Dear friends and family,
In talking to some of you today, I gather that you are catching bits and pieces of this story on mainstream national media. There are rumors that there is a violent protest happening here, or that we are fighting about our benefits, or that we are using children as human shields, or that public employees earn too much. Much of what's in the national media seems to be a bit distorted.
The current protests in Wisconsin are about the attempt of the Governor to strip workers of the right to collectively bargain, to consolidate power into his own hands, and to put hostile policy into a budget fix bill.
Last Friday, February 11, Governor Scott Walker (republican) sent an email to all state employees, stating that he was announcing his "Budget Repair Bill" to deal with a $137 million deficit in the 2009-2011 biennium. That email is http://wseu-sepac.org/political_walker_scott/legaction_peunions_letter_20110211_walker_stateemployees.pdf.
The press release about the bill is here: http://www.thewheelerreport.com/releases/February11/0211/0211walkerbudgetrepair.pdf.
As a "Budget Repair Bill", it is only intended to address the next 4 months. The full budget proposal for 2011-2013 will not be announced until next week, at earliest (currently, it is scheduled to be announced a private company instead of in a government building).
Later in the day, Walker announced that effective March 13, he was canceling the contract extensions to unions who's contracts have not been passed: http://wseu-sepac.org/political_walker_scott/legaction_peunions_letter_20110211_oser_terminationofcbaextensions.pdf (History: we have been working under a contract extension since 2009. A contract agreement was reached in December, and the democrats tried to push it through the legislature, but one democrat flipped his vote, and it failed).
Finally, Walker announced that he'd spoken with the National Guard, and that they were ready to step in if there was civil unrest. He claims that this just meant that they would fill in if corrections officers didn't show up to work, but the way his message was worded made it sound like pretty clear union intimidation.
The major issues in the bill (as I see them) are:
1) Removes collective bargaining rights: Under this proposal, all public employee unions (state, local, county) except certain law enforcement and fire departments, will only be able to bargain over wages, and increases will be limited to Consumer Price Index, or will require a referendum if higher. Contracts will only be for ONE year. Each year, every union will need to take a vote of its members to remain certified. Employers would no longer collect dues, and members of the bargaining union would not be require to pay dues (currently, we all pay dues, regardless of whether we choose to join, since we are under the same contract). All of this is meant to weaken public employee unions. Walker has a goal of making Wisconsin a "Right to Work" state. That may sound pretty cool...but what it actually means is that unions lose a tremendous amount of power, and workers lose a tremendous amount of protection.
Additionally (as if that wasn't enough!), University workers will lose the right to form unions.
2) Grants power to the Governor and the Director of the Department of Health Services (a governor-appointed position) to make changes to Medicaid....regardless of what current state laws are! This removes power from our legislators to make laws...and in turn, takes power away from us as citizens to have our beliefs and opinions represented.
3) Public workers will be required to pay 50% of our pensions (about 5.8% of our salaries) - currently, we pay none. Public workers will also be required to pay 12% of health insurance premiums (currently, we pay about 6%).
4) Authorizes the governor to sell the state's power plants. This just seems like a bad idea.
5) There are a number of other worker-related provisions, all of which serve to decrease the amount that public employees earn, benefits, protections, etc.
All of this is being "sold" to us with the great deal that there won't be additional furloughs (in the next 4 months - no one knows what the next budget cycle will hold) or layoffs (this number started at 1,500, then moved to as many as 6,000, and then a senator was quoted as talking about averting 20,00 layoffs...). We are unfortunately too smart to fall for that.
-----------
So of course, there was a response. There had to be, especially once he notified our unions that our contract extension would be up after 3/13/11. (New info as of today: According to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, those of us currently covered under contracts will become Civil Service, which means we will still have certain protections and grievance procedures, but no bargaining).
First, all the various officials responded. Check all that out at http://www.thewheelerreport.com/February11.htm and http://www.thewheelerreport.com/February14.htm.
Then the protests started. It started small, over the weekend, with protests at the Governor's house and downtown.
On Monday, University of Wisconsin students delivered Valentines to the Governor. Their theme was "I heart UW, don't break my heart".
On Monday afternoon, the Joint Financial Committee of the State Legislature announced that they would hold a hearing on the bill (pointing out that they believe in transparency, unlike the democrats who did the last budget bill without a hearing). The hearing was to be held at 10am on Tuesday.
I got there at 10am on Tuesday, and there were probably 100-200 people standing in line to get into the hearing room, plus the room was full. People who didn't want to speak could register their opposition by filling out a slip of paper - we tried to encourage people to do this option even if they didn't want to go to the hearing itself. The hearing was telecast in the Capitol Rotunda, and it was packed in there, too.
