Scott Walker’s still a union buster, part 2

There’s been a lot written on this blog and elsewhere about Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting budget “repair” proposal and the protests that have come about as a result of that proposal, but here’s a list of some great reading on what’s going on here in Wisconsin:

You can read more on Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting efforts HERE and HERE.

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  1. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Proposal to Effectively Eliminate Collective Bargaining in Wisconsin, or Who’s the Radical Now, Reince?
    By Brother Nitals

    UNITED WISCONSIN

    When all is said
    and all is done
    one thing is never least
    It is in how we make the law
    that show us from the beast.

    Though may we vie and thunder
    And cast our rules away
    We may awaken then, to know
    The beast hath chose to stay.

    My dear brothers and sisters, if you would know one thing more than any other it is this:
    Know thine enemy.
    And this:
    Our strength lies in our fundamental faith in what is right and what is wrong. And what Walker is doing is wrong. It is not the way civilized people govern themselves. It is, in many respects, simply a Tea Party-orchestrated negation of the notion of self-government. Our Founders did us many favors, but they did us the disservice of bequeathing a “Republican” form of government (sorry, but that’s what they said) without defining it. So we must redefine it each generation, in a manner approximating, to the degree that we can, what John Commons called the “winnowing and sifting” of facts, opinions, trends, and simple prejudices, to come up with something called laws. And they are to be made not in haste and distemper, but all in good time, in the broad light of day. There was a time when it was known as the Wisconsin idea. It meant that we sent our sons and daughters, to the extent that we could, to schools that we knew were among the best in the country, not because they were elitist and narrow, but for precisely the opposite reason: that they were open and thorough, and invited thoughtful debate and the triumph of reason over passion. Collective bargaining was won by workers through an impassioned defense of what was ultimately a pretty humble idea: that keeping political patronage and the corruption it bred out of the halls of government, by allowing unions to represent those who had earned the privilege of serving in it, simply seemed to be the least worst way to doing things. The general idea was no more, and no less, than that.
    And if we fail now, and fail here, with the whole country watching us, what will we tell our children and grandchildren? First off, we must stand strong and call a spade a spade: this is a willful, coldly calculated attempt to abrogate worker rights, with virtually no genuine public discussion, under the patently absurd pretense that somehow we are so “broke” as a state and disillusioned as a society that we cannot take the time to make laws like civilized people. The public knows full well that WMC and WEAC are the two most powerful interest groups in the state, and almost no one voted for Walker because they thought he was going to outlaw the latter a month after taking office. That much is clear. As far as the concessions in the contract are concerned, we must show the public that we are reasonable people. After all, we work in government. Most Wisconsinites see our political system as flawed, but not so flawed that it will somehow be improved by yanking the rug out from under one of the two political parties, and creating an inordinately unlevel playing field over night, which is precisely what Walker and his allies hope to accomplish by this.
    We will be reasonable, and make clear to the public that we will sacrifice, by paying more toward pensions and health care, to help the state along with its budget woes, but the public must also do its part by recognizing the obvious: this is not about money. It is not about government efficiency.
    It is about raw political power. More precisely, it is about how you take away effective political power from people without formally denying them such things as votes.
    If you need to know anything about Walker’s plan, know this: left to its own devices, shorn of the support of organized public sector labor, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin will simply be a shadow of its former self. If you don’t believe it, jump on board with Walker and help save the state some money. But don’t complain if you don’t happen to see genuine two-party competition in Wisconsin next time around, or for some time to come. Like it or not, that is what is at stake here. If Walker succeeds in undermining WEAC, AFT-Wisconsin, and the rest, forget about things like the public interest and free and fair elections. Hope as you will, you won’t have them anymore, and if it comes to pass, don’t blame us. We told you so, right here and now. Like it or not, my dear fellow electors of Wisconsin, if this goes through as planned, WMC will be laughing all the way to the ballot box, because they will rule, like corporatist oligarchs in South America, and you will not have the Wisconsin you once knew. Trust me. I know them all too well to think that they would let the opposition survive this. Most have had privileges that you have not 0 think they’re going to pass this one up?
    Still think that this is not what is at stake? Guess again. No one will stop them. The Republicans will walk all over them in elections for years, and they know it. The unions are the only thing keeping things reasonably competitive now, and they will be gone my friends, and no group of investment bankers or other union-friendly CEO’s is going to step up to bat in their place. Barack didn’t move here when he left Harvard, he moved to Illinois. It’s a different state. And we’re not New York or California either. We’re Wisconsin. We don’t have enough of those kind of people to build a newly reinvigorated Democratic party. It won’t happen. The unions are the only thing keeping things reasonably competitive now, and they will be gone my friend. And you will see changes you thought you would never see. And remember, you won’t be able to take your case to state agency administrators, because they will all be political appointees as well. It will be the same state seal, but now it will be privately owned, rather than part of a public trust. Think of it as Mississippi with snow, with Packer players as the paradigmatic example of modern unionists.
    The Walker gambit is about allowing one political party to establish long-term dominance in the electoral realm by undermining the other. That is why Ellis and Olson and Schultz and Harsdotf are so torn over this. They are loyal Wisconsinites all, and good people, but they are loyal party members as well. It cannot be easy for them. Luther is probably the most publicly conflicted, and to his credit, he seems willing to acknowledge that maybe people who work for unions are lacking horns and tails. But the pressure being brought to bear is incredible. Part with us on this, and you may never be invited back. It is that serious. That is why we must be strong and fight.
