Arizona: The New Wisconsin
Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.
A slate of bills introduced in the Arizona Legislature this session would wipe out public-sector unions in our state. If Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signs them into law, which is likely, they would ban collective bargaining by public employees, end automatic payroll deductions for dues and prohibit compensation for performing union duties. These measures go even further than the union-stripping bills that enraged Wisconsinites last year and, unlike in Wisconsin, Arizona police and fire unions would not be exempted.
Conservatives and business groups in Arizona have been longing to dismantle public-sector unions for decades and are using the downturn in the state’s economy as an excuse to implement their anti-labor and anti-government agenda. Arizona has been a so-called right to work state since its inception and has one of the lowest percentages of unionized workers in the country already.
Leading the way on this assault on public workers is a Phoenix-based “think tank,” the Goldwater Institute, which was instrumental in drafting the bills under consideration.
Moreover, no less than elected officials, public employees are trustees of the power delegated by citizens to the government. Public-sector unions violate a basic public trust when they use collective bargaining to secure one-sided and obviously unsustainable benefits. For these reasons and others, the Goldwater Institute recommends that Arizona join North Carolina and other states that completely prohibit state and local government officials from contracting with public employee unions, requiring all employment relationships to be individually negotiated.
This is because individuals have far less leverage in negotiations than groups, obviously.
The Goldwater Institute is the Arizona affiliate of the State Policy Network, a national right-wing Read the rest of this entry »
Walker’s State of the State Rings Hollow to Many Wisconsinites
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This is a cross-post by Karen Hickey, communications director at the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.
Amid John Doe investigations into former staff and a recall election imminent, Gov. Walker delivered his second State of the State address last night. In one year in office Gov. Walker has torn our state apart, attacked workers’ rights and dismissed our democracy. As job loss continues to plague Wisconsin, Walker’s actions speak louder than words.
“Gov. Walker lied to the electorate last November, concealing his plans to attack Wisconsin workers and slash funding for local schools and communities. [Last night], his State of the State speech rang hollow to too many Wisconsinites who are living with the everyday realities of the current Wisconsin economy,” said Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. “Six months of job loss show that Gov. Walker’s policies are not working. It is time to change course, stop rewarding special interest allies at the expense of the working people of Wisconsin, and get Wisconsin back on track.”
1 Million Signatures Submitted to Recall Walker
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Working people hit one right out of Miller Park: Moments ago, they submitted 1 million signatures supporting a recall election of Gov. Scott Walker (R), exceeding the total number of signatures required by 460,000. Walker last year pushed to abolish the rights of public employees to collectively bargain for a middle-class life. Overall, Walker’s policies are killing 18,000 jobs a year in Wisconsin, according to a recent report and more than 27,000 jobs have been lost since he signed the budget last year.
Interestingly, Walker received 1,128,159 votes in his 2010 election.
Working families also turned in 123 percent of the required signatures against Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who was thought one of the more challenging leaders to recall.
There also are enough signatures to force recall elections for the state’s lieutenant governor and two other state senators. The Wisconsin elections board will need to verify all the signatures.
Texas Protesters Greet Wisconsin’s Walker
This is a cross-post by Karen Hickey, communications director at the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.
Earlier today, more than 125 Texans greeted Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on his fundraising trip to Austin. Walker was the keynote speaker at the right-wing Texas Public Policy Foundation’s annual policy orientation for Texas legislators.
Occupy Austin, the Texas AFL-CIO and the Austin community held a rally to support Wisconsin workers and to protest Walker’s anti-worker agenda. Since taking office more than a year ago, Walker has staged an all out war on the middle class by stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights, raising taxes on the poor, slashing education and health care funding, all while giving millions of dollars in tax breaks to corporate allies and the mega-rich.
Texas AFL-CIO President Becky Moeller:
We believe in welcoming all comers to Texas, and we won’t break with that tradition today. But we must protest the anti-union zealotry, if not the presence, of Wisconsin Gov. Walker. Walker has played the partisan labor-bashing game since his election, doing the bidding of the Koch Brothers and other money player who want to tamp down worker rights, who can’t stand the idea that health care has become available to more of America and who would love to shave percentage points off democratic election participation.
Report: Walker Costing Wisconsin More than 18,000 Jobs a Year
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This is a cross-post by Karen Hickey, communications director at the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.
