With the exception of a few races (and the state of California), the November election was about the dog getting tired of being wagged by the tail.
So, when a state like Wisconsin has unions that force-feed union propaganda down school children’s throats, try to have 86-year old volunteer crossing guards removed, threaten the state’s fiscal well being through unfunded pension liabilities, all the while attempting to engineer elections through dirty tricks, it’s only natural that taxpayers would want it cleaned up.
That’s where newly-elected Republican governor Scott Walker comes in. Walker is making plans to curtail the stranglehold that public-sector unions have on his states taxpayers, by any means legally possible:
Walker, a Republican, said he’s looking at a range of options that would weaken unions, including eliminating their ability to negotiate with the state.
“Anything from the decertify all the way through modifications of the current laws in place,” Walker said at a luncheon sponsored by the Milwaukee Press Club at the Newsroom Pub.
“The bottom line is that we are going to look at every legal means we have to try to put that balance more on the side of taxpayers and the people who care about services.”
Of course, the union bosses are up in arms over this attack to their base of power.
“It’s too bad Scott Walker wants to destroy a law that assures the uninterrupted delivery of high-quality public services and has kept labor peace for more than three decades,” said Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union. “We certainly prefer negotiation to confrontation.”
While it is doubtful that Walker will succeed in eliminating the unions entirely, there are some steps that he could take immediately.
First, he could ensure that public workers do not have the ability to cripple state services through striking;
Second, he could push the legislature to pass a bill eliminating collective bargaining from the public sector, and;
Third, to begin to attract business back to Wisconsin, he could push the legislature to pass a Right-to-Work law, removing private-sector unions’ ability to have workers fired for refusing to pay unions dues.
Those would be good first steps. However, they won’t come without a huge and expensive fight. Wisconsin unions have millions of dollars taken from member dues to spend on advertising to beat up on Scott Walker.
So far, though, it appears Scott Walker’s up for the fight.
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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776
You and I have had some of this discussion in my former life on RedState. Said a lot that I got banned because I wouldn’t support a certifiable lunatic like Joe Miller.
So much for that, the fact remains that I’m one of maybe half a dozen people in the Country that has actually run an adversarial labor relations program for a public employer and a Republican governor. I’ve been here and done this and I simply can’t agree with your advice to the MN governor. There isn’t enough political courage in the World to eliminate public sector bargaining or enact RTW in a long, one of the longest, unionized state. All those “real conservatives,” business people, and Republican leaders and legislators who are yelling, “we’re behind you all the way” will be VERY far behind you when it is SHTF time and they’ll all be on TV telling people how you should have done it and how they would have done it had the people only been smart enough to put them in charge.
A Republcan taking over a Blue/union state has to understand incrementalism and use it the same way the Left has for 75 years; you have to get what’s on the table, but not start an existential battle, because you will lose an existential battle with the unions. Frankly, after a few weeks of a pitched battle with public employee unions, you won’t have a friend in the World; ask Ahnold.
Take on their dues structure in court. Restrict their agent and steward access to government facilities. In the name of good government, throw some legislation in trying to restrict their political activities under your state’s campaign finance laws. Add the LMRDA’s reporting requirements to your state bargaining law – I say that bravely but I was carrying the chit sheet trying to pass that in my Legislature with a veto-proof Republican majority in both houses and couldn’t pass it because there were still enough stupid Republicans who thought if they were just nice to them, the unions would love them. It’s hard to fix stupid.
Hi Art:
Thanks for taking the time to write in.
In ordinary times, your position would likely be the case. However, that said, for the first time since, perhaps Reagan and PATCO, there has been an awakening in the public consciousness about the costs of public unions. Under Reagan, it was the dangers that PATCO posed in shutting down the air transportation in the U.S. Today, it is the likely bankrupting of states.
It is not proposed that Walker do the aforementioned actions without selling the necessity to both the public (first and foremost), as well as the legislature. However, that said, it appears that there is no time like the present to push to make some fundamental and systemic changes.
If not now, perhaps after a state like California, Illinois or New Jersey declares ‘bankruptcy’…and the pain felt in one of those states is used as an example for the rest of the states to make the changes needed.
Best regards.
You may be right; I’d like to hope you are and that there really has been a paradigm shift. I think there has been in terms of public perception, but I really don’t believe there has been in terms of the perceptions of the political class. Public sector unions are like celebrities; they’re powerful because people think they’re powerful just like celebrities are famous for being famous. I don’t think there is a wall to wall pubic employee union in the Country that a dedicated and skillful employer couldn’t decertify in a year or at most two, but there isn’t a public employer in the Country with the political courage to do it.