    And to do this, one needs to use a pretext. Believe what you may from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (once a great newspaper) or Fox, but the truth is plain to see: if the closest political allies of one political party are thoroughly undermined by act of law, the other will gain immensely. What that means for Wisconsin is entirely unclear, and we should not presume to really be able to prophesy the full ramifications. No one really can. But to the extent that Wisconsinites believe in fair play and at least some semblance of competition in the electoral arena, they should be gravely concerned about Gov. Walker’s approach here. For the simple reason that as far as state and local government is concerned, you will not have any of this anymore. WMC will decide who runs for office, and gets to make the laws, not the voters.
    That, my dear fellow citizens, whether you like it or not, is what this battle is about.
    Know thine enemy, but remember that you must also serve him as well. The Tea Partiers detest government, in part, for a reason deeply rooted in human nature – there is a natural, and immutable, human tendency to fear that which one only sees from the outside. They think government is to blame for a declining economy, and to some extent it is. But the true culprit is not the world of American government – federal, state and local – but governments in the world around America. Scott Walker can’t ramrod a bill through the Legislature outlawing China and Brazil from developing economies that lift millions out of poverty, and into the middle class, as America had done for our parents and grandparents. So he must look elsewhere to place the blame, and it has unfortunately fallen upon us. Will we be strong enough to show our fellow Wisconsinites that this blame is largely misplaced, and do so in a fashion that allows us to maintain their respect? That is the question we face, and I know that we have it within us to rise above the pettiness and the ignorance, and show the people of Wisconsin that the election last November was about rebuilding an economy, not rebuilding an electoral process.
    We have been around government too long to believe unions can be thrown upside down, and out, in a week and the effects on Wisconsin society and culture will be minimal. That’s what Walker wants you to believe. That’s why it’s so modest. Remember the last time we tossed 48 years of accumulated case law defining the rights and responsibilities of public workers out the window overnight? What happened then? That’s Walker’s biggest PR problem. For the record, Scott, and just so you know, most people don’t think that something that has never happened before, in this state or any other, and affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in fundamental, life-altering ways, is modest. You went to quite a number of cities, villages and towns across our state over the past two years, telling us a lot about yourself (yes, we know about the cheese sandwiches), but nothing about last week’s plan. Did you happen to notice that the school district was the largest employer in many of the smaller places you visited? Do you honestly believe that turning hundreds and hundreds of towns where the largest employer is unionized into ones in which it is non-union is modest? People live in these towns. There lives will be changed in fundamental and far-reaching ways, regardless of how much they can fall back on the other legal protections they might enjoy under the law. Bloated and greedy though some might be, throwing them out the window is not modest.
    We are not such fools as this. We know, because we have the insight that comes with not only pushing paper, but dealing with the people whose names are on the paper that we push, that government is about real human beings in the real world, and sometimes they get real mad. Like now. Because we are government workers, and labor unionists, we must take the high road. We must show the people of Wisconsin that we will not stand for the abuse of government power that Walker and his ilk represent, and that we will do so as people who, more than anything else, recognize that serving in government is a vocation and a privilege. And some of our colleagues do not work as hard as they should, or at all, and the civil service protects them, and that is wrong. We know it. There are more people willing to look at this than you think. But do it the right way. Work with people, don’t outlaw them. Refusing to negotiate with state workers and the unions that represent them, as other governors have for most of the past century or so, is not demonstrating political courage and being “bold.” It’s being short-sighted, and demonstrating some degree of genuine fear. Did you ever bother to mention when you were running that you weren’t going to do any negotiating? It would have helped.
    And one other thing: did Walker miss the political science course at UW-Milwaukee that covered the part about Wisconsin being a model of representative government for decades (along with Iowa and New Hamshire, which would never dream of doing what he is doing now? Try as he might, he cannot rewrite history, and the notion that the Wisconsin Idea was a superior way to go about making laws and governing is not some left-wing contrivance – it is a matter of historical fact. And it is this more than anything else that we are losing in this, at times, truly bizarre battle over whether we can muster enough troopers to bring a half-century of public unionism to its knees in a week.
    And yet one other thing to keep in mind. There is a difference between heading a government and operating one. We’ve been doing the latter for quite a long time, and he started his new job last month. On January 3, 2011, to be precise, or a year before January 3, 2012, a date you may want to highlight now for the sake of convenience.
    Clearly, one of the main problems with the Walker proposal to end collective bargaining in Wisconsin is simply procedural. The public knows this. We know are neighbors and friends. They are simply not going to believe that it is fair or proper for a half-century of worker rights to be stolen away, like some thief in the night. We must believe, more than anything else, in the common wisdom here. They know a serious deliberative body when they see one, and they know that we they are seeing now is anything but. And it matters little which brother you ask.
    Only the foolish are being fooled (just watch the thoughtful analysis spew forth from the Tea Partiers on Saturday), and Corporate Wisconsin and the Koch brothers are doing the fooling.
    We must never forget this: this is a state where changes of far less magnitude take considerably longer to review and understand. Consider the workings of the Legislative Council, composed of legislators and citizens, who meet literally for months to examine complex issues of public policy. This is the Wisconsin tradition, or at least it was, for decades. To say that we have abandoned this in February 2011 is an understatement. Has anyone reflected on the fact that in a state that happens to have an internationally-recognized public university known, for better or ill, as having a considerable knowledge base in the realm of labor relations, virtually no testimony from an expert on either side has been brought to bear on the question? For that matter, hardly anything of considerable depth was discussed at the Joint Finance Committee public hearing on the bill. And another thing to keep in mind is that, aside from the procedural problems we keep finding out unpleasant things, such as the issue of the prospective loss of federal transportation funding. On the surface, going ahead without further substantive public debate on the possibility of losing considerable sums of federal funding for services that ultimately, could affect job creation, does not appear to be the wisest course of public policy. If it does, then it means that we have become a state government that hauls people in from all around the state to spend hours and hours going over nanotechnology and single-use plastics, generating hundreds of documents, but if we’re talking about negating a half-century of accumulated case law in state labor relations, and affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of middle-class people, let’s rely on what a large group of frustrated state workers and students tell us over a period of 17 hours. From the standpoint of wisely governing a society, that would not appear to be the most meritorious approach. Some might think the latter topic of greater importance than the former topics, and therefore worthy of more detailed study. In fact, it is safe to say that most Wisconsinites would agree.
