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February 23, 2015 8:30 am - NewsBehavingBadly.com

Scott Walker wanted to destroy unions and, so far, he’s getting his way.

[su_thin_right_skyscraper_ad]The anti-union law passed here four years ago, which made Gov. Scott Walker a national Republican star and a possible presidential candidate, has turned out to be even more transformative than many had predicted.

…recalling the benefits that union membership might have brought before the 2011 law stripped most public-sector unions of their collective-bargaining rights is difficult when workers consider the challenges of the present.

“I don’t see the point of being in a union anymore,” said Dan Anliker, a 34-year-old technology teacher and father of two in Reedsburg, a tiny city about 60 miles northwest of Madison.

The law required most public employees to pay more for health insurance and to pay more into retirement savings, resulting in an 8 to 10 percent drop in take-home pay. To help compensate for the loss, Anliker said he took an additional 10-hour-a-week job…

Walker’s administration has said forcing public employees to contribute more to retirement plans and health insurance helped local governments save $3 billion. The governor also has credited the 2011 law with saving homeowners money on property taxes while giving school districts the ability to make reforms that increased third-grade reading levels and high school graduation rates. And the law has emboldened Republican state lawmakers to further challenge Wisconsin’s labor movement this year by pushing right-to-work legislation that would allow private-sector workers to opt out of paying union dues — a measure Walker has said he would sign.

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D.B. Hirsch
D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

12 responses to Scott Walker’s Anti-Union Law Has Labor Reeling

  1. John Tarter February 23rd, 2015 at 9:22 am

    This was a great thing that was done by the Governor. When I lived in Wisconsin under Democrat control, taxes were through the roof and lots of that money went to pay for all the bennies for those public sector union folks. It was spend, spend, spend, and the people finally got tired of it. Illinois right next door is reeling from years of Democrat control.

    • OldLefty February 23rd, 2015 at 9:37 am

      What is “Democrat control”?

      Now Wisconsin has a $2B debt and is headed into Kansas territory.

      • John Tarter February 23rd, 2015 at 9:50 am

        Oh come on. It’s Democrats who are elected governors with the help of the public sector unions and then they sit down together and negotiate top notch contracts with the state that employs them. Governor Walker thankfully put an end to that and the next door state of Illinois need to do the same.

        • Um Cara February 23rd, 2015 at 10:06 am

          they sit down together and negotiate top notch contracts with the state that employs them

          You and I have a different view of ‘top notch contracts’, lol. ‘Top notch’ contracts are not what our teachers, police, firemen, government office workers, etc. enjoy.

          You are thinking of CEOs.

        • OldLefty February 23rd, 2015 at 10:10 am

          1) That does not answer the question; “Democrat control”?

          Is that a new party??

          2) As opposed to Republicans who are elected governors with the help of the trans-national corporations and THEIR unions, like ALEC and then they sit down together and negotiate how to create the poor wages that the workers of the third world suffer through?

          Tom Delay did spell it out in a rare, cleansing moment of clarity;
          When Tom Delay went to the Marianas in 1997 with Jack Abramoff, where workers were forced to live behind barbed wire in squalid rat-infested shacks minus plumbing, work
          12 hours a day, often seven days a week, he fully approved of the working and living conditions. A Department of the Interior report found that “Chinese women were subject to forced abortions and that women and children were subject to forced
          prostitution in the local sex-tourism industry.” The Texan’s salute to the owners and Abramoff’s government clients was recorded by ABC-TV News: “You are a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system”

          Frank Murkowski, submitted a bill to extend the protection of U.S. minimum-wage labor laws to the workers in the CNMI, which passed unanimously.
          The bill was then blocked by Tom DeLay in the House.

          Jack Abramoff hired Ralph Reed’s Century Strategies to “send out a mailer to Alabama conservative Christians;
          “The radical left, the Big Labor Union Bosses, and Bill Clinton want to pass a law preventing Chinese from coming to work on the Marianas Islands,” the mailer from Reed’s firm said. The Chinese workers, it added, “are exposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ” while on the islands, and many “are converted to the Christian faith and return to China with Bibles in hand.”
          http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/28/AR2006052800964.html

          “When people show you who they are believe them.”
          – Maya Angelou

        • arc99 February 23rd, 2015 at 10:11 am

          The Wisconsin budget deficit is increasing.

          You sir are an unrepentant liar.

          it is no accident that you never provide any factual references. when everything you say is a lie, such references do not exist.

          http://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2015/01/24/wisconsins-year-budget-hole-forecast-billion/22269873/

          Wisconsin’s 2-year budget hole forecast at up to $2 billion

        • arc99 February 23rd, 2015 at 10:53 am

          Good thing it only takes a moment or two to verify the facts which demonstrate the extent to which you lie. Leaves me time for other more productive pursuits.

          http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article8145486.html

          After years of making concessions to Gov. Jerry Brown, California labor leaders had hoped that the fourth-and-final-term Democrat finally would be in a giving mood.

          But after the governor’s budget proposal two weeks ago, several unions are bracing for tough talks in the coming months about Brown’s determination to cut the state’s costs of insuring employees and retirees.

    • booker25 February 23rd, 2015 at 9:42 am

      repeating RW lying talking points, Wis is in the red and going under, deal. Has nothing to do with unions and everything to do with Walker and bad management.

    • Snick1946 February 23rd, 2015 at 10:45 am

      It’s the DemocratIC party.

      You guys think you’re real cute, don’t you?

  2. Foundryman February 23rd, 2015 at 10:19 am

    The one and only thing the unions can do that will work is hit them in the pocket book. When people lose money and get hurt financially, they will bend. Holding signs at the Capital won’t get it done. They have to shut down schools, businesses, ports, and highways, and more importantly, keep them shut down.

  3. tiredoftea February 23rd, 2015 at 11:03 am

    “Walker’s administration has said forcing public employees to contribute more to retirement plans and health insurance helped local governments save $3 billion. “, yeah, is that the same $3B that he’s short in the state budget?

  4. anothertoothpick February 23rd, 2015 at 1:53 pm

    The most evil creature ever to walk the face of the earth was Raygun, hands down.

    Why? Because he single handedly turned the American Dream into the American Nightmare.

    Walker comes in a close second.