Ken @2,

Doubling it unilaterally, without negotiation or bargaining.

@2, Sitting down and negotiating pay cuts and increases in hc premiums is one thing. Unilaterally revoking citizens right to organize under threat of military force is something completely different.

And which in essence results in a de facto pay cut, since the employees in question aren't receiving additional compensation to cover the cost of the health care premium increase, while at the same time the State is saving $$ by transferring those costs to employees.

And I don't see Walker making any mention of cutting HIS salary, or increasing HIS insurance premiums, even though he is also a state employee.

This is a manufactured crisis being used by Walker to dish out political retribution and undermine democrats in the state. Not about anything else. If it was about the budget, talking about cuts would be reasonable. Removing bargaining rights, unilaterally, does nothing to the supposed budget crisis. http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/…

Wisconsin is a lesson for all the non-shitty states like Washington. You have to show up and vote or the shitheads will turn you into Alabama or Arizona. Most of these proposals by the Wisc governor are already in effect in the perpetual bottom 10 states. Democrats here need to run on "We don't want to be Mississippi".

Funny, this hits home too hard. My boyfriend worked for MS. When I asked why developers never unionized. He informed me that his position was more about productivity then seniority. He was laid then off on Cinco de Firo. He had worked there ten years and contributed heavily. Turns out his then manager was competing with him for a different position. That manger even lied and said he wrote code my BF did. Everyone new it. The Manager had him black listed from HR. MS still needed him. Several big wigs had to push their wait around to get HR to clear him. This took 2 years. In the mean time, my solid union job, had kept bread on our family table for all five of us.
Everyone gives me shit that I still have a job. Yes, I do. When everyone was hiring in masses ten years ago- you went for the money. I went for a job that was both rewarding AND STABLE. I don't get paid much more then I did five years ago, even though the demands of my job have risen. But my job will still be here ten years from now. I am union, and proud to be so.
The scariest thing is explaining to my children why people would be shot for collectively protesting in Iran and Yemen. Now, I have to explain why are own government is pursuing means to destroy collective protesting and bargaining here.

weight not wait

Sorry honey, but "weight not wait" is the least of your problems.

Snark aside, I totally agree with your sentiments. I owe my living wage and excellent benefits to my union.
Wisconsin is just the latest battlefield in the war on the American worker.

@11

California, like the fed, has a revenue problem, not a budget problem. The corporations who are doing the "job hemorrhaging" by moving them overseas also don't want to pay their taxes, so they get tax breaks to ship those jobs out of America. See how this works?

Democracy and Freedom will come to America too, not just the Middle East.

And nothing the Republicans say can stop that.

Unions are good for everyone.

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/br…

Some of the conclusions are:

• Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28%.

• Unions reduce wage inequality because they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers, more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers, and more for workers who do not have a college degree.

• Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow. For example, a high school graduate whose workplace is not unionized but whose industry is 25% unionized is paid 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries.

• The impact of unions on total nonunion wages is almost as large as the impact on total union wages.

As a tax payer who just experienced a 400% increase in health insurance premiums for retirees from my partner's employer, I have little sympathy for public employees paying more for their hc benefits. How am I supposed to pay for my heath insurance and theirs too?

Public employees in Wisconsin are already paying 6.3 percent of their incomes in premiums. If that were applied to my salary, I would pay roughly $160/month for my health insurance.

Color me impressed that WI employees pay that much already. Whenever I see complaints about premium increases for state employees, it's usually increasing from some ridiculously nominal fee, maybe 40 bucks.

@17, Maybe if we properly funded education, we could pay the people teaching our kids ALL a good wage.

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/…

This right here is why the state is in the hole. Everything was fine until Scott gave a ton of money away. The state workers don't need a paycut.

This right here is why the state is in the hole. Everything was fine until Scott gave a ton of money away. The state workers don't need a paycut.

I should point out it's frickin cold this time of year there, so walking three miles is a big deal.

Don't forget your chapstick.

In the long run, the country will not tollerate a situation where 60%+ of government workers are unionized and 10%- of private sectors workers are. That is the situation we are in now, and it strongly contributes to the widespread impression that government workers are coddled and that unions are all about protecting the unproductive. It also makes traditional union rhetoric making unions out to be the protectors of all "working people" sound really silly.

If you want maintain the entrenched public sector unions, the ONLY way to do it is to increase private sector unioniation.

@23: zOMG! Did you know that the private sector used to be heavily unionized, and the public sector was ionized? Now it's the opposite!

@23 If you even mention unionization in most chain stores you will be fired on the spot. Fedex Office has that rule, Walmart has shut down stores over that rule, and i'm sure there are many others. Starting a union in the private sector is next to impossible and that is because the federal government coddles big business. A business shouldn't be able to fire someone over the simple discussion of unionization.