70,000 people (and rising) in Wisconsin aren't going to take it lying down, and you sure as hell have another thing coming if you think the rest of us are just going to roll over. You corporate shills are awful proud of your Tea Party, watch the Left stand back up. Labor is not going down without a fight. We work for a living, we vote, we pay taxes, we're real Americans, and we will stand strong for our rights.

@ the various unregistered trolls,

The government negotiated contracts with the unions for pensions, benefits, wages, etc. They weren't forced at gunpoint to give them pensions, they voluntarily agreed and signed a legal contract. Now they're going to simply break those contracts. You know, kinda the same way the government broke treaties with the Native Americans.

You're ok with that? You're ok with the government just casually throwing away their legal agreements?

Just remember what side you're on now when the government in the future breaks a contract with whatever group you're a member of.

@109, Did you get much pleasure out of fellating the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch?

Nice work conflating public sector unions with private sector unions.

They are completely different animals. But, you knew that because you are one of those informed high-information liberal voters I keep hearing about.

And the whole thing about "vacations" just makes the point that unions are obsolete. We don't need unions to guarantee workplace rights anymore. In fact, the fucking racists in the big unions are part of the problem now more than ever.

Public sector unions are even more obsolete -- they have civil service protections already. In fact, WI has the best civil service protections of almost any state...

You might want to read up a bit before you start writing about things you apparently don't know much about....

Start here:
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/stat…

And if you could provide evidence of the "fucking racists" in the "big unions" having much influence in the last thirty years or so, that would be grand. I agree that there was horrible racism and sexism in the Teamsters and IBEW in the past (the first female lineworkers at City Light were treated shamefully) but the unions I know of - and I have a feeling I know a lot more than you - are very integrated, and becoming more so each year.

So for the unregistered, your feeling is: If I don't get everything what I want, then I want the world to burn.

You're lucky the democrats don't feel the same way. If they did, you and I wouldn't even be here to argue this.

As it is, the democrats save your ignorant asses as much as they save the informed.

By the way, what'd you all do this weekend? I'm assuming you all went to work, right?

What's that? You didn't go to work? I wonder why that is?...

Perhaps the corporations and the politicians they own will give you a cookie for standing up for your center-right politics when the dust has settled. Once they start dismantling everything unions fought for, sometimes with their blood, I wouldn't hold out for too much more.

@113

I am a employee side employment lawyer. Big unions --especially the IAM are pretty competent at racism, sexism, and other kinds of unlawful discrimination. And, they make it harder for the victim to seek a remedy because they cover for the supervisors and management...good stuff.

But, generally I have no problem with private sector unions. It is the public sector unions that need to go.

@113

Your surprised that there is racism and sexism in the construction business and that calls for the dismantling of an entire union? That's a very illogical stance towards anything in life when your dealing with human organizations.

I'm a member of SEIU in the education field and if it wasn't for my union I'd be replaced by a minimum wage worker who has no benefits. In fact my school system tried doing just that a few years ago. But my union stopped them and kept over a hundred local employees in the job so my bosses couldn't smuggle that school district money out in bonuses. Yup, I was going to lose my job and have my life crumble so someone who already makes six figures could have an extra 30K.

But in your own words "Public sector unions are even more obsolete -- they have civil service protections already".

Damn!! I meant @116

@117, I see, your money is safe, you don't need to give a fuck about the rest of us.

@122,

You should read @82's link. It describes the problem with what you wrote and the problem of your world view perfectly.

"I've been working in a factory for 26 years. We pay 15 percent for the cost of our health care. The state workers get Cadillac insurance and pensions. They have no god-given right to collective bargaining," said bill supporter Anthony Thelen, 46, who works in a non-union factory outside of Milwaukee.

go teabaggers.

@124/5: First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This is exactly what the people protesting in Wisconsin are doing. It is our right as American citizens to organize and petition our government for a redress of grievances. For a group theoretically deeply concerned with the erosion of our constitutional rights, it is ironic that the Tea Party so strongly supports this bald-faced assault on the constitution. The protesters have already agreed to take all the cuts Walker wants, what they're pissed off about is the dictum that makes their right to collectively bargain meaningless.

@125

Spellcheck?

For the union haters, well, let's just get rid of all the laws that permit incorporation, then. Folks who own businesses can put everything they own at risk, without some bullshit laws limiting their liability. Then we'll see how capital and business fare in this country. If you favor a race to the bottom for labor, we can certainly play that game for capital too, and we can all live in a third-world shithole together.

What? You just want the laws protecting capital, but not labor? Oh, well, I guess that pretty much reveals your selfishness, then, doesn't it?

@129, Except there is no such thing as a "sociologism" professor. A sociologism is an attribution of a sociological basis to a discipline apart from sociology, not a specific field of study. You meant sociology professor, you made a spelling error.

@127, Why is sociology a joke? And what other fields are a "joke" in your estimation? And why?

@132, Right-wing in-jokes aside, you do realize that politics are only one tiny fragment of what sociology is, right?

@72 If you look at replacing a worker merely as a cost-benefit equation -- ie, is the cost of replacing the worker less than what it costs to keeping them -- then that's where one starts firing women who get pregnant (cheaper to replace them than pay for maternity *and* replace them for the duration), firing people who are hurt on the job or get sick (cheaper to replace them than pay their medical bills *and* replace them while they heal, if they ever heal), and so forth.

Furthermore, the less skilled the worker (retail clerk, data entry, janitor, etc) then the lower than threshold becomes, until you end up with the guy driving a pick-up truck to Home Depot in the morning, grabbing whomever is needy enough to do unskilled labor for a less-than-living-wage for the day, and then simply "not hiring" them the next day when they don't show up at the curb for whatever reason.