|
|
9486 in the collection
How Walker Will Transform Wisconsin And: How Republicans Benefit.
It is breathtaking to read the nonpartisan Legislative Council's rundown of Walker's proposal to see how he is decimating the current collective bargaining law. And look at how much teachers are sacrificing from their pay.
by Bruce Murphy
Back in 1989, I did an in-depth feature on former state teachers' union leader Morris Andrews called "The Devil on Nob Hill." Conservatives loved it because it laid bare his political style, revealing the methods he used to greatly increase the power of his union and the salary and benefits of the teachers. In essence, he took an occupation that offered poor pay and little prestige, and made it a desirable profession.
The key to his approach was to find ways to drive up per-pupil spending in Wisconsin's schools. By the late 1980s, my story noted Wisconsin was a bastion of educational spending: The state spent 47 percent more than the average state in per-pupil expenditures. Teachers in Wisconsin were among the top 10 states when it came to average salaries.
Enter Tommy Thompson. The Republican governor targeted teachers' compensation and demonized their union. He succeeded in passing revenue caps that limited how much school districts could increase spending. He also got a measure passed that allowed school districts to evade an arbitrator's ruling if the district offered at least a 3.8 percent total increase (called a Qualified Economic Offer or QEO) in the total value of salaries and benefits.
Thompson's approach ended the days of big contract gains for teachers. By 2007-08, the most recent statistics available, Wisconsin had dropped to nearly the median in school spending, with per-pupil expenditures of $10,791, just 4.7 percent higher than the national average of $10,297. As for salaries, Wisconsin's teachers now rank 23rd nationally, at 93 percent of the average pay nationally.
This was a stunning turnabout in educational politics in Wisconsin, which is one reason most teachers and their union were not fans of Thompson. Yet the governor did all this without eliminating collective bargaining for teachers or any other public employees. In the last 10 or 15 years, the state has also passed spending caps for municipalities and counties, which have created a downward pressure on public worker compensation. A Wisconsin Taxpayer's Alliance study showed that local government employees earned 2.9 percent less in total compensation than local public employees nationally.
In short, the idea that the state must roll back more than a half-century of laws that allow and regulate collective bargaining by public employee unions in order to reduce their compensation is belied by what Thompson and Republican legislators accomplished. Doyle was able to eliminate the QEO in last year’s budget, but Walker could easily restore this. If he wants to go further, he could propose a lower ceiling on the QEO or tighter revenue caps for school districts and municipalities. He could tinker with the mediation/arbitration system, which some municipal leaders have periodically complained is too favorable to unions.
In truth, the givebacks he is getting from employees, while a heavy sacrifice for individuals, who will lose an average of some $4,500 per year, are only saving the state $150 million a year on a $15 billion budget. To put this in perspective, the state could raise its beer tax to the national average of 19 cents per gallon -- up from the current 6 cents -- and generate $217 million more per year. In short, it doesn't require a revolution in labor/management to accomplish the savings Walker desires.
It is breathtaking to read the nonpartisan Legislative Council's rundown of Walker's proposal to see how he is decimating the current collective bargaining law. Unions will have to get re-elected on a yearly basis -- by May for unions representing local government workers and by December for those representing teachers. Yet they must negotiate annual contracts only, and there would be little reason for governments to begin negotiations until the new union has been elected that year. Unions, moreover, can't negotiate benefits, only salaries, and the salaries can never raise faster than the rate of inflation. In essence, local and state government could offer a raise in wages that equals inflation and pass all increases in benefits costs to employees, and unions would have no power to object.
Given how little unions will be able to do for workers, there wouldn't be much reason to pay union dues. But Walker makes that a certainty because his proposal also ends the rule that union dues are automatically collected on any union member's paycheck. Once enough union members decide to become "free riders" and forgo paying dues, the revenue and staffing and power of unions will decline accordingly.
