Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
Editors' Picks
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
you've been warned......
Sloggers: start your excuses!
the losers in wisconsion are sure buttsore...
The only indication this has for the presidential election is that Wisconsinites like the status quo.
Which means even moderate Dems are sick and tired of state worker unions. Change is coming my friends, just watch Obama toss even more of the loony left overboard to win the sensible, centrist vote in America.
Time to 'occupy' a fucking job, not an entitlement.
Can I suggest you keep calling the majority of voters 'idiots'? It's such a winning strategy for college educated, identity politics morons who run the left now.
Democracy is a bitch when you're on the wrong side of history.
Also, I can't wait for the new signs to go up at the state borders: "Welcome To Wisconsin: A Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of Koch Industries, Inc."
It will be interesting to see what happens with the Walker criminal investigation. This may all be moot. What will the Hee-Haw crowd do then?
Was it money well spent AFSCME?
Is that clown Gwen Moore going to write anymore ghetto poetry? That was sure classy.
Then again, why not ask Kasich in Ohio how that turned out for him.
this country is deeply deeply fucked. the populace (GOP regressives and flibberdigibbet independents) is primed to blame the left when the economy contracts further - it confirms the bias 30 years of hate radio and fox news has built. its going to get worse.
i suggest that Reid (should he be re-elected) retain the filibuster, and impose the same shut-it-down tactic on the GOP when the time comes.
I lived in Wisconsin for two decades. Walker's policies actually hit close friends of mine who chose to leave the state after their university positions were gutted. I was one of the out-of-state people contributing to Barrett's campaign.
I feel sick.
So I guess if you don't have a vag and are filthy fucking rich, Walker is your guy. Speaking of rich, in defending Walker's decision to repeal pay equity protections, Republican state Senator Grothman stated that it is OK for women to get paid less because, "money is more important for men." Oh, LOLZ n' shit.
I'll take "Things Paul Wouldn't Say Had Walker Lost" for $1,000, Alex
Why, because your friends may have to get real jobs?
Barf away!
Oh, wait, State workers are underpaid and overworked!
UW employee spent hours web surfing, gets 916 hours of OT
Posted by Katherine Long
A University of Washington fire alarm control supervisor made 5,211 visits to non-work-related websites during a 16-month period, a state auditor’s report has found.
According to the report, the employee made visits to sports, fantasy football, animal rescue, social networking and video websites, and a personal email account, during a 16-month period in 2010 and 2011. The employee made 30 visits a day to non-work-related sites on at least 50 separate dates, and 192 visits to non-work-related sites in a single day.
During an overlapping 13-month time period, the auditor’s office found that the employee was paid 916 hours of overtime, or about 3.3 hours of overtime a day.
But university officials say they do not believe the employee was racking up overtime while surfing the Web.
As part of an $8 million project to replace all the fire alarms on campus, the UW had asked the employee and a second supervisor to work up to 3 hours of overtime a day, for two years, to supervise the project. The two men made about $30,000 a year extra in overtime, said Charles Kennedy, associate vice president of facilities services. Their base salary is about $70,000.
"So I guess if you don't have a vag and are filthy fucking rich, Walker is your guy."
THat's how he got 55% of the vote? That's a lot of rich dicks, he must be doing something right.
Unemployment in WI is 6.7%. National is 8.2%. We could use him here in WA state.
I think most people (and I have to admit I'm one of them) still have trouble understanding why you a person with a Government job, which is traditionally benefit laden and secure, if not better paying (sometimes) also needs to be in a union.
For many, they look at Government bureaucracy as a form of union already. In some sense, Democrat Barack Obama is more the head of the Civil Service than he is a true President of all the People of the United States.
You are no different than the idiots who think Obama won because of Soros and Acorn.
Madison should secede from this shitass state.
Unfortunately, the simplest explanation is the best: Most AmeriKKKans are aggressively ignorant, hate-crazed, neo-fascist, right-wing, sadistic assholes, and they vote for people that are exactly like them. Our corrupt, incompetent, and criminally insane “representatives” are, in fact, representative.
I haz the sad : (
I would have liked to have seen Walker get some comeuppance, but as I don't actually live in Wisconsin, I don't really care that much beyond the symbolic value.
Hopefully this will spur liberals to get their act together, and take down that shield generator in the next sequel.
When the unions disappear, get ready for child labor (Newt already suggested it), working on weekends, no overtime, no vacations... if people think corporate bosses give those things out because they're just happy, shiny people, then those people are idiots. Corporations do it because they HAVE to, because the unions forced them to do it to be competitive. No unions = no happy, shiny bosses. Back to slave labor, thankyouverymuch.
Have fun sending your kid to work on Saturday for below-minimum wage with no benefits. You voted for it.
Pay is actually lower than for private-sector jobs. Benefits are decent, but not great. Work environment can be atrocious: no nice furnishings or equipment, instead a motly collection of used hand-me-down cubicles and such.
And drastic cuts have also gutted support staff positions ro the bone. Ever wonder why gov't agencies still use atrocious voicemail systems?
Thank the idiot teabaggers for gutting budgets to below sustainable levels.
Seriously, walk into any Fortune 1000 corporate office, then conpare it to any state or local gov't office. Rhe contrast is huge.
And when the workers of the world are all finally paid a pittance, un-benefited, non-unioned, at-willed, right-to-worked--the Captains of Industry will be sated. Cue milk & honey; manna; unicorns.
