shop steward in American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSMCE) Local 171, described how union members surged inside the capital building, chanting their demands:
I’ve never seen anything like it. It wasn’t just teachers and union members from the University of Wisconsin (UW), where I work. There were Steelworkers, Teamsters, Pipefitters, building trades unions and more–unions I’ve never seen at a rally in 10 years.
The most amazing thing is when the firefighters came in a delegation. Along with police, Walker has exempted firefighters from the legislation–but they came with signs that said, “Firefighters for workers’ rights.” People were crying.
The signs people made were great. Many of them referred to Egypt: “Mubarak-check. Walker–?” and “Hosni Walker, Elected Dictator.” There was a women in her late 50s with a sign that said, “Walk Like an Egyptian.” Another read: “I was sent to Iraq to get rid of a dictator, and I won’t tolerate one here.”
The mood was angry, but also optimistic–almost jubilant. More than one person said to me, “The whole country is looking at us now. If this happens here, it will go everywhere else.”
Following the rally, there was a panel discussion of activists that drew about 120 people. There were a number of high school students from immigrant families who spoke. They said they were there to support the unions, because they saw unions as helping their parents and being key to their livelihood. So they said, “We will walk out tomorrow.” The people in the room who were in their 50s, who’ve been in union struggles since the ’70s, responded like mad. There’s some knitting together of common class interest on a scale that indicates something to come.
After the protests, union members signed up to testify before the legislative committee that is holding hearings on the bill prior to the vote. The UW graduate employees union, the Teaching Assistants’ Association, planned to keep testifying all night, which legally compels legislators to remain in session.
But Walker is sticking to his hard line. Elected as part of sweeping Republican victories in November as a result of low turnout and disillusionment with Barack Obama and the Democrats nationally, Walker is confident enough to take on every single public-sector union at once, demanding not only that workers pay more for their health care and pensions, but that any demand not related to wages alone be taken off the negotiating table, that unions be forced to recertify every year, and that automatic dues deductions ended.
What’s more, Walker has informed the Wisconsin State Employees Union, an AFSCME affiliate, that on March 13 the state would cancel contract extensions for five union bargaining units that had been in place before the old contract expired in mid-2009.
And for good measure, Walker ordered the Wisconsin National Guard to prepare to intervene in case of any strike action by unions.
======================
Modernizing out-of-date collective bargaining statutes in Wisconsin
This post by Ann Althouse on the anemic protester response to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s budget plan – and it is an anemic response; it’s bad when you have to add a statue to your crowd in order to make your crowd look bigger – reminded me about Walker’s plan in the first place. I got told about this actually by Kevin Binversie, who runs Lakeshore Laments, was recently involved in Ron Johnson’s successful Wisconsin Senate run, is a good guy, and who is unaccountably not being headhunted by DC Republicans*; Governor Walker’s plan is fascinating in its audacity.
Essentially, what’s happening in Scott Walker’s budget that has the public sector unions melting down is that he’s planning to strip some of them of some of their collective bargaining “rights.” Specifically:
- Collective bargaining to only be allowed for base pay.
- Union dues not to be collected by the state.
- Annual Secret ballots to keep unions certified.
- UNION DUES TO BECOME VOLUNTARY.
There’s also the increasingly standard expectation (at least, among people who aren’t public sector union employees) that public sector union employees start paying into their own pension and insurance funds like the rest of us; also, Walker’s proposed union bargaining reforms will exempt cops and firemen. All of this is to start addressing Wisconsin’s pressing deficit issues; and, given that the Republicans flipped the state legislature last November, this is being pushed to pass. Quickly. As in, this week.
Walker’s already alerted the National Guard in response to the expected reaction to such a bill passing, but if the above Althouse post is any indication then there’s some question of whether he should have bothered. Although it is being reported that union thugs protested outside of the Wisconsin Speaker’s home; hopefully, there were no kids trapped inside the house waiting for the Mob to disperse.This time.
(from redstate.com)
=====================
Read at link below:
FROM CAIRO TO MADISON: WORKER UNREST SPREADS
=====================
Wisconsin……the state of the “birth” of Progressivism?