The hearing went until 3am, when the republicans on the committee left. However, the democrats stayed and continued to hear testimony. It is now Thursday night and they are STILL at the Capitol, hearing testimony after about 60 hours.
Also on Tuesday, the unions organized buses from around the state. An estimated 10,000 people were outside the Capitol, with about 3,000 inside. 800 students walked out from East High School and marched the 2.5 miles to the Capitol to join the protest.
When Tuesday night came, and the hearing was still going, people decided to stay at the Capitol. People brought pillows and blankets, and camped out. (I did not go to any of the overnight bits because I am already exhausted from this week, and needed the sleep). WEAC, which is the largest teachers union in the state, with 98,000 members, encouraged teachers to call in sick on Wednesday. By 11:30pm, the Madison Metro School District had 40% of teachers calling in, and decided to cancel school.
On Wednesday morning, the union buses returned. They were joined by tons of teachers, and tons of students who were off from school - including even more high school students than the previous day. The estimates on numbers were more varied, but consensus seems to be that between 20,000 and 30,000 people were there, inside and outside of the Capitol.
In the evening, the Joint Financial Committee convened in "executive session" (meaning, no testimony from citizens) to vote on the Budget Repair Bill. A few tiny amendments were made - the only one of substance being that LTEs can still have health insurance and pensions (but that's probably only because LTEs are how the state gets around needing to spend real money on permanent positions). Some of the questions were quite brilliant, and some of the commentary, as well.
At the same time, I believe Wisconsin was featured on the Rachel Maddow Show, and I've heard she did a great job. I haven't had time to watch it, though!
Late on Wednesday night, the Joint Finance Committee voted (along party lines) to approve the bill, and sent it to the state Senate.
Protesters continued to camp out at the Capitol. The UW Teaching Assistant Union (http://www.taa-madison.org/) announced a walk-out from the University to be held on Thursday at 10am. And, anticipating more teachers calling in sick, Madison Metro School District announced it would be closed on Thursday.
Reports started to surface that Walker actually inherited a surplus, and that his actions led to the currently deficit. I have not had a chance to read this info yet, but the sources are:
http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_61064e9a-27b0-5f28-b6d1-a57c8b2aaaf6.html
and
http://buckyville.yuku.com/topic/39425/Walker-himself-caused-the-deficit?page=-1
(NOTE: As of posting this to blog, rather than Facebook, on 3/14/11, this has been de-bunked. Walker did NOT create the deficit, and his tax credits for businesses don't go into affect until the 2011-2013 biennium)
Thursday, which is today, the unions decided to run MORE buses (originally, they were just bringing people down on Tuesday and Wednesday, but that has been extended through Friday). There was talk of both teach-outs and walk-outs at the UW.
By the time I got to work, about 2 dozen school districts were closed. Some were closed due to "sick-outs", while others were closed for "fog advisory". Yes, it was foggy this morning but really? Fog? GO SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND SCHOOL BOARDS!!!!! Almost every district around Madison was closed, plus some large ones from other parts of the state (Eau Claire, Wausau, Racine). Unfortunately, the Milwaukee Public Schools, the largest system, did not shut, and as far as I know, most teachers reported to work.
The protest today were agreed to be larger than the previous days. At 11am, the State Senate was called into session to vote on the bill. There are 19 republicans, but the quorum is 20 Senators in order to pass a bill. The Democrats didn't show up. Actually, they left the building. Then they left Madison. Then they left Wisconsin. The republicans tried to send State Troopers to retrieve them, but since they were out of state, that didn't really work too well. Amazingly, two Republicans ALSO left. I haven't yet heard which ones, unfortunately. As of 11:55pm on Thursday, the Senate Dems are still in hiding (apparently in safe places) outside of Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, the Assembly Democrats wore orange shirts with a message about supporting Wisconsin workers and families. They spoke at the lunchtime rally. They continued to hear testimony from citizens. They spoke at the evening rally.
Today was the first day of arrests. 5 members/staff of my union, AFSCME (WSEU Council 24) were arrested for disrupting an Assembly hearing. Some others committed Civil Disobedience by blocking the doors to hearing rooms and offices.
People are still camped out in the Capitol, and when I left at 10:15pm, things were going strong. It looks like the majority of the Capitol overnight is university students. During the day, there's a ton of high school students. It's great to see a student and teacher movement, and it's especially impressive to see so many high school students making the connection between workers rights and their lives. I do wish my union was a little more actively involved; I don't want to sick-out without the backing of a union, but I am starting to feel like shutting down the government is going to be the only way to stop this.
