From my email inbox comes this editorial by frequent Blogging Blue commenter Duane Dubey.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, recently said he wants the Legislature to take up right-to-work quickly, which continues the Republican effort to destroy unions.
Doesn’t Fitzgerald remember the disaster and cost of Act 10? Does he not recall the letter in 2011 by Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki about the rights of workers and the value of unions? Has Fitzgerald also forgotten the message from U.S Catholic Bishops in 2007 explaining that Catholic social teachings support the rights of workers to choose whether to organize, join a union and bargain collectively, and to exercise these rights without reprisal?
Or is Fitzgerald betraying his faith in favor of his politics and in obedience to Walker’s quest to destroy Wisconsin unions? Which one is the Scrooge and which one is the Grinch?
Unions have had their day. They have been totally corrupt, stolen workers money, violated every law in the books and have been decimated by people deciding that they did not want to be part of them as we see public employees leaving en mass. They are still the dreams of the Leftists to have their money and votes but the people have moved on. Eras change.
It is time to let “Freedom Ring” and let the peole that want to be in unions stay and the others leave. We need RTW to compete with other states.
What we need are jobs that pay enough so that workers have some discretionary income beyond the basics needed to live so that they can by products that stimulate our sluggish economy to create more jobs. Sadly the other RTW states you want Wisconsin to compete with have wages $2,600 less than union wages. Workers are the job creators; it is their spending in our consumer driven economy that creates demand which in turn leads to job creation. Lessoning the wages of the working and the middle class; which resulted in RTW states, is a killer for economic growth. Add this to the loss of take home pay that public employees were handed and you got the perfect formula for a continuing stagnant Wisconsin economy. There are 300,000 people in Wisconsin still looking for jobs that pay what they were making prior to the great recession. The modest gains we have seen so far are concentrated in low pay jobs. The last thing Wisconsin needs is legislation that takes money out of the hands of its workers, the very people we need to grow the economy and create jobs!
Corporations have had their day, They have been totally corrupt, stolen workers’ money, violated every law in the books and more blah, blah, blah unsubstantiated and “ad infinitum.”
Workers joining unions and strengthening their ranks needs to be done to begin to take back a fair share of the wealth they/we create. The system where CEOs are the real moochers, in this piece by Leo Gerard, describes how our economic system is currently rigged, and how worn out right-wing slogans like “freedom to choose,” are only divide and conquer rhetoric, mean nothing more than labor choosing to bend over a bit farther in uncompensated servitude.
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17431/ceos_moochers
In this morning’s newspaper, we read that Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, who plans on introducing RTW legislation, as a young man, was employed by a unionized electrical contractor but was outraged that he had to pay union dues.
http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/right-to-work-would-trim-union-clout-but-broader-economic/article_349156d2-33b1-563e-9183-b09b3315e40e.html
I replied: “Kapenga was greedy at 19; he wanted the living wage and other benefits that the union had negotiated for him but he didn’t want to help pay for their efforts. Pope Francis was right when he said society and the worker needs protection from ‘unfettered capitalism.’ Unions provide that protection.”
I might add that Kapenga was not blind nor forced; he accepted ALL the terms of employment freely making his choice. He also ignores the long term benefits some unions provide. My Father was a retired plasterer. When he passed on in his seventies, the death benefit check from his union was very helpful in paying funeral expenses.
The term “right to work” as used by Republicans is clearly a deceptive or at least misleading term or title in their legislation.