Remember Joel Rogers is from Wisconsin
About COWS
The Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) has deep roots in the state of Wisconsin, but its work has now grown to address issues, organizations, and leaders across the nation. COWS is more than a traditional policy center. It’s an action center, a think-and-do tank. COWS and its affiliate organizations serve as field laboratories for high-road economic development – a competitive market economy of shared prosperity, environmental sustainability, and capable democratic government.
COWS has a long history of creating collaborations and working collaboratively – with business, government, labor, and communities. Among our current projects, a number focus on encouraging progressive innovations in states and metro regions. Our areas of impact are wide-ranging, including workforce development, green energy and jobs, transit, and health care.
COWS is based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, famous for the “Wisconsin Idea” that the University should influence and improve people’s lives beyond the classroom. COWS has often been called “the Wisconsin Idea in action.”
COWS was founded in 1992 by Joel Rogers, professor of Law, Political Science, and Sociology at UW-Madison and a longtime commentator on economic development and democratic institutions. Rogers founded COWS to pursue practical, on-the-ground strategies to promote the high road in Wisconsin and throughout the country.
COWS current and past funders include: the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Carolyn Foundation, theFord Foundation, the Garfield Foundation, Living Cities, the Joyce Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.
http://www.cows.org/about_index.asp
======================
Glenn Beck vs. Joel Rogers, King of the Progressives
The Apollo Alliance, ACORN, SEIU, AFL-CIO,Goldman Sachs, Al Gore, Van Jones, Bill Ayers, and a partridge in a pear tree. At the center of them all, keeping everybody in synch, is Joel Rogers. He has his own group, COWS, which focuses on spreading the Progressive message in Wisconsin, Emerald Cities, which is into urban planning for the New World Order, and the Brookings Institute, to keep the egg-heads in line.
Joel Rogers belongs to just about all of them, or has ties through other cross-over groups like The New Party and Change to Win, where Andy Stern is now hanging out in since leaving SEIU. Another key player is Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, who’s name pops up a lot, too. She’s CEO of Green for All, was a bigwig in the AFL-CIO, and works with a host of groups like Working Partnerships, USA, National Alliance for Fair Employment Partnership for Working Families and Emerald Cities. When you check out these groups, you will see people serving on several of them.
===================
University of Wisconsin-Extension
About Us
The School for Workers is the oldest, continuously-operating, university-based labor education program in the United States. One of the first operational components of the Wisconsin Idea, the School, its faculty and staff have long brought these three components– teaching, research, and outreach–to thousands of workers, unions and employers throughout Wisconsin, the nation and the world.
Mission
Our overall mission is to empower working people and labor organizations at the job site, in the national economy, and in the global economic system through a comprehensive program of lifelong adult learning opportunities.
Values and Vision
We are personally and professionally committed to help workers solve problems and realize opportunities in the workplace. We support efforts to raise living standards, increase employment security, improve health care and retirement security, secure safe and healthy workplaces, achieve due process, respect and democracy in the workplace, and revitalize our economic and political institutions. We support unions and the collective bargaining process as essential means for the pursuit of these goals.
We are also committed to the broader socio-economic goals of working people including the enhancement of and tolerance for cultural diversity, the advancement of civil rights, the participation in labor organizations and other social institutions of under-represented and disadvantaged groups, the improvement of educational opportunities at all levels, the improvement of the environment and general quality of life, and the creation of meaningful employment opportunities for all workers. We seek to ensure that all workers including ethnic minorities, women, and people with disabilities have the opportunity to participate fully in our social, political and economic institutions.
A significant expansion in the size of the faculty and the scope of training activities occurred during the 1930’s. In 1933-34, a program to bring labor education classes to the hometowns of workers around the state was initiated and proved to be very popular. With the assistance of federal funding through the Works Progress Administration, the faculty reached an all-time high of 20 teachers and the community class program was greatly expanded. In 1937, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents authorized a state-financed, year-round workers education program in Wisconsin.
