On “Sunday Insight” this morning, right-wing squawk radio host Charlie Sykes was discussing public opinion on whether public employees should pay more towards their health insurance and pension benefits. During that discussion, Jeff Fleming, who’s handled PR for a number of Democrats, said the fact that over 80% of respondents to a recent WPRI poll supported making public employees pay more for their pensions and health insurance was, “an issue that has already been settled.” In response to Fleming’s statement, Sykes challenged Fleming to name a single union that has come to the table, acknowledged our state’s fiscal problems and offered to pay more toward health insurance and pensions.
While Charlie Sykes wanted the name of a single union that has come to the table and offered to pay more towards health insurance and pensions, I’ve got two – AFSCME and WEAC:
Earlier Friday, Marty Beil, head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, said his members would agree to pay more of their pension contributions and health insurance benefits as Walker is demanding. But Beil said his union would never agree to give up decades-old bargaining rights.
Beil’s union is part of AFSCME, the largest state and local employee union in Wisconsin, which represents 68,000 workers for the state, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County and other municipalities. An AFSCME spokesman said Beil was speaking for all the group’s union locals in the state.
“We are prepared to implement the financial concessions proposed to help bring our state’s budget into balance, but we will not be denied our God-given right to join a real union . . . we will not – I repeat we will not – be denied our rights to collectively bargain,” Beil said in a statement.
Mary Bell, the president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, said her group also would make the financial concessions to keep its bargaining rights.
“This is not about money,” Bell said in a phone conference. “We understand the need to sacrifice.”
Now I’m sure Sykes defenders will be quick to point out that neither AFSCME or WEAC have actually come to the table to concede higher health insurance and pension payments by their members, but let’s not forget that it’s Gov. Scott Walker who has refused to come to the table and even try to negotiate such concessions.
Beil and Bell may say that, but it is an unenforceable promise that they cannot control with every bargaining unit in the state. If it is already a concession they have made, why is that concession not included in the contracts that are being rushed to be signed? Empty promises from Beil and Bell that are not followed through on doesn’t constitute coming to the table.
forgot, remind me again about how willing Gov. Walker has been to even come to the table…
The fact is, we don’t know if these were empty promises or not, because Gov. Walker didn’t even bother to try to negotiate for concessions; he simply sought to impose the concessions on top of taking away collective bargaining rights.
How can state workers pay more when they already pay 100% of pension and benefits, diverting current wages into these programs? What Walker is actually doing is slashing wages. As a taxpayer, I don’t want the state to hire cut-rate accountants, lawyers, engineeers, etc. My taxes are best spent and overseen by professionals who are paid the going rate.
That’s kind of funny, considering unions and collective bargaining by definition, short-circuits the “going rate.”
A school needs a science teacher. The pay rate is determined by a people a hundred miles away in a negotiated contract – the market – going rate – has nothing to do with it. Have a stellar candidate you really want? You can’t pay them any more than a lesser candidate with the same degree & experience.
Get 500 candidates for a Social Studies job, but are having trouble finding a qualified tech ed teacher? Too bad, you can’t adjust your pay to reflect the vastly different markets.
Walker’s not letting anyone ‘come to the table’, because he’s not their either. So in that sense, Walker hasn’t even asked for the concessions. For crying out loud, the fire fighters and policemen agreed to the cuts, if collective bargaining was taken off the table. If this is the best that Sykes can come up with, Walker has seriously, seriously lost his momentum. Stupid semantics and propagnda, that’s what we get from the politicians and the media whores.
> Beil and Bell may say that, but it is an unenforceable promise that they cannot control with every bargaining unit in the state.
Well, their pledges are unenforceable only because Walker refuses to follow the state’s collective bargaining law and actually hammer out an enforceable agreement. He’s effectively announced HE is The Decider and that represented employees will be ignored.
And so it is Walker who has by his intransigence made it the case that Beil and Bell and the leaders of more than a dozen other state employee unions can only offer promises and not their signatures on contracts. Walker simply refuses to abide by existing collective bargaining laws even while he seeks to gut them. Walker’s stance is analagous to murdering somebody, then pleading the forgiveness of the court because you’re in the midst of a political effort that might eventually legalize murder.