Wisconsin Senate Set to Vote on Anti-Union Bill

As Ezra Klein explained, newly elected GOP Governor Scott Walker then " signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it turned a surplus into a deficit."

Walker then used the deficit he created as a premise to assault his state's public employees using a law cooked up by a right-wing advocacy group news.firedoglake.com/2011/02/14/debate-o...s-republicans-waver/ called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC likes to fly beneath the radar, but I described the organization in a 2005 article www.alternet.org/story/28259/ as "the connective tissue that links state legislators with right-wing think tanks, leading anti-tax activists and corporate money."

This has nothing to do with the state's fiscal picture, and everything to do with destroying the last bastion of unionism in the American economy: public employees. As Addie Stan writes on today's front page:

Walker is carrying out the wishes of his corporate master, David Koch, who calls the tune these days for Wisconsin Republicans. Walker is just one among many Wisconsin Republicans supported by Koch Industries -- run by David Koch and his brother, Charles -- and Americans For Prosperity, the astroturf group founded and funded by David Koch. The Koch brothers are hell-bent on destroying the labor movement once and for all.

As you might expect, the tool they're using is a pack full of lies and distortions about public employees. Here are some answers to those falsehoods:
(Unless otherwise indicated, you can find links to the data for all of the above, in my piece, "Right-Wingers Using Public Employees as 21st-Century Welfare Queens.") http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/148633

Walker and his conservative allies talked about this plan almost immediately after the election, getting support from southern-state Governors with right-to-work laws in place and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has stimulated discussion over this idea in several states since November. The bill would strip workers’ ability to bargain over everything but pay, and salary increases wouldn’t be allowed to increase more than inflation. Furthermore, public employees would have to pay more in health and pension costs, contracts would last only one year at a time, employees would have to re-certify the union annually and individual members would be able to withhold dues from their union. Such stripping of protections invariably leads to poor working conditions, as well as low wages and benefits. That’s why Walker put it into a budget bill.

Just now, three conservative Republicans in Wisconsin who happen to be public employees gave a conference call where they decried Walker’s effort. Bob Jahn, a highway employee from Green Lake and a “proud conservative,” called the plan an intrusion on individual rights which singles out public employees over other Wisconsin workers and goes against every core conservative principle there is. “I have disagreed with my union in the past,” Jahn said, “but I’ve never been more energized to go out and fight with public employees of this state.”

Brenda Kline, a food service worker from Green Bay, said she went to the polls last year to “protect our freedoms from government threat and to create jobs. I never dreamed that this would be the result.”

Janice Bobholz, a deputy sheriff in Dodge Country, called the right to collectively bargain “a freedom that many have died to protect.” Despite the fact that law enforcement personnel is exempt from many of the restrictions in the budget proposal, Bobholz said that “an attack on the rights of one American is an attack on the rights of all Americans.”

This is pretty strong language from Republicans, suggesting that Wisconsin may not be ready to turn into a right-to-work state for public employees overnight.

But it was the inference about the National Guard that has really sparked public attention. Citizen Action of Wisconsin says it all in their new campaign Not My Wisconsin, essentially painting Walker as the head of a police state. And VoteVets released a statement against the use of National Guard troops for a nakedly political purpose.
http://www.votevets.org/news?id=0409

Veterans are strongly objecting to Governor Scott Walker's inappropriate threat to activate the National Guard to intimidate state workers, as his administration moves forward with plans to break up workers' unions.

"Maybe the new governor doesn't understand yet - but the National Guard is not his own personal intimidation force to be mobilized to quash political dissent," said Robin Eckstein, a former Wisconsin National Guard member, Iraq War Veteran from Appleton, WI, and member of VoteVets.org. "The Guard is to be used in case of true emergencies and disasters, to help the people of Wisconsin, not to bully political opponents. Considering many veterans and Guard members are union members, it's even more inappropriate to use the Guard in this way. This is a very dangerous line the Governor is about to cross."

According to news reports last week and over the weekend, Governor Walker threatened to mobilize the Wisconsin National Guard to keep any state workers from protesting anti-worker, anti-union proposals he is pushing through the legislature.

Walker’s office claims that the invocation of the National Guard was specifically in reference to state prisons, and how the Guard would step in to take control of them in the event of a “blue flu” walkout by corrections officers. But the effort at intimidation was actually pretty clear.