60 years ago there were constant assaults on workers' safety and wages, and the idea that you should be able to make a living working a blue collar job was constantly under assault.
None of that is happening now, so unions are totally irrelevant!
I'm surprised they won't be thrown in the ovens first strawman!
Since Obama polled so well last night in WI, expect our great president to continue his centrist policies and not swing to the loony left. He knows where the values lie in this great country, in the center, not the radical fringes of either the left or the right.
@51 & 53 you have very good points. I wasn't surprised at all at Walker's victory and margin. I agree unions in America may be antiquated. They most certainly are diminished in membership & power especially since the 70s. They did their job once and did it well. But, I do recall in my early employment and voting life some resentment expressed at unions (paying dues, cumbersome workplace guidelines etc.) by fellow colleagues. They, unions may be seeing the writing on the wall. American labor isn't overwhelmingly manufacturing-oriented anymore. And, I don't think it will be that way again.
Paul, has a point. This election might not mean much for the general election in Nov. However, no matter how one spins it it wasn't good for the Dems and especially organized labor whatsever left of it.
FTR, I'm pro-shop and grateful for what unions have done for American labor (8 hour workday etc.).
Also didn't realize this until yesterday: In a recall election in Wisconsin, the challenged party does not have to abide by campaign finance rules, but the challenger does. Innaresting.
I say the GOP governors should do everything they can to 'capitalize' on this election. Ride the wave, motherfuckers. Show us your true colors. Show all of us working and middle class fucks what's what, and let's see how things wash out in November. Do it! Do it!
The psychotic and self-defeating the tirades of the nutcase right are fresh off the plantation. They've been run into the ditch with the rest of the 99%, but are willing to kill someone over a glass of water or an armful of straw to sleep on. The system is hopelessly corrupt and we can't quite help ourselves... but maybe there are some surprises yet in store.
BUT: 119% turnout in some areas is no small feat. Depressing that it didn't help, but I'm proud of the effort. And at least we did end up taking back the Senate, so that's something. Plus there's always the chance that the ongoing John Doe investigation that's been taking down his former subordinates and campaign staff will end with Walker being perp-walked out of the Capitol.... ah, a girl can dream, right?
Plus, Obama still seems to be enjoying a comfortable lead over Romney among WI voters, which provides a bit of irony to the GOP gloating.
And of course he still has to deal with the on-going federal corruption investigation, so it's not exactly like he's coming out of this completely vindicated; and in the long-run it may turn out to be more of a Pyrrhic Victory than the GOP and his corporate handlers would like to let on.
First, unions aren't perfect. Their biggest failing -in my opinion- is that they are ran by people who used to be rank-and-file, so the leadership tends to be backward-looking.
They tend to be beurocratic, and rules oriented. In some fields - electricians, for example - this is absolutely essential, for both life and property depend on strict adherence to safety practices. For things like office workers, however, it's counter-productive.
They have anachronistic elements: I, for one, feel that they have no place in the disciplinary process. They should be there for negotiating wages, benefits, and working conditions that affect the wider membership, and leave discipline to the HR department.
They depend too much on seniority. Seniority has its place, but it needs to tempered with performance expectations when considering promotions and furloughs.
With all that said, I think unions are absolutely necessary institutions, particularly in the private sector, and across the board in the trades. Their political advocacy, though meager compared to corporate bucks, is necessary as well.
To those of you here who are calling us Badgers idiots and assholes and all the other things: fuck you. These past 18 months have been hard and horribly divisive to our state, and you can't understand how bitterly we fought this. So please don't spit on us when we're down. This election, Scott Walker, and Wisconsin have been bought and paid for, that's no lie. But we didn't sell ourselves willingly.
Again: fuck you, you smug bastards. Keep on rubbing that salt in our wounds, and know your petty name-calling from the comfort of your homes can't come close to hurting us as much as this last year has. We fought hard and we lost this battle. When special interests, billionaires, and nutjob teabaggers come for your collective bargaining, your healthcare, your funding to support people with disabilities, and your free access to your own Capitol building, maybe you will understand this fight we just came through. And I can guarantee you, if the other side beats you, too, we in Wisconsin won't call you idiots and neanderthals for losing, because we're all in this together. Also, because we Midwesterners are much nicer than you.
(This is only for those people calling names and slinging mud, to the rest of you: thanks for your support, it's nice to know we're not alone)
To those of you here who are calling us Badgers idiots and assholes and all the other things: fuck you. These past 18 months have been hard and horribly divisive to our state, and you can't understand how bitterly we fought this. So please don't spit on us when we're down. This election, Scott Walker, and Wisconsin have been bought and paid for, that's no lie. But we didn't sell ourselves willingly.
Again: fuck you, you smug bastards. Keep on rubbing that salt in our wounds, and know your petty name-calling from the comfort of your homes can't come close to hurting us as much as this last year has. We fought hard and we lost this battle. When special interests, billionaires, and nutjob teabaggers come for your collective bargaining, your healthcare, your funding to support people with disabilities, and your free access to your own Capitol building, maybe you will understand this fight we just came through. And I can guarantee you, if the other side beats you, too, we in Wisconsin won't call you idiots and neanderthals for losing, because we're all in this together. Also, because we Midwesterners are much nicer than you.
(This is only for those people calling names and slinging mud, to the rest of you: thanks for your support, it's nice to know we're not alone)
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/103928/not…