Workers' Revolt in Wisconsin

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The tax cut was one of the main things Walker ran on. He wants to attract business and jobs to the state. The shortfall for the next budget is expected by be 3.6 billion dollars and I explained how hey they covered the last budget shortfall. Wisconsin is in a dire fiscal situation.

The protests are futile. It's going to turn people against the unions more so than they already are and there is no way they can win. I wish they walk off their jobs since it would show us how little we actually need these people. There are plenty of unemployed people in this state and else where that love to have these jobs.

It may be that you are prophet and what you say will come to pass. Peace be upon you.

It hasnt yet:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/201 ... sp=usat.me

Walker was running on the equivalent of promising to create jobs with a voodoo dance because the voodoo economics he advocates has never worked anywhere at any time. He still blew a hole in the budget in an attempt to bribe some rich people somewhere (and paying off the rich people who already run operations in the state) into opening up shop in his state. This is pathetic Third World potentate economics. This is rank stupidity and corruption of the highest order. To demand that workers pay for this kind of idiocy demands severe punishment.

everyone here understands that tax cuts are the same thing as spending as far as the government is concerned, right?

That teachers work and may be classed as workers I neither doubt nor deny and why should I, as a teacher, son of two teachers and grandson of a longtime substitute teacher, brother of three teachers, brother-in-law of three teachers, and son-in-law of two teachers running a private school?

You can't tell me much about teachers I have not experienced first hand or heard at most second-hand.

BUT :

You call something a Workers' Revolt and unless they changed the rules of English to suit sensationalist media it needs to be a whole heap of different types of workers, and they got to be doing more than sleepovers in the capitol.

Calling it Workers' revolt - unless it has really escalated snce the last news my wife read me - is like when the students sat with the faculty, nodded and said yes and no and thank you when the chairman proclaimed policy, and then called it a Confrontation.

Government employees should never have been allowed to unionize in the first place; the negotiation dynamics are just too cozy and lead to endemic corruption. Even FDR was against public sector unionizing, and coming from him that really says something. I hope Walker stands his ground, and that other state governors follow his example in the coming months and years.

A fundamental thought....

I've been opposed to Teacher's Unions more than most any other form of union because they really do not deserve a union.

Having worked in some lousy places that I felt needed a union on the side of the workers, and having seen industries where I can see the need for the union to be there to prevent worker exploitation, I find that teachers are a class of worker who clearly DOES NOT deserve such a mechanism.

Here is why....RESULTS!

The US education system is falling apart. We've doubled the amount of money going into education and we have worse results than before. Granted, a large part of the problem are federal education standards and programs. The most that should happen on a national level are agreements on uniform educational standards, but anything more than that interferes with letting the states and localities run schools as they see best.

In spite of all that, kids are not turning out better than the generation before. American students are falling behind, and much of this mess is a lack of leadership in the school systems. Too many "chiefs" and not enough "indians." Perhaps not the best analogy, but what happened to the good old days of suspending/expelling problem kids so the learning environment was preserved? What happened to the good old days of teachers/administrators being able to administer corporal punishment for unruly kids or making the parents come to school and administer the punishment?

Teachers have been regulated to babysitters, and the vast majority of them in many places are content to accept that rather than revolt against the status quo and do something so they are educators, not babysitters.

For all the griping I hear from teachers....most will not lift a finger to change things. Those most bothered simply go to a private school that lets them actually teach or they change professions altogether.

The UNION is supposed to be improving workplace conditions. You'd think teachers' unions would fight to restore the sanctity of the classroom so teachers can effectively educate kids. Instead, it's all about power, politics, pay and benefits. The children aren't even a top priority of the union.

If I had a union shop and the workers were producing a crappy product, I'd not only refuse to raise compensation, but I'd be looking to clean out my staff for new workers who would work and produce a quality product. You want better pay and benefits, prove to me that you've done something to earn it other than take up space while on the clock.

Find a copy of the movie "Waiting for Superman." An eye-opener about what most teacher's unions have become.

HENCE, I think it is long overdue that some of these unions got busted. They aren't working towards a mutually-beneficial goal. They are all about self-serving and self-dealing at the expense of people (the students and the taxpayers) who get no say in the matter. They've gone over two decades with no evidence that their members deserve the pay and benefits they currently enjoy, and they've become part of the problem, not part of the solution.

And no, it's not a worker's revolt since they're still working. They took a few days off last week but they all went back to work on monday since the union instructed them to. The protesters now are mainly college students from UW-Madison and bussed in union activists from around the country. The actual teachers and other government workers that are there now have commute after work if it at all.

Our teachers and other government employees pay and benefits will still be better than 90% of the country even after this passes, so way to exaggerate there Ska. I've actually lived in some pretty rough parts of Milwaukee and I can tell you as a fact that these teachers live as far as legally possible from these areas and not that I blame them but they're no where close to borderline poverty. The fact that 24 other states have similar policies when it comes to negotiating with unions should tell you all this apocalyptic rhetoric is bullcrap.

Good relatively succinct explanation of some of the issues with public sector unions from David Brooks:

This could be the issue that pushes Blue Collar voters back into the arms of the Democrats, as it was in the 30's. I'm hoping for draconian union busting Randroid Governors in most states.