    In response to criticism from the left, the state Republican Party has in effect tried to turn the protests on their head, and ask that the citizens of the state somehow believe that protestors preventing legislators from “preforming” their duties (one of a disturbing pattern of GOP mis-spellings, along with Walker’s penchant for starting sentences in his State of the State with numbers, like ) means ramming a bill through in a week. Consider the grand old party’s erudite take on the matter, as set forth in its “Security Threat Shuts Down Democracy” press release, an extraordinary contribution to the world of Orwellianism:
    “After successfully chasing Senate Democrats out-of-state in order to circumvent the democratic process, unruly union protesters in the Capitol shut down debate by intimidation again on Friday at the State Capitol. The Political web site WisPolitics reported this evening that Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald adjourned floor proceedings because the safety of legislators and staff could no longer be assured in the State Capitol building. According to Mark Jefferson, Executive Director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, union attempts to shut down the democratic process by mob rule are a deplorable insult to voters, taxpayers, and democracy itself. “To willfully prevent elected officials from preforming their official duties in order to circumvent the legislative process flies in the face of democracy and is an insult to the citizens of this state,” Jefferson said. As their reckless behavior, threats to elected officials, and crass language have demonstrated over the course of the past few days, union leaders on strike to shut down democracy have once again put their own best interests over the interests of Wisconsin taxpayers. “Governor Walker was elected to fix a broken system,” Jefferson said. “Walker and Republicans campaigned and won on that platform, and the will of the people will not be suppressed by intimidation. State government is broken and the time for reform is now.”
    Here is the party’s argument, and it is worth examining in some detail:
    “In 2010, the Republican Party of Wisconsin endorsed principled conservatives who would reform government and dramatically change the direction of the state of Wisconsin. We elected a leader true to his word. It’s clear that many of our opponents still do not understand the details of Governor Walker’s responsible budget repair plan. Use these facts below to send in letters to the editor, update your Facebook page, and get the message out to your networks. Stand with Scott Walker.
    The FACTS about Governor Walker’s Responsible Budget Repair Plan
    The current state of affairs is not a sustainable one for maxed-out taxpayers footing the bill. The average Wisconsin state employee compensation (salary and fringe benefits) in 2010-11 was $76,500. Employee salary and fringe benefits comprises more than 60% of state government general fund operating costs. The average Wisconsin teacher compensation (salary and fringe benefits) in 2009-10 was $74,844. (Source: Department of Public Instruction website)
    But the cost to taxpayers keeps growing. Wisconsin taxpayers pay over $1 billion per year for state government employee health insurance; more than double what was paid only 10 years ago. But employees themselves pay only 6% of that amount.
    Big savings are needed to fill a big hole this fiscal year. Governor Walker’s Budget Repair Bill contains more than $30 million in savings over a three month period by requiring state employees to contribute to their pension and health care benefits.
    Public protections for state employees will remain. Wisconsin’s statutory civil service laws, among the strongest in the nation, will remain in force to ensure Wisconsin can maintain a professional and experienced state workforce. In addition, employee sick leave, vacation, and retirement benefits will remain unchanged.
    Fundamental reforms are needed for a sustainable path forward. While pension and health care contributions are a vital part of solving our current deficit problems, the long-term structural problems facing the state and local governments cannot be solved without a fundamental reform of Wisconsin’s labor relations. As Governor Walker said today in a national press conference, in the past public union contracts have taken an average of 15 months to pass. With a $3 billion budget deficit, we don’t have that much time.
    Simply requiring pension and health care contributions does nothing to solve crushing problems such as the Department of Corrections out-of-control overtime costs, the Madison bus driver making more than $150,000 per year, or the outstanding first year teacher who was laid off by MPS because she lacked seniority. The time is now to put Wisconsin on a sustainable path, and Governor Walker is the conservative leader to do it.
    During tough times, Walker is protecting our most vulnerable citizens. As Department of Health Services Secretary Smith outlined in a memo on February 8, 2011, alternative plans to achieve the type of savings needed to balance the books would be dire.
    Other alternatives would require:
    o Eliminating services for 194,539 children on Medical Assistance; or
    o Eliminating services for 92,599 adults on Medical Assistance; or
    o Eliminating services for 16,284 elderly, blind or disabled persons.
    Walker is saving thousands of public employee jobs. To achieve similar savings in the state’s general fund over three months would require laying off more than 1,500 state employees. Governor Walker knows there have been enough layoffs across the state already – 250,000 Wisconsin jobs have been lost since the beginning of the recession.
    No wage cuts, layoffs, or furloughs. Governor Walker said in an email to state employees that both the Budget Repair Bill and the 2011-13 Biennial Budget will contain no wage cuts, no layoffs, and no furloughs for state employees.
    That’s right, no more furloughs. Walker’s sensible solutions effectively mean the 3% of state employee wages lost through Jim Doyle’s unpopular furloughs will offset the increased pension and health care contributions Governor Walker is asking of public employees to help balance the state’s budget.”
    WMC Defense
