Wisconsin vote should make unions, Obama nervous
Lewis DiuguidUnionized public employees nationwide should be as nervous as President Barack Obama over Tuesday’s failed efforts to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Public service workers should be especially concerned in Kansas. Walker brought on the ire of public service unions after being elected in 2010 by successfully eliminating many of the hard-fought bargaining rights of most organized public service workers. Workers also have been mandated to pay more for their health insurance and pension benefits.
Walker was backed by many conservative donors including the Koch brothers in Kansas, where a conservative governor and Legislature could likely try to plant Walker seeds in the Sunflower State.
Unions in Wisconsin struck back with the recall election on Tuesday. But it failed miserably at the polls.
The vote serves as a public endorsement that it’s OK to strip unions and that the public also is OK with reducing the size of government, cutting funds to public schools and higher education, and instituting other austerity programs. Walker’s efforts had been labeled unpopular, but that’s not how voters apparently saw it.
Walker’s efforts reduced Wisconsin’s budget shortfall from $3.6 billion to a surplus.
That has to concern Obama as conservatives demonize unions — the bread and butter of the president’s re-election campaign. Republicans also are pushing for radical reductions in the federal government and many austerity programs.
That runs counter to Obama’s stimulus efforts to gin up more jobs. The failed recall election — more than making Wisconsin a questionable win for Obama — underscores the lines in the presidential race between Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
The election outcome will turn on Obama’s emphasis of stimulus to create more jobs versus Romney wanting to put government on a crash-cash diet to get the country to reduce its debt and live within its means.
But before U.S. voters cast ballots in November they need to look to Europe and ask: “How’s that austerity stuff with double digit unemployment working for you? And What’s up with the euro?”
George Hunsucker
Northland
11 months, 3 weeks agoEarth to lewis #15….
What people need to look to Europe and ask is “how’s that cradle to grave welfare system working and all those overpaid underworked bureaucrats working for you”..
The Walker victory will hopefully be a stake in the heart of public sector labor unions which should not exist. Also, Walker, as well as the governors of SC, LA, OH, NM and of course NJ has shown the govt. spending can be reduced significantly and bureaucrats can be made more like the private sector in terms of pay and, more importantly, benefits.
Let’s hope MO gets some balls and tells all our bureaucrats you are going to become much more productive and you are not going to earn more then the private sector in terms of total compensation.
Mark Hastert
11 months, 3 weeks agoActually the glass is more than half full for Big-O. The voter exit polls (important because these are actual voters) indicated that he has a decisive lead over Romney and it appears that Walker lost control over the Wisconsin Senate and won’t be able to get a rubber stamp of his agenda. Oddly Walker’s calling for harmony and that everyone put aside their differences and work together. Funny how one Senate seat is a mandate if won and a narrow loss if not.
George Hunsucker
Northland
11 months, 3 weeks agoNice spin mark… the dnc has taught you well…
Jon Whitten
11 months, 3 weeks agoWOW Lewis!
“The election outcome will turn on Obama’s emphasis of stimulus to create more jobs versus Romney wanting to put government on a crash-cash diet to get the country to reduce its debt and live within its means.”
I finally agree with you. Of course you could have said it another way…”The election will turn on who shows up to vote, those that want handouts regardless of the detrimental impact to our country or those who believe we should sacrifice to right the ills of our country.”
I think we know your preference.
Phil Dearing
11 months, 3 weeks agoLewis, The peoples comments on your post are missing the point. The point is the people of Wisconsin put a crook back in public office. If the right leaning folks think this is a win for them, there wrong unless their wealthy. The trade off has always been that Government workers work for less money than the private sector, but have better long-term benefits. With the Repubs in control government has reneged on that promise. My President will stomp Rommney in November.
George Hunsucker
Northland
11 months, 3 weeks agoAnd you of course have PROOF Walker is a crook Phil??????
Maybe bureaucrats worked for less sometime in history, now, study after study says they don’t….
Avg. WI govt worker, 81K… avg. private worker 66K. Let’s take the bureaucrat to say 60K to compensate for less risk of job loss…
George Hunsucker
Northland
11 months, 3 weeks agoseems like your side may have some budding criminals Phil….
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/06/wisconsin-authorities-investigating-death-threats-tweeted-to-governor-scott/?test=latestnews
Kent Mueller
11 months, 3 weeks agoMark, you have to admit you had your hat handed to you for your remarks above. I was first amused by your statement that the voter exit polls are important because they are actual voters. Yes, they are important, and they had just voted….to retain Walker!!!
Your opining about the Republicans losing the Wisc. Senate was flimsy at best. Only one out of the eight recalls were successful. And the Senate’s configuration will be voted upon again later this year.
Kent Mueller
11 months, 3 weeks agoLewis, would you please keep the subjects straight. Your headlines declares “unions”. Your blog switches back and forth between unions and public unions. Those are two different things. The Wisconsin actions were all about public unions, not private sector unions. To keep from misleading people, you need to be consistent with the subject.
Just go back to FDR and Samuel Gompers. Both of them knew the dramatic differences between private sector and public sector unions. That is why both of them held opinions similar to Walker’s.
Mark Hastert
11 months, 3 weeks agoWhat all of you non-working retirees don’t seem to understand is that this isn’t about unions, it’s about all employees. It’s about the 40 hr work week, overtime pay, workplace safety and all the other protections you enjoyed during your working lives.
Did US Chamber of Commerce or businesses ever initiate any of these safeguards? They fought them tooth and nail and without a balance of power in the workplace one by one they will be rescinded. So go right on enjoying those monthly checks while working Americans struggle under increasingly harsh conditions to keep them coming.
Kent Mueller
11 months, 3 weeks agoMark, who were you addressing? Not me.
And no, Mark, it is you who does not understand the fundamental and major difference between public sector unions and private sector unions.
“Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government….The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.”
“…impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
(My apologies for referencing Gompers earlier, instead of Meany)
Most if every state and city that has gotten into serious financial straits have had bloated public sector union contracts. Even a minor tweak results in the unions going apoplectic.
A fundamental difference is that with public unions, the unions can, and do, give cash to those who guide the negotiations on behalf of the employer. While still Governor of New Jersey, and actually campaigning for his re-election, Jon Corzine actually got onstage and spoke at a public union rally while the state, of which he was leading as the chief executive, was in direct contract negotiations. FDR and Meany knew that wouldn’t work out well for the people, why can’t you understand that?
George Hunsucker
Northland
11 months, 3 weeks agoIs this new news or old news????
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/302031/obamas-third-party-history-stanley-kurtz#
I don’t remember hearing about this before