Wisconsin was the birthplace of American public-sector unionism, where in 1936 the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) first organized in Madison. How ironic then that Wisconsin may also be the place where in 2011 public-sector unions began to die.
Like a lot of states, Wisconsin is in dire fiscal shape, facing a projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall over the next two years. Desperate to avoid layoffs yet still put his state’s financial house in order, newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker has proposed a bill that would strip Wisconsin’s state employees – whose bloated pensions and benefit packages have significantly contributed to the mess – of most of its collective bargaining rights (police and firefighters are exempted).
Under the new plan, state employee’s own contributions to their pension and health care plans would increase to 5.8 percent and 12.6 percent of their pay, respectively. They would still retain the right to be represented by a union, but the unions would no longer be able to force members to pay dues.
In addition, unions’ ability to secure a pay increase above a fixed threshold would be severely curtailed. The bill would result in estimated savings of $30 million over the next five months and $300 million over the next two years. In exchange for these concessions from the unions, Walker has promised not to let any of the state’s 170,000 employees go.
Sounds reasonable, right? Well, not if you’re a Wisconsin teacher, thousands of whom refused to report to work in protest of Walker’s bill, forcing the closure of some two dozen schools. Instead of doing their job, you know, teaching, many instead chose unconscionably to drag their students to their rowdy protest, a gross exploitation of other people’s children for political ends.
Democrats in the Wisconsin state senate have acted just as abominably: None of the senate’s 14 Democrats were present on Thursday as the body prepared to vote on Walker’s measure, successfully preventing a quorum and delaying the vote. The governor’s office prepared to send out state troopers to return the recalcitrant Dems, though many legislators were have reported to have left the state.
The earthquake in Wisconsin is reverberating all the way to the nation’s capital. President Obama has made clear his sympathies are with the protesters, decrying Walker’s bill as an “assault’ on unions.
In response, Walker blasted back: “We are focused on balancing our budget. It would be wise for the government and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budgets, which they are a long way off from doing.”
Walker, and other governors like New Jersey’s Chris Christie, at last are joining a battle that is long overdue. For decades, public-sector unions have used their influence to help elect their own bosses, and then demanded lavish pension and health care benefits for their reward.
The unfunded obligations piled up as pliant politicians paid off their union masters and kicked the can down the road, leaving a mess for future tax payers and future governors to clean up. Well, the time to clean up has finally arrived.
Walker is among the courageous crop of new leaders neither blind to, nor afraid of, the task at hand. And by insisting on a status quo which they have wrought and which will lead to nothing but economic ruin, unions in their protest have revealed the true depths of their contempt for democracy, and their utter disregard for the prosperity of our children.
Matt Patterson is senior editor at the Capital Research Center and a contributor to Proud to be Right: Voices of the Next Conservative Generation (HarperCollins, 2010).