By and large the activities of the School have reflected the state of the labor movement and industrial relations practices. Thus, the Second World War represented an important turning point for the School. Organized labor emerged from the war with new strength and a growing social legitimacy. Industrial relations practices became institutionalized within a broad regulatory framework established in the federal labor legislation of the 1930’s and 1940’s that promoted collective bargaining and peaceful resolution of day-to-day disputes in grievance and arbitration procedures.
For the School, these developments meant a high demand for practical training in collective bargaining, contract administration, union administration, leadership training for activists, stewards and officers, pay systems (piecework, job evaluation), occupational safety and health (after the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970) and other technical areas. Another significant development involved arrangements with specific unions in which School for Workers Faculty collaborated with union staff to custom design programs for the union, and the union handled recruitment of program participants from its local leadership. These basic patterns characterized School for Workers activities until the early 1980’s.
Current programming activities have evolved considerably to reflect the new realities of the post-1980 era. Wisconsin and Midwest labor in general were hard hit by back-to-back recessions that led to plant closings and restructuring of much of Midwest manufacturing. The early 1980’s also saw a wave of very aggressive anti-union behavior by many employers in the hostile political climate of the time. Later in the decade, labor relations improved in some sectors as labor management cooperation and labor involvement in quality and productivity initiatives were stressed in many labor-management relationships. During this period the department sought to assist unions in responding to both the hostility of some employers and the cooperative initiatives of others. By the mid-1980’s the department was engaged in a considerable volume of joint labor-management training activity and in training union leadership on work restructuring, new technology, cooperation, interest-based bargaining, new compensation systems and a host of other issues in the new industrial relations climate.
======================
THE WISCONSIN IDEA:
The Wisconsin Idea is the political philosophy developed in the American state of Wisconsin that fosters public universities’ contributions to the state: “to the government in the forms of serving in office, offering advice about public policy, providing information and exercising technical skill, and to the citizens in the forms of doing research directed at solving problems that are important to the state and conducting outreach activities.”[1] A second facet of the philosophy is the effort “to ensure well-constructed legislation aimed at benefitting the greatest number of people.”[2]
During the Progressive Era, proponents of the Wisconsin Idea saw the state as “the laboratory for democracy”, resulting in legislation that served as a model for other states and the federal government.[2]
The Wisconsin Idea in politics
The Wisconsin Idea, in United States History, also refers to a series of political reforms of the late 19th century and early 20th century whose strongest advocate was Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Wisconsin‘s governor (1901–1906) and senator (1906–1925). The Wisconsin Idea was created by the state’s progressives to do away with monopolies, trusts, high costs of living, and predatory wealth, which they saw as the problem that must be solved or else “no advancement of human welfare or progress can take place.”[4]
Reforms in labor and worker’s rights were one of the major aspects of the Wisconsin Idea. The progressive worker’s compensation program was first introduced by German immigrants, who were abundant in Wisconsin. The system was adopted from the existing system in Germany, which was based on the idea that the employer was obligated to take care of his employees and keep paying them as they grew old.[5]
Many of the reforms were based on traditions and customs brought to the state by German immigrants. The emphasis on higher learning and well-funded universities stressed by the Wisconsin Idea was derived from the education system of Germany.
Progressives also proposed the first state income taxes, as well as submitting the idea of a progressive tax.
They also passed legislation prohibiting pollution and police brutality.[6]
The Wisconsin Idea would go on to set an example for other states in the United States. The progressive politicians of the time sought to emulate and ultimately transcend the states of the east coast in regards to labor laws.
Wisconsin progressives wished to make Wisconsin into a benchmark for other Midwestern states to strive towards. Although many of the reforms went through in 1911, conservative opponents of the progressive party took control of Wisconsin in 1914, thus minimizing the magnitude and effects of the reforms.[7]
The Wisconsin Idea would continue to be a revolutionary precedent for other universities, and its educational aspects are still relevant today.Robert LaFollette, Sr. was the man who implemented much of this legislature, and he was among the earliest supporters of direct election of senators, which is now a national practice.
===================
Pay ATTENTION America!
The Progressives/Marxists/Socialists will NOT agree to any “cuts” in their OWN programs. Or any “STOPS” to their agenda.
E4:
Enlightenment
Education
Empowerment
Entrepreneurship
==================
Leave a Reply