One of the most inspiring things has been the other unions that have been out there with us - many private sector unions have been showing their support, and we all recognize that the removal of collective bargaining from public employee unions will have a huge impact on unions in all sectors, and eventually, around the country. The law enforcement and firefighters have been AMAZING. They are exempt from the collective bargaining portions of this bill, and yet, they recognize that we are all in this together. The firefighters have been there every day, in uniform, with bagpipes, etc. Lots of police and state troopers have come by, and even the law enforcement that is working at the protest, has been calm, respectful, and friendly. Many of us have been trying to thank them for that.
Okay. That's the bill, in a very large nutshell. This weekend, I will try to do some more analysis of the situation for folks.
Other important things to know about our recent history:
Walker wanted to reallocate our $800 million in High Speed Rail funding...or turn it down. The Federal government took the money back before he even took office officially. There are now rumors that he may want to turn back our Title 1 money, too.
In the last few days, there have been rumors of what's to come in the main budget bill next week. Possibilities include: splitting UW-Madison from the rest of the UW system, reducing school aid money by $900 million, and unknown labor provisions.
Walker's slogan is "Open for Business", and in his first month, he put into effect a number of tax credits and other financial incentives for private businesses to open here...
---------
To keep yourself informed:
The best live feed I've found is at http://thedailypage.com/walker. Click on the "live feed".
There are two major politics sites here: http://thewheelerreport.com/ (has an archive), and http://wiscpolitics.com/
To watch the testimony: Wisconsin Eye is at http://wiseye.org/.
The major #tags seem to be #wiunion, #killthebill, #defendwisconsin, #wisolidarity.
For particular people to catch, Senator Jauch and Senator Taylor have been very eloquent and impassioned.
Local newspapers: http://madison.com/ and http;//jsonline.com. Both have biases, but at least they are on the ground.
Rachel Maddow has apparently talked about us a lot, and said smart things. Check out her show.
There are tons of great photos and videos floating around the internet.
Coverage beyond WI so far has been on CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, Guardian (UK), BBC, NPR, NYTimes, BoingBoing, etc. Jon Stewart still hasn't been here, though...
---------
It's quite late, so I'm not going to proofread this, and I'm sure I'm missing major points.
Please feel free to ask if you have questions, or add information if you have some links handy.
-Rek
In talking to some of you today, I gather that you are catching bits and pieces of this story on mainstream national media. There are rumors that there is a violent protest happening here, or that we are fighting about our benefits, or that we are using children as human shields, or that public employees earn too much. Much of what's in the national media seems to be a bit distorted.
The current protests in Wisconsin are about the attempt of the Governor to strip workers of the right to collectively bargain, to consolidate power into his own hands, and to put hostile policy into a budget fix bill.
Last Friday, February 11, Governor Scott Walker (republican) sent an email to all state employees, stating that he was announcing his "Budget Repair Bill" to deal with a $137 million deficit in the 2009-2011 biennium. That email is http://wseu-sepac.org/political_walker_scott/legaction_peunions_letter_20110211_walker_stateemployees.pdf.
The press release about the bill is here: http://www.thewheelerreport.com/releases/February11/0211/0211walkerbudgetrepair.pdf.
As a "Budget Repair Bill", it is only intended to address the next 4 months. The full budget proposal for 2011-2013 will not be announced until next week, at earliest (currently, it is scheduled to be announced a private company instead of in a government building).
Later in the day, Walker announced that effective March 13, he was canceling the contract extensions to unions who's contracts have not been passed: http://wseu-sepac.org/political_walker_scott/legaction_peunions_letter_20110211_oser_terminationofcbaextensions.pdf (History: we have been working under a contract extension since 2009. A contract agreement was reached in December, and the democrats tried to push it through the legislature, but one democrat flipped his vote, and it failed).
Finally, Walker announced that he'd spoken with the National Guard, and that they were ready to step in if there was civil unrest. He claims that this just meant that they would fill in if corrections officers didn't show up to work, but the way his message was worded made it sound like pretty clear union intimidation.
The major issues in the bill (as I see them) are:
1) Removes collective bargaining rights: Under this proposal, all public employee unions (state, local, county) except certain law enforcement and fire departments, will only be able to bargain over wages, and increases will be limited to Consumer Price Index, or will require a referendum if higher. Contracts will only be for ONE year. Each year, every union will need to take a vote of its members to remain certified. Employers would no longer collect dues, and members of the bargaining union would not be require to pay dues (currently, we all pay dues, regardless of whether we choose to join, since we are under the same contract). All of this is meant to weaken public employee unions. Walker has a goal of making Wisconsin a "Right to Work" state. That may sound pretty cool...but what it actually means is that unions lose a tremendous amount of power, and workers lose a tremendous amount of protection.