    Here it is, right from the horse’s mouth – and make no mistake about it – they are the number one instigator (see list of Walker contributors below). WMC is well aware that corporate contributions to their coffers are down, so they want to put WEAC out of business, once and for all. Look on the bright side: WMC is not strong-arming because it is strong, but because it knows that as the state’s manufacturing competitiveness falls to international competitive pressure, it is becoming weaker. Bullying people like Luther Olson and Dale Schultz is not a sign of power, but of weakness and declining influence, and they know it. For this more than any other reason, we must remain strong. And vigilant.
    Let us give WMC its chance to set forth its detailed rationale for achieving “fiscal fairness” by gutting public unionism in a week, all eight paragraphs worth:
    WMC Hails Fiscal Fairness Proposal
    Governor Walker Unveils Fiscal Reform Bill
    MADISON – Governor Scott Walker Friday unveiled his fiscal reform plan that will allow the state budget to be balanced without tax increases. His proposal also gives local governments and schools the tools they need to balance their budgets without property tax hikes.
    WMC issued the following statement:
    “These proposed changes will allow government at all levels to better manage costs, increase efficiency and ultimately improve the quality of government services. In the long run they will make government more affordable and provide long overdue relief to taxpayers.”
    “These are modest changes and are consistent with changes made at private businesses.”
    The proposal is consistent with the WMC policy agenda promoting limiting government spending and taxing.
    The plan calls for public employees at all levels to contribute 50 percent of their annual pension payment and cover 12.6 percent of the average cost of their annual health insurance premium. These levels are consistent with the average employee contribution for public sector employees nationwide and are still below average compared to the private sector.
    The bill would also limit collective bargaining for most public employees to wages only and place a cap on any increases based on the consumer price index. Any increases exceeding the cap would have to be approved by voters at referendum.
    The proposal also calls for debt restructuring, the sale of state owned heating plants, and lapses various unspent amounts to the general fund while increasing certain appropriations to cover shortfalls in Medicaid and Corrections.”
    Another point to keep in mind is that Scott cannot ramrod through a bill outlawing the courts, or at least he has yet to try. Just exactly who is going to be mediating the many workplace disputes that are inevitably part of a large, complex set of organizations like state and local governments if not the unions and WERC? That’s right, the circuit courts, as well as the federal courts. Last time we checked, they were not exactly looking for additional work. How are they going to feel about now handling hundreds of disputes that formerly were resolved through the unions and WERC? Try as he might, Scott cannot legislate away litigiousness, and if collective bargaining is gutted, the lawsuits will come forth. Try convincing business leaders in other states that they should relocate here under those circumstances.
    To understand what is going on, we need to understand Scott Walker. He is the son of a pastor. He left college because he already had a good job. He is a good husband and father to his sons. He is, from the standpoint of personal morality, quite probably doing better than you and I. And most importantly, as citizens of this state, we all owe him a debt of gratitude that, quite frankly, almost no one on either side has bothered to mention in the course of this debate, or for that matter a very long time. Let us not forget that when our state’s largest county uncovered a tale of inordinate corruption, by Wisconsin standards – that of a pension deal that literally was so generous that it violated IRS rules – Walker was the guy who had the guts to stand up to it. Call it opportunism if you will, but in the early stages in particular, that took guts. And believe me, he’s got’em. But regrettably, he sees the state’s current fiscal situation in similar, moralistic terms. Scott Walker knew it was wrong for Tom Ament to pay his secretary, who like Scott had only a high school diploma, a $106,000 a year salary, and he did something about it. And he frugally ate his two cheese sandwiches a day, and people generally thought well of him. And whether you lived there or not, what he did helped the state. He did turn things around over there, and that takes a lot of doing. But it took a great deal of zeal to do so, and unfortunately that zeal is now being used to clean up a state government that needs far less cleaning than Milwaukeee County’s did. In his zealousness, Walker has succumbed to the temptations of WMC, the Club of Rome, Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party Nation, and a general sense among some that the time to strike is now, when the iron is hot. Mark Jefferson and the inimitable Reince Priebus were genuinely surprised at the extent of their new majorities, and they had a certain debt to pay to their WMC and Tea Party associates. This, my brothers, is but the first installment.
    But make no mistake about it. They are not conservatives. To conservatives, long-standing laws, institutions and customs are things that one respects, out of a Burkean notion that they are entitled to such respect because of the mere fact of their longevity itself. This is how true conservatives think, and because that’s how they think, we never needed to worry about Tommy outlawing us in the course of a week. He didn’t do things like that. He was, more than anything else, a small-town lawyer, and he wanted, more than anything else, to get things done (“I’m a builder”). And to do that, you need help from the people who actually do the work. Thus Act 11.
    The problem is that in a modern society, with its many changes in law and custom, true conservatives are no longer in charge over at the GOP, and we must accept the reality that the new breed has shown itself capable of displaying utter contempt for the conventional practices of self-government, democratic processes, deliberation and law-making. The real lawbreakers are not hiding out in Illinois, but are, as they regularly remind us, hard at work. Men are not the flies of a summer, Burke taught, and neither are an accumulated half-century of rights won through the hard-fought battles of those who preceded us: battles fought not only in the Legislature and the courts, but in the blood of our forefathers. It shall not have been shed in vain to please the Fitzgerald brothers, or for that matter, Glenn Beck.
    And that lead us to gentleman Jim. Doesn’t look quite so bad now, does he? Raiding the segregated funds may not have been the wisest course of action, but no one camped out at the Capitol over it. Maybe he was more harsh than he needed to be, but in retrospect he did what he had to do. Say what you will, he was a decent and honorable man, and an extraordinarily skilled politician. If there is one person who is benefitting from this public mayhem that Walker has caused, it is him. Whatever else you may think, he treated people with decency, respect and fairness. I don’t know about you, but if I were to see him at the rallies, my first inclination would be to bow, as one should in the presence of a great man. Think back on how Priebus and Jefferson complained so bitterly of Jim’s “radical” agenda. Who’s the radical now, Reince?

