The results are in and there will be a lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The public employees unions have lost this one and I think that that bodes well for the prospects of fiscal responsibility in the states.
There will be two lines of argument about this from the left:
1. They bought the election and this means the end of democracy is at hand.
2. There will be an attempt to conflate private company unions with public employee unions and claim that it is an effort to destroy all unions.
I believe that Walker's benefit program was that he wanted the state employees to pay 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions (they paid almost nothing then) and he wanted them to cover 12.6% of their health care premiums (their share would go up from $79 a month to about $200; the average private-sector person pays about $330).
But they say he is also destroying the union. The union cannot now force public employees to automatically deduct from their pay large union dues. They have a choice (I thought liberals were prochoice.) and large numbers of them have exercised that choice and bailed out of the unions.
How do those numbers in red happen? The problem is having the negotiating table rigged. The PEU (public employee union) chooses their representatives for one side of the table. If they can use the power of the union to elect sympathetic people (read unenlightened liberals) to represent the government then they have their people on both sides. Which is why they paid peanuts into their pension plan while you paid plenty into yours.
I would remind the reader that no less of a liberal than FDR was explicitly and unequivocally opposed to PEUs: "The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," Roosevelt wrote in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees. The National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) of 1935 specifically excluded PEUs. But then the numbers of public employees got so large that the temptation to the Democratic Party was too great and they abandoned FDR's advice and set us on the course to pension and healthcare promises that , as they so politely say, "are unsustainable." A better word would be irresponsible.
The public employees unions have lost this one and I think that that bodes well for the prospects of fiscal responsibility in the states.
There will be two lines of argument about this from the left:
1. They bought the election and this means the end of democracy is at hand.
2. There will be an attempt to conflate private company unions with public employee unions and claim that it is an effort to destroy all unions.
I believe that Walker's benefit program was that he wanted the state employees to pay 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions (they paid almost nothing then) and he wanted them to cover 12.6% of their health care premiums (their share would go up from $79 a month to about $200; the average private-sector person pays about $330).
But they say he is also destroying the union. The union cannot now force public employees to automatically deduct from their pay large union dues. They have a choice (I thought liberals were prochoice.) and large numbers of them have exercised that choice and bailed out of the unions.
How do those numbers in red happen? The problem is having the negotiating table rigged. The PEU (public employee union) chooses their representatives for one side of the table. If they can use the power of the union to elect sympathetic people (read unenlightened liberals) to represent the government then they have their people on both sides. Which is why they paid peanuts into their pension plan while you paid plenty into yours.
I would remind the reader that no less of a liberal than FDR was explicitly and unequivocally opposed to PEUs: "The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," Roosevelt wrote in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees. The National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) of 1935 specifically excluded PEUs. But then the numbers of public employees got so large that the temptation to the Democratic Party was too great and they abandoned FDR's advice and set us on the course to pension and healthcare promises that , as they so politely say, "are unsustainable." A better word would be irresponsible.
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