Additionally (as if that wasn't enough!), University workers will lose the right to form unions.
2) Grants power to the Governor and the Director of the Department of Health Services (a governor-appointed position) to make changes to Medicaid....regardless of what current state laws are! This removes power from our legislators to make laws...and in turn, takes power away from us as citizens to have our beliefs and opinions represented.
3) Public workers will be required to pay 50% of our pensions (about 5.8% of our salaries) - currently, we pay none. Public workers will also be required to pay 12% of health insurance premiums (currently, we pay about 6%).
4) Authorizes the governor to sell the state's power plants. This just seems like a bad idea.
5) There are a number of other worker-related provisions, all of which serve to decrease the amount that public employees earn, benefits, protections, etc.
All of this is being "sold" to us with the great deal that there won't be additional furloughs (in the next 4 months - no one knows what the next budget cycle will hold) or layoffs (this number started at 1,500, then moved to as many as 6,000, and then a senator was quoted as talking about averting 20,00 layoffs...). We are unfortunately too smart to fall for that.
-----------
So of course, there was a response. There had to be, especially once he notified our unions that our contract extension would be up after 3/13/11. (New info as of today: According to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, those of us currently covered under contracts will become Civil Service, which means we will still have certain protections and grievance procedures, but no bargaining).
First, all the various officials responded. Check all that out at http://www.thewheelerreport.com/February11.htm and http://www.thewheelerreport.com/February14.htm.
Then the protests started. It started small, over the weekend, with protests at the Governor's house and downtown.
On Monday, University of Wisconsin students delivered Valentines to the Governor. Their theme was "I heart UW, don't break my heart".
On Monday afternoon, the Joint Financial Committee of the State Legislature announced that they would hold a hearing on the bill (pointing out that they believe in transparency, unlike the democrats who did the last budget bill without a hearing). The hearing was to be held at 10am on Tuesday.
I got there at 10am on Tuesday, and there were probably 100-200 people standing in line to get into the hearing room, plus the room was full. People who didn't want to speak could register their opposition by filling out a slip of paper - we tried to encourage people to do this option even if they didn't want to go to the hearing itself. The hearing was telecast in the Capitol Rotunda, and it was packed in there, too.
The hearing went until 3am, when the republicans on the committee left. However, the democrats stayed and continued to hear testimony. It is now Thursday night and they are STILL at the Capitol, hearing testimony after about 60 hours.
Also on Tuesday, the unions organized buses from around the state. An estimated 10,000 people were outside the Capitol, with about 3,000 inside. 800 students walked out from East High School and marched the 2.5 miles to the Capitol to join the protest.
When Tuesday night came, and the hearing was still going, people decided to stay at the Capitol. People brought pillows and blankets, and camped out. (I did not go to any of the overnight bits because I am already exhausted from this week, and needed the sleep). WEAC, which is the largest teachers union in the state, with 98,000 members, encouraged teachers to call in sick on Wednesday. By 11:30pm, the Madison Metro School District had 40% of teachers calling in, and decided to cancel school.
On Wednesday morning, the union buses returned. They were joined by tons of teachers, and tons of students who were off from school - including even more high school students than the previous day. The estimates on numbers were more varied, but consensus seems to be that between 20,000 and 30,000 people were there, inside and outside of the Capitol.
In the evening, the Joint Financial Committee convened in "executive session" (meaning, no testimony from citizens) to vote on the Budget Repair Bill. A few tiny amendments were made - the only one of substance being that LTEs can still have health insurance and pensions (but that's probably only because LTEs are how the state gets around needing to spend real money on permanent positions). Some of the questions were quite brilliant, and some of the commentary, as well.
At the same time, I believe Wisconsin was featured on the Rachel Maddow Show, and I've heard she did a great job. I haven't had time to watch it, though!
Late on Wednesday night, the Joint Finance Committee voted (along party lines) to approve the bill, and sent it to the state Senate.
Protesters continued to camp out at the Capitol. The UW Teaching Assistant Union (http://www.taa-madison.org/) announced a walk-out from the University to be held on Thursday at 10am. And, anticipating more teachers calling in sick, Madison Metro School District announced it would be closed on Thursday.