    And just to make sure that no one missed his Nixonist dimension, Scott set forth yet another bold, rationale for overlooking the views of 25,000 of those annoying little “pro-labor” people in his midst – he had received e-mails from over three-quarters as many people – presumably many of them from people who, like himself, were too busy working to do anything else. Someone remember to request that he release these to make sure they are all there, assuming that the open records law in still in place next week.
    Walker says ‘quiet majority’ behind him
    MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he believes a “quiet majority” of Wisconsin residents are behind his plan to force public employees to pay more for health care and pension benefits. His plan would also remove nearly all their collective bargaining rights.
    Walker spoke Friday on the fourth day in which thousands of pro-labor protesters converged on the Capitol building to oppose his proposal. Police estimated 40,000 people were at the Statehouse on Friday.
    But Walker says he’s received 19,000 supportive e-mails this week.
    Walker says he expected there to be a passionate response to his plan, but he stands by his position and believes it will pass the Legislature.
    Senate Democrats skipped town Thursday to delay action there indefinitely.
    Consider this, addressed to a somewhat more narrowly “targeted” group:
    Dear Republican Legislator:
    For half a century, Wisconsin governors have been elected to negotiate with unions, not eliminate them. Although Governor Walker claims that people who did not realize that collective bargaining would be largely eliminated under his administration were asleep, I have yet to find anyone who was awake when he said it, at least prior to unveiling his “budget repair” bill.
    You know as well as we do that this is not the way that we make law in Wisconsin. Bullying legislators into voting for a bill following the public hearing equivalent of a college all-nighter is not the way that we expect elected officials to do things in this state. You are a lawmaker. You should know this. It reminds some of a 3:00 a.m. vote to impose a sales tax to build a baseball stadium, and as you recall, that did not go over real well.
    Wisconsin’s public employees are willing to negotiate concessions to achieve savings to help address the state’s fiscal condition. We have already done this, and the furloughs have already hurt us financially. But if you think that Scott Walker can campaign without a hint of gutting collective bargaining, and then do it overnight without a reasonable public discussion and review, then you are shaming the institution in which you serve.
    Say what you will about the Democrats, they are not complicit in this stunt. Until you demonstrate otherwise, you are, and you may rest assured that the electors of this state will hold you accountable at the polls at the very next opportunity. Three out of five state residents oppose the idea already, and with losses in federal mass transit funding and other negative effects looming, the remaining support for gutting collective bargaining may be waning. Cast your lot with the Tea Partiers, and we will not forget. By their deeds ye shall know them.
    Please try to understand that we are willing to compromise. We are not willing to have our working lives completely disrupted in the name of “fiscal fairness.” You know perfectly well there is nothing fair going on here.
    Sincerely,
    When all is said and done, we must be strong. We must be vigilant. We can do it. If he shapes up and comes to his senses, we will try to work with him. If he continues to augment the State Trooper contingent around him (the Fitzgerald brothers must have people in their extended family other than their father who have
    And let us not forget another recent effort to expand the state’s business climate, undertaken in response to, among other things, an annoying issue in which the state Department of Commerce apparently went beyond the scope of its authority in adopting regulations regarding, of all things, sprinkler systems in condominiums and townhouses.
    WMC Hails Swift Legislative Approval of Regulation Reform
    Job Creation Climate Improves With Limits on New Red Tape
    MADISON – Wisconsin’s job creation prospects will improve with the passage of a comprehensive regulation reform bill approved by the Legislature, WMC said Friday.

