New Wisconsin governor tries to bust unions

There are a few known cases of people associated with the Tea Party who did not know the slang and derogatory meaning associated with the term "teabaggers" and who, early on, used it as a reference to their sending teabags to Congressmen.

However, anyone who pretends that that is the reason that the term is used by those who disapprove of the Tea Party is simply not being intellectually honest, so there is no point in even discussing the question with them.

Just as there is no point in taking seriously someone who pretends to be doing a rational political analysis and uses the term. It's like someone referring to "Dimocrats" or something like that. Sure, using insulting terms to make fun of those with whom you disagree is a common tactic on internet discussion boards, but even there it clearly shows someone who is not to be taken seriously as far as political analysis goes. In serious political analysis, it has no place. Therefore, I will give no consideration to anyone who uses those kinds of terms for any political party or personality.

We have a minimum of 5% and a maximum of 14%.

Also, while purely anecdotal, I'd like to share a story my father in law told me yesterday. He worked for and retired from General Electric as a Master Industrial Electrician. He despises unions, for good cause, due to the physical violence and vandalism he's suffered from them through the years.

Back in the 50's, he started his first job with GE right here in Alabama. Well, contract negotiations came around. GE sat down with the Union and offered 10% more pay with annual merit raises and guaranteed annual cost of living raises. They also offered more vacation time, more sick time, and a reduction in the employee's cost for health coverage for families.

This wasn't good enough for the union. So, each time talks broke down, when GE came back to the table, they'd remove one of the original things they'd offered. It kept breaking down to the point where the employees were going to get shafted. The union had negotiated less pay, less vacation time, etc. than they already had under the old contract!

So, the union called a strike. My father in law crossed the picket line. He was a scab. But, he said that he had to work. He had bills to pay and he decided that his family couldn't get by on the $10 per week that the union offered during the strike. Well, the strike went on and on for about six months. All the union strikers started to lose their houses and cars. Meanwhile, my father in law was just plodding along.

GE eventually said, "fuck it" and they closed the plant putting all of the strikers permanently out of a job. But, GE took care of those who did cross the picket line. They offered them good jobs at other plants with benefits and seniority and GE covered the moving expenses.

Unions screwing the employees at GE are how he ended up in Pheonix, AZ by way of Owensboro, KY and Salt Lake City, UT.

Moving right along.


Madison schools to close Friday amid calls for more protests

Wis. governor: GOP won't be 'bullied' by union bill protesters

And there's blog dedicated to the "Badger 14" the Wisconsin Senate Democrats who fled the capitol rather than perform the duties of the office to which they were elected. And they have been immortalized by a poem.


Can Illinois police arrest truant Wisconsin legislators?




Athens in Mad Town

A seminal showdown between public unions and taxpayers.

A similar thing happened in my home town. We had 2 Kaiser Aluminum mills, where employees made a quite comfortable wage(good benefits as well), but they went on strike. The strike lasted for literally years, and Kaiser ended up pulling the plug on both locations. You can see these people still, as students at the various community had to cross the line to deliver and pick up video for the photography studio I used to work for. They called me a "scab" evey damn time I rolled through! Fuck those people.

"Unions" today are so different from what they were in the past that I wonder if it is fair to even call them the same thing.

Then you must ignore 95% of the posters here.

How morally superior of you.

Ignoring people and not giving them serious consideration are not the same thing. Nevertheless, you are correct that I do not give serious consideration to a lot of the posters here, left or right. If they cannot defend their positions without resorting to insults and derogatory language, they are not worth taking seriously.

It's not a question of moral superiority, but of knowing how logic works. If a person has solid, rational grounds for their positions, they do not distract attention from those positions by using derogatory terms. If they do not have solid, rational grounds, then they are not worth taking seriously.

I do not know where you get a moral judgment out of that.

How does "pompous" suit you? "Elitist"? "Smug"?

Interesting that those kinds of comments from people with whom you mostly agree don't provoke that kind of response. I agree that you don't resort to those kinds of language and more power to you. But this is a forum for unrestricted and heated debate. If you expect parlor language from everyone then, sir, you are in the wrong place.

Actually, they do, if you have been paying attention. I have told lots of people who "agree with me" a number of times what I think of their way of talking. (Ask Apostle if you don't believe me.)

Sure, but the question here is not one of the posters using the term, but an article that is supposed to be serious.

And even here, I take posters more or less seriously, depending on how they present themselves. You, Rick, tafkats, Raoul, Alpha and a number of others who tend left politically, I take quite seriously because, as a general rule, you don't use that kind of language and can express your ideas rationally. Even when I disagree, I respect you.

Kirk, Sokar, Jamey, and others, much less, even though I usually agree with their general outlook. They simply do not come across as people who can defend their point of view rationally.

If you have a problem with my analysis being based more on rational content than on derogatory terms, that does not bother me. As you pointed out, this is a free discussion board, and I have as much of a right to hold, and defend, my point of view as others do. And my point of view is that that way of expressing oneself does not lend credibility to an argument.

