Response from John, Milwaukee, WI

I'm a small business owner. Readers here can check out Harold Meyerson's op-ed in the Washington Post Newspaper, Worker's topple Dictator in Egypt, but might be silenced in Wisconsin.

Meyerson highlights a few points relevant to this mess in Madison...Walker’s bill would strip all public employees in Wisconsin, from teachers to nurses, of their right to collectively bargain (for such things as sick leave, vacation, work conditions, shifts they work, etc.).

The rights of private sector employees to pursue collective bargaining are protected by the National Labor Relations Act. Public employees are NOT guaranteed such Constitutional rights by the states. The right of employees to collectively bargain with their employers is a universally accepted “human right” acknowledged by the United Nations. (see Article 23).

In the case of public employees, this human right is being attacked under the guise of balancing the budget. Teachers and other state employees have NO problem kicking in more. THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE. The issue is that these workers will lose their rights, their voice – they will be silenced. You can guess who will be next once bills are passed and the public sector is stripped of all their rights. In the end, not only will we as a society become more and more divided, but we truly will become a two-class system in this country; the rich and the poor – the middle class will be gone and all hard-working Americans WILL be affected. This is a BIG DEAL right now and it’s time we drop our party differences and look-out for the middle class, my neighbors, my family, and my friends.

Response from John, Hartford, WI

Two economists at the University of Wisconsin, Keith Bender and John Heywood, said: “Holding education and other characteristics the same, typical state and local workers earn an average of 11 percent less and 12 percent less, respectively, than comparable private-sector workers.”"

Unionized State Employees Protest Power Grab by Straw-Man Governor

2-16-2011, Madison, Wisconsin


Turning a deaf ear has become the signature move of Wisconsins' new republican governor. For a second day, Scott Walker refused to sit down with representatives of the states' unionized workers to discuss wage and benefit concessions.
Walker-watchers recognize this affectation of rule-by-edict from his days as a failed Milwaukee County Executive. His tenure was marked by a near- complete absence of content, communication and collaboration. Never known for innovative thinking, or for consulting with a broad spectrum of relevant analysts, Walker twiddled away his time in office without demonstrating any evidence that he grasped the complexity of the problems set before him.

Recognizing Walker's pliability, corporate ventriloquist/donors purchased a governorship for him. No one should be surprised by what he now spouts. The latest misdirection finds him and the new republican majority accepting the christ of fiscal sobriety as their savior, ready to smite the deficit-loving heathens.

This eleventh-hour conversion is laughable, but the misdirection it intends is sly. How did fifty state governments all find themselves in such similar, dire straits? Odd, too, the speed with which this new creed has spread among republicans nationwide.
A mere moments' thought clouds the sincerity of their conversion. What exactly were the causes of this rash of state government deficits? The Great Recession, yes, but what in turn caused it?
Reagan, long a demigod to conservative men with distant or absent fathers, now wears the mantle of instigator-in-chief. More on this parenting-style tomorrow.