This is a sweeping change in the landscape of labor-management relations, yet Walker has allowed little room for discussion. He announced the plan on Friday, Feb. 11 and wanted a legislative vote by the following Thursday, Feb. 17. Only a walkout by Senate Democrats prevented this from happening. Given how huge a change this is, you
Subscribe now and save up to 53% off the newstand price!
might have thought there would have been a desire for some study and discussion of the legislation's impact.
Its impact could be far reaching, making teaching an undesirable profession. In the last two decades, the cost of medical care has tripled, raising several times faster than inflation. Under the Walker rules, teachers could well find they get a cost of living increase in salary each year and yet due to increases in health insurance payments, see the value of their total compensation decline year by year by year.
The free market answer to this, of course, is that school districts will have to offer enough in benefits to get good teachers. Perhaps. But the market didn't seem to work very well prior to the rise of teacher unions.
How Republicans Will Benefit
In recent years, business groups have targeted state supreme court races, spending millions in states like Wisconsin to get business-friendly candidates elected. They have greatly outspent the other side, and that advantage may increase as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited corporate spending. And the demise of unions would likely increase that advantage.
WEAC, the state teachers union, has provided funding for Democratic candidates, and is a frequent antagonist of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and Republican candidates. The Walker plan to decimate public unions would inevitably leave WEAC with a much smaller war chest for elections.
And it could be a long time before Democrats could overturn the law. They would need to win the position of governor and regain control of both houses of the legislature. In a purple state like Wisconsin, that is difficult to achieve and could take a decade or two to accomplish. That task becomes all the more difficult if WEAC and public employee unions are stripped of their power.
In short, there is a huge political advantage for Walker and the Republicans to kill public unions.
This is a dreadful time for private sector unions. They have been in decline for 30 years, with ever fewer members and resources. If public sector unions begin to shrink as well, what is the impact for America?
It is no coincidence that the wage gap between average workers and CEO pay has exploded while private sector unions have declined. The average pay of America's top CEO was $479,000 in 1979, according to Business Week, but had jumped to $9.5 million by 2009. CEOs who once earned 40 times the pay of the average worker now make at least 400 times more.
The wealth gap in America is the greatest it has been since the Roaring Twenties. In 1928, the top one-hundredth of 1 percent of American families earned 892 times more income than the bottom 90 percent of Americans. That gap declined for decades before it began climbing in the late 1970s. Today the top one-hundredth of one percent of American families earns 976 times more than the bottom 90 percent of Americans.
As public worker unions and public employee wages decline, we're likely to see this gap increase.
The Buzz
-The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has done a very good job on its PolitiFact columns covering the controversy over the Walker proposal. Particularly helpful was the column showing the budget deficit wasn't something that Walker had created with his actions and the column concluding that Walker was lying with his claim that he wasn't doing much to change collective bargaining rights.
-Give Walker credit for philosophical consistency: His proposed law would also eliminate the long-legal and quite unjustified pension sweetener for politicians: Elective officials and executive employees get 20 percent more in pension credits per year than average employees, meaning they ultimately get 20 percent more of their final average salary in pension payments; this law would reduce their pension to that of average employees.
-Sign of the times: Years ago a pronouncement by Milwaukee's archbishop on this labor dispute would have generated a front page headline. But in the wake of the clergy abuse crisis, the archdiocese has so little credibility that Archbishop Jerome Listecki's announcement that he opposed the elimination of public worker rights was barely covered.
-Walker is expected to greatly cut school aid with the expectation that local districts will recover some of the money through benefits givebacks by teachers. But some districts (including Milwaukee) have signed multiple-year contracts that may take them through the next two year budget, leaving them no legal ability to change the benefits for employees during that period. Odds are, the only recourse for these districts will be to lay off employees and/or eliminate classes or increase class sizes.
— Bruce Murphy
Milwaukee Magazine
2011-02-21
http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/murphyslaw/default.asp
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
[1] 2 3 4 5 6 Next >> Last >>
|
