Absolutely unbelievable. In Wisconsin, our newly elected Tea Party governor is about to announce an unprecedented attack on public employees. No, it's not a vague "sometime in the future" kind of thing. The legislature is supposed to vote on it next week.
Lots of people seem to think that elections don't have consequences. That both parties are "the same". That the corruption that permeates our system (thank you Citizens United!) affects both parties equally.
Well, it doesn't. And the hundreds of thousands of union members in Wisconsin, at least, are about to learn that lesson the hard way.
Last November lots of progressives Democrats didn't bother to vote, and radical Republicans took over Wisconsin's governor's office, state assembly and state senate. We lost Russ Feingold to a radical right-wing newbie, who had never even served his community as a City Council member. But people shrugged - why did it matter?
Well, tomorrow our newly minted governor, Scott Walker, will announce that he will fix our budget deficit by a full-out frontal assault on our public employee unions. Wisconsin has historically been one of the most progressive states, with vibrant protections for working people. We have been an example to other states, and proudly so. Based on the draft bill I just saw, however, that's about to change:
- Employees will only be able to bargain over wages. Health care, job security, protection from discrimination, and all other important issues are completely off the table.
- Wages will not be able to rise above the level of the consumer price index, and the only way around this is by a referendum of all voters in the district. This means that wages can easily fall below the rate of inflation, but will be extremely hard to raise above inflation (and nothing besides wages can even be bargained!).
- Contracts will be limited to one year. This means a lot more time haggling over contracts, and a lot more opportunity for the state to stall (they do this plenty already).
- Wisconsin will change from being a "fair share" state to a "right-to-work" state, which means that employees will be allowed to benefit from a contract without paying dues to help bargain that contract. This is unfair to the workers that do pay dues, and makes it very hard for unions to keep going.
- Employees will be able to be fired for being absent for three days without approval, or for participating in strikes or other organized actions (if the governor decides to declare a state of emergency).
- Short-term employees will be denied health care. No exceptions, period.
- The right of many workers to collectively bargain (the most fundamental union right) will be unilaterally repealed. These include home health care, family child care, and university workers.
Things are looking very bad for Wisconsin's public employees. However, in the same bill our Tea Party governor gives even more money to prisons... so maybe he's not such a bad guy after all?
No. Elections matter. And the State of Wisconsin is a living example.