Anyone who doubts that the goal is to ultimately break the unions should note this:
Mr. Walker made several proposals that will weaken not just unions’ ability to bargain contracts, but also their finances and political clout.That is nothing but union-busting. It has nothing to do with the budget woes of the state of Wisconsin.
His proposal would make it harder for unions to collect dues because the state would stop collecting the money from employee paychecks.
He would further weaken union treasuries by giving members of public-sector unions the right not to pay dues. In an unusual move, he would require secret-ballot votes each year at every public-sector union to determine whether a majority of workers still want to be unionized.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, Gentle Reader. The Republicans are going to push to revise the bankruptcy code to allow states to file for bankruptcy. Oh, they'll make sure that the bondholders will be paid 100%; what they want to do is allow the states to walk away from pension obligations.
But here is the thing: People who paid into state government pension funds (and federal civil workers) did not pay into social security. What the Republicans aim to do is throw all of those workers, including the retirees, out into the cold with no retirement plan whatsoever.* Republicans hate the idea that workers may have power, that workers may have a seat at the table. The GOP pushback against both this president and the last one over saving GM and Chrysler had very little to do with the money involved and had everything to do with breaking the unions.
Republicans hate people who work for a living. Does anyone not understand that by now?
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* If you work for a government entity, any government entity, and you voted for the GOP: Congratulations! You might as well have just laid down in the bathtub and drawn a straight razor across your neck.
Christ on a Crutch of course let's bring back the days when Pinkertons fired on union protesters, or when "state militas" were used to slaughter the working classes, hey, I know BRING BACK CHILD LABOR
ReplyDeleteand maybee even the working conditions that gave us the Triangle Fire...
Who ARE the people who constantly vote for the folks who want to KILL THEM....
In answer to tom's question they are simple people that see most people of means as republican and therefore make that leap of logic in the hope............
ReplyDeleteActually, federal employees have paid into Social Security since, err, was it 1984? Anyhow, it was one of Ronnie Raygun's things to put the Federal workers into Social Security rather than the Federal Retirement System.
ReplyDeleteAs I pointed out, this explains why there is the revolving door of corruption in the federal bureaucracy today. Before, you didn't do corrupt shit because you wanted to put in your 30 years and retire, and if you got fired for doing corrupt shit, well, you lost all your retirement. Today, you just shrug and go to work for the company that you "helped", your retirement secure.
And that, EBM, is why we have local and state retirement systems in the first place -- to incentivize employees to stay on the straight and narrow so that they can get their pension. Which of course is why said retirement system must be destroyed -- the *last* thing that the corrupt oligarchs who run our country want is honest government employees.
- Badtux the Corruption-sniffin' Penguin