    “Wisconsin’s business climate and job creation will improve with the passage of these regulation reforms,” said James A. Buchen, WMC vice president of government relations. “Time and time again, business executives in Wisconsin say that regulations are among their top business problems.”
    The reforms were introduced at the request of Governor Scott Walker as part of the special session on job creation. “Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald deserve tremendous credit for guiding this critical bill through the Legislature,” Buchen said. “The authors and supporters of the bill have taken an important step to keep Wisconsin workers employed.”
    Under the proposal passed by the Senate Thursday, new regulations could not be created by state agencies without the approval of Wisconsin’s governor.

    As I bring this missive to a close, and extend my thanks to all brothers and sisters who have taken the time to read it, as well as my fellow Wisconsinites who have read it, I would ask one other to consider it as well.

    Scott, my friend, listen to me. If there is one thing for you to know, it is this: you are too good of a person to let those around you lead you down this road. Setting up a transition office takes a lot of work. You don’t always have time to think things through. You have a year to show the people of this state that you can remember how to govern fair and square. This is not the way. Talk to us and we will meet you halfway. Throwing people you don’t agree with out on the street, emasculated and frightened for the future is not the way to rebuild an economy. It’s the way of WMC and the Fitzgeralds, but not the fair or right way. They get business, and law enforcement, respectively, but they don’t get government.

