In this morning’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, political columnist Daniel Bice outlines the loss in membership in public unions since the enactment of Wisconsin Act 10 that obliterates the power of Wisconsin public employee unions. Well, public employee unions except for the protected police and firefighter unions that is.
Now the short gist of the article is public employee unions have been losing members in great numbers since Act 10. But Governor Walker denies any attempt to destroy the public unions, instead he is helping public employees make an informed decision based on the value added from the unions:
“We were trying to empower workers and give them a choice,” the first-term Republican governor said. “If workers saw value out of their union, then they have every right to stay put. But if they didn’t, they could make that choice.”
Value out of their union? What possible value can there be when public employee unions have absolutely no power or authority? Power and authority that were directly prohibited by Act 10.
Oh yeah, I forgot, the union can still negotiate basic pay restricted by the annual cost of living.
The entire point of Act 10 was to defang the unions…steal their membership and empty their treasuries to prevent any political activism on their part. Political activities that generally works against the interests of the Republican Party.
Stop lying to us Governor Walker…your actions have intentionally removed any value the public employee unions could offer their membership…there can not be any value out of the unions in the wake of Act 10. Time to tell it like it is!
(when a public union negotiates a pay raise for it’s membership under the new rules, do you think that the Governor will have the balls to deny that raise to non-union members and make them individually negotiate their own pay raises? Will he dare give larger raises to non-union members in the future than those allowed to unions?)
Well said.
Walker has definitely mastered the oil slicked, but pleasingly forked tongue of Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost. Yet without Satan’s elegance. The deceit committed against Wisconsin’s citizenry can be easily ascertained from his characteristic ineloquent malapropisms:
“Empower” as imputed here actually disempowers. “Give” is effectively “taking”power from workers and “choice” obscures senses of “elite or preferential,” subtle disproportionate exclusiveness or exceptionalism suggestive of individual empowerment and the genuine source of power and ultimate authority embedded in “e pluribus unum” (out of many, one).
Workers don’t see value “out” of their unions. Workers find value “in” their unions. His grammar is intentionally incorrect to instill a value judgment by making it appear that his degradation of unions is not his judgment, but that of workers.
Unfortunately, Walker can’t stop lying. He has purposively burnished improbity for his Machiavellian career. If he didn’t lie, he couldn’t rise higher, though with each mendacity he commits he descends farther – kind of like Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost.
Ed, thanks.
The fact that Act 10 also made it much more difficult for unions to re-certify completely undermines Gov. Walker’s arguments about what he was really trying to accomplish with Act 10.
Requiring that unions get 50%+1 of ALL union members (not just 50%+1 of those voting) in order to re-certify is ALL about weakening unions.
The unions can and do a lot more than bargain for the restricted raises. They can still represent workers in grievances and disciplinary hearings. They can also take legal actions, such as the lawsuit against Act 10 itself. Our District Counsel has at least half a dozen lawsuits against the County for the illegal actions taken by Abele. (Note: He hasn’t won one of them yet.)
Thanks Capper