A report released by the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future entitled “The Price of Extremism” clearly and systematically outlines that Gov. Scott Walker’s policies are not working. In fact, the indirect, ripple affects of Gov. Walker’s actions are costing Wisconsin more than 18,000 full-time, private-sector jobs during the first year of Walker’s budget.
The report focuses on four ways Walker’s policies are hurting Wisconsin and attaches private-sector job loss estimates to each of the policies. The four areas and estimated job loss include:
1. Cuts to education and health care, which will cost Wisconsin 5,400 jobs.
2. Cuts in aid to low-income families, which will cost Wisconsin 1,200 jobs.
3. The economic impact of Act 10, which will cost Wisconsin 6,900 jobs.
4. The rejection of federal aid funds, which has cost 4,700 jobs.
‘Recall Walker’ Rally Draws 30,000
This is a cross-post by Brendan Fischer from PRWatch on this weekend’s massive rally in Madison to secure signatures to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. In the first four days of the recall effort, proponents have gathered more than 105,000 signatures.
As many as 30,000 people marched on the Wisconsin Capitol Saturday for a rally commemorating the first weekend of the effort to recall the state’s embattled governor, Scott Walker.
The rally was the largest since April, when state residents had been protesting Gov. Walker’s limits on collective bargaining each weekend for months. The campaign to recall Gov. Walker officially began on Tuesday, November 15, and organizers need 540,000 signatures by January 17 to trigger a recall election.
Wisconsinites Rush to Sign Walker Recall Petition: 50,000 Signatures in 2 Days
In just 48 hours after opponents of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker officially launched their campaign to remove him from office, activists say they gathered 50,000 signatures—9 percent of the total needed—on a petition to hold a special recall election that could boot the governor from office next spring.
And there’s more where that came from, according to Meagan Mahaffey of Wisconsin United, a coalition of labor and progressive groups. Politico reports:
Mahaffey said more than 20,000 have downloaded petitions to collect signatures from the groups website.
‘Recall Walker’ Drive Faces Sneak Attack from Wisconsin Republicans
The drive to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) gets officially under way Nov. 15, when the United Wisconsin coalition will file papers with Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board to begin the recall effort. But Republicans last week launched a sneak attack to derail the effort.
A new bill in the Wisconsin state Senate—the same group that was the key player in winning Walker’s bill that eliminated the collective bargaining rights of public workers—is a direct effort to undermine the recall process.
It would force people who gather signatures on the recall petitions—about 550,000 are needed to qualify for a ballot spot—to notarize their signatures. Its goal is simple, add an unnecessary and burdensome procedural hurdle to jump and slow down signature gathering enough to miss the expected Jan. 15 deadline. BTW, it’s already a felony offense to falsify petition signatures. Read the rest of this entry »
Iowans Tell Wisconsin Gov. Walker to Go Home
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AFL-CIO Field Communications staffer Cathy Sherwin sends us this report.
When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker headed over to Iowa to raise money for the right-wing special interest group, the Heritage Foundation, union members and Occupy Des Moines protesters were there to greet him. A crowd of more than 200 filled the sidewalk outside the fundraiser: teachers and jobless Iowans, construction workers and retirees, community activists and families with children.
Joining the crowd, Iowa Federation of Labor President Ken Sagar talked with reporters about why this “Welcome Walker” protest was so important.
Gov. Walker needs to understand that we recognize what he’s done to working people and the middle class in Wisconsin and we don’t need that here in Iowa. We don’t need to destroy jobs, we need to create jobs.
Inside the private event, Iowa’s Gov. Terry Branstad seems to have been listening intently to Read the rest of this entry »
Long Island Working Families Battle Attack on Middle Class
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The attacks on the middle class and the ability of public employees to bargain collectively are spreading from Wisconsin and Ohio to Long Island’s Nassau County, where a proposed bill would gives the county executive the right to unilaterally open contracts and decide what provisions the executive wants to retain, change or eliminate.
Jerry Laricchiuta, president of the Civil and State Employees Association (CSEA) Local 830 in Nassau County, puts the issue bluntly in the video here.
We’re not only defending our rights here in Nassau County, we’re defending the sanctity of the cotnract which has ripple effects across the country.
Or as Suzanne Tirino, president of the Crossing Guard Unit, CSEA Local 830, says:
To open our contracts is unfair, it’s unconstitutional. If our contracts are opened, what do we believe in after that?