It is interesting that you do not seem to approve of that opinion being expressed, while at the same time approving of the use of derogatory terms to somehow try to make a point.

Don't ever think I can't.

After 6 years, it has all been said. Everyone knows everyone elses position. Nothing outside of a big news item is ever going to make the debate fresh at all. I'm not going to spend forever defending anything I believe because I don't feel the need to.

WF is just a place to hang out and talk shit now.

I know. But as I have pointed out in other discussions on this subject, it does not encourage me to consider you as a particularly useful participant in these discussions. You are free to express yourself however you want, but there are reasons for which I rarely respond to your posts.

I can agree with you up to a point. The link that I posted that included that particular slur was clearly labeled as from a left leaning blog. I'm not so far gone that I'm going to post stuff from blogs and expect it to be taken as Gospel. You should note that I also posted a link to the raw report that the blogger cited. I posted the first to give some context to the second. However, if you dismiss the first, the second might not make any sense. The blogger's interpretation is interesting, but it's kind of like the "Bush Lied" argument. The governor is going to deny it and he doesn't strike me as an idiot, so I doubt there are any smoking gun memos, or e-mails, or even speeches where he says "Hey, I'm going to bust the unions by manufacturing a financial crisis". I do not regard blogs as primary sources, although I will say that it seems right wingers are more prone to do that than I am. By the way, I also have come to feel the same way about think tanks like Heritage, Cato, and even Brookings. They're all starting from an ideological point of view and working backwards with their "research" to support those points of view. To (inaccurately, I'm sure) quote Tolkien "you always knew what a Baggins would say without having to bother to ask him."

"Oh, big deal. We've all been the scarecrow."

Oh, and yeah, some Federal employees do make way, way, way to much money. A close enough Federal agency is hiring certified police officers. While pursuing the website, I saw an opening in the Birmingham US Marshall's Office for an analyst. After speaking with a couple of people, I found out that it's the guy that maintains (but does NOT install) the electronic bugging devices and sits in the vans listening to wire taps.

Starting pay for a non-certified position was $88,000 per year. My Chief doesn't even make that much.

When people at a low income level complain that someone else is making "too much money" that gets called "class warfare" in some quarters.

Except for those cops and firefighters....

^ What this comes down to is our employees are ripping We the Owners off.

Sack 'em. Sack them all. The Dems who fled their fucking duty in order to prevent the vote, and the teachers who abandoned their duty as well. This childish bullshit has got to fucking stop. Now.

You'd have to be willfully illogical not to see the difference between complaints about a voluntary contract between two private individuals, and complaints about mismanagement of public funds on salaries.

That point wasn't lost on me, or most likely anyone else in this forum. I wanted to make the counter point, that there are ironies involved in these kinds of discussions about who's "paid too much". To some extent even government salaries are going to be market driven. That tech (if he's competent...let's assume that he is for the sake of argument) has a specialized set of skills and it's entirely possible that he's worth more to that government agency (i.e. harder to find one and harder to replace) than a small/medium size town police chief. It's also interesting how often police chiefs of small towns are double dipping after retiring from other jobs. Tampa's former police chief was hired away from Fort Walton Beach, in the heart of the Redneck Riviera. However he was also collecting a generous retirement from Tampa after serving his 20+ years as a Tampa cop. The ol' swinging door. In this case I'm not complaining, because he was a damn fine cop and the crime rate went down. Why is it that when people talk about "inflated government salaries" no one ever brings up the argument for "inflated private sector salaries".."you get what you pay for"?

Enought with the bullshit about "collective bargaining rights" being removed. That right is as intact as ever. You just don't get to unionize and strike without fear of consequence, which never was a right.

Wisconsin workers don't have the right to strike.

I'm not sure you understand me. What stops them from striking?

The law. You've forgotten PATCO? I'm not for union busting, but if they go on an illegal strike then they're just making it easy for the Governor.

Skin is ALL for union-busting. Unions behave like nothing other than spoiled kids who staunchly refuse to accept that they can no longer have the spoils of a fat economy in a thin one. Bust 'em to bone shards, they're making a bad situation worse and doing nothing else.

Sure you are. The 5 day work week, 40 hour work weeks, paid vacations, safe working conditions, those are just products of the kindness of business owner's hearts. Oh, by the way, I was approached to join a union while working in Florida radio. I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. In a right to work state all you do by asking for a union vote is guarantee you'll be out the door. Besides the union just gets bought off and leaves the suckers they were stirring up holding the bag. Also my old man saw his brother beat up by union goons during the depression, so I know about the excesses and corruption that go along with unions. I also know first hand how important a government union is to trying to ensure personnel actions are handled properly. The union is more of a force in some cases for merit promotions than management. In some cases it's the only thing standing between merit promotions and nepotism and/or favoritism. Most of the complaints about not being able to fire a government worker are based on whining from supervisors who don't know how to build a case properly.