Reports started to surface that Walker actually inherited a surplus, and that his actions led to the currently deficit. I have not had a chance to read this info yet, but the sources are:
http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_61064e9a-27b0-5f28-b6d1-a57c8b2aaaf6.html
and
http://buckyville.yuku.com/topic/39425/Walker-himself-caused-the-deficit?page=-1
(NOTE: As of posting this to blog, rather than Facebook, on 3/14/11, this has been de-bunked. Walker did NOT create the deficit, and his tax credits for businesses don't go into affect until the 2011-2013 biennium)
Thursday, which is today, the unions decided to run MORE buses (originally, they were just bringing people down on Tuesday and Wednesday, but that has been extended through Friday). There was talk of both teach-outs and walk-outs at the UW.
By the time I got to work, about 2 dozen school districts were closed. Some were closed due to "sick-outs", while others were closed for "fog advisory". Yes, it was foggy this morning but really? Fog? GO SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND SCHOOL BOARDS!!!!! Almost every district around Madison was closed, plus some large ones from other parts of the state (Eau Claire, Wausau, Racine). Unfortunately, the Milwaukee Public Schools, the largest system, did not shut, and as far as I know, most teachers reported to work.
The protest today were agreed to be larger than the previous days. At 11am, the State Senate was called into session to vote on the bill. There are 19 republicans, but the quorum is 20 Senators in order to pass a bill. The Democrats didn't show up. Actually, they left the building. Then they left Madison. Then they left Wisconsin. The republicans tried to send State Troopers to retrieve them, but since they were out of state, that didn't really work too well. Amazingly, two Republicans ALSO left. I haven't yet heard which ones, unfortunately. As of 11:55pm on Thursday, the Senate Dems are still in hiding (apparently in safe places) outside of Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, the Assembly Democrats wore orange shirts with a message about supporting Wisconsin workers and families. They spoke at the lunchtime rally. They continued to hear testimony from citizens. They spoke at the evening rally.
Today was the first day of arrests. 5 members/staff of my union, AFSCME (WSEU Council 24) were arrested for disrupting an Assembly hearing. Some others committed Civil Disobedience by blocking the doors to hearing rooms and offices.
People are still camped out in the Capitol, and when I left at 10:15pm, things were going strong. It looks like the majority of the Capitol overnight is university students. During the day, there's a ton of high school students. It's great to see a student and teacher movement, and it's especially impressive to see so many high school students making the connection between workers rights and their lives. I do wish my union was a little more actively involved; I don't want to sick-out without the backing of a union, but I am starting to feel like shutting down the government is going to be the only way to stop this.
One of the most inspiring things has been the other unions that have been out there with us - many private sector unions have been showing their support, and we all recognize that the removal of collective bargaining from public employee unions will have a huge impact on unions in all sectors, and eventually, around the country. The law enforcement and firefighters have been AMAZING. They are exempt from the collective bargaining portions of this bill, and yet, they recognize that we are all in this together. The firefighters have been there every day, in uniform, with bagpipes, etc. Lots of police and state troopers have come by, and even the law enforcement that is working at the protest, has been calm, respectful, and friendly. Many of us have been trying to thank them for that.
Okay. That's the bill, in a very large nutshell. This weekend, I will try to do some more analysis of the situation for folks.
Other important things to know about our recent history:
Walker wanted to reallocate our $800 million in High Speed Rail funding...or turn it down. The Federal government took the money back before he even took office officially. There are now rumors that he may want to turn back our Title 1 money, too.
In the last few days, there have been rumors of what's to come in the main budget bill next week. Possibilities include: splitting UW-Madison from the rest of the UW system, reducing school aid money by $900 million, and unknown labor provisions.
Walker's slogan is "Open for Business", and in his first month, he put into effect a number of tax credits and other financial incentives for private businesses to open here...
---------
To keep yourself informed:
The best live feed I've found is at http://thedailypage.com/walker. Click on the "live feed".
There are two major politics sites here: http://thewheelerreport.com/ (has an archive), and http://wiscpolitics.com/
To watch the testimony: Wisconsin Eye is at http://wiseye.org/.
The major #tags seem to be #wiunion, #killthebill, #defendwisconsin, #wisolidarity.
For particular people to catch, Senator Jauch and Senator Taylor have been very eloquent and impassioned.
Local newspapers: http://madison.com/ and http;//jsonline.com. Both have biases, but at least they are on the ground.
Rachel Maddow has apparently talked about us a lot, and said smart things. Check out her show.
There are tons of great photos and videos floating around the internet.
Coverage beyond WI so far has been on CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, Guardian (UK), BBC, NPR, NYTimes, BoingBoing, etc. Jon Stewart still hasn't been here, though...
---------
It's quite late, so I'm not going to proofread this, and I'm sure I'm missing major points.
Please feel free to ask if you have questions, or add information if you have some links handy.
-Rek
No comments:
Post a Comment