    I know Tom Barrett, and he did not want the job as much as you did. The great tragedy of all of this, and there are indeed those in union circles, whether you know it or not, who have literally sung your praises as county executive, is that it didn’t have to be this way. If you had some bad experiences with the unions in Milwaukee, so be it. We are not county government. We are state government. We are the big boys. And you truly did have a tremendous potential to govern this state well. And you still do. It is not too late. The problem is that Rience is very good at what he does, so he became national chair, and things started to escalate, and get out of hand, and all of a sudden the hubristic nonsense that WMC had been prattling about for years became a plan, and then that became a fiscal plan, and that became a “bold” yet “modest” fiscal plan. But at the end of the day, the people will see that it is unfair and dumb.

    Things like this happen in government. But you don’t want to be remembered as the guy who ripped the heart out of Wisconsin unionism, and in the process, Wisconsin itself. If you love this state and its people as much as I do, admit you’re wrong. You made a mistake. We all have, even your father. Nobody’s perfect. Throwing collective bargaining out the window is not the solution to the state’s fiscal or economic problems. If people stop taking federally-funded buses to work, maybe so. But for now, the road ahead with this proposal looks mighty damn dim. And loud. If you truly do refuse to back down, and go ahead with your plan, those damn liberals will be in the Capitol straight through to next January 3. They need 580,206 signatures and they’ll get a million. Trust me. You cannot do this and avoid the consequences. You grew up knowing what it was like to go without. So did a lot of us. Take away this much of what remains and they will not forgive or forget. You are asking too much. Buchen and Jefferson, and your other “friends” will return to their respective agendas, and guess who will be left holding the bag?

    It’s not about us and them. It is about being fair and taking the time to figure it all the hell out. The Tea Party crowd doesn’t think in these terms because they couldn’t figure a way out of the state’s fiscal crisis if you gave them a million years. Tommy would have never done something like this.

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