IWW Endorses Occupy Wall Street

Industrial Workers of the World

On behalf of our union, the General Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World sends our support and solidarity to the occupation of Wall Street, those determined to hold accountable our oppressors.

This occupation on Wall Street calls into question the very foundation in which the capitalist system is based, and its relentless desire to place profit over and above all else.

When 1% of the ruling class holds the wealth created by the other 99%, it is clear that the watchwords found in our union's preamble, "the working class and the employing class have nothing in common", ring true more than ever.?The IWW does not follow a business union model. We believe that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common and we don't foster illusions to the contrary.

Throughout the world, from Egypt to Greece, from China to Madison, Wisconsin, working class people are starting to rise up. The IWW welcomes this. We see the occupation of Wall Street as another step - no matter how large or small - in this process.

Boston meeting discusses Libya, Palestine, Wisconsin

Workers World
By Frank Neisser 

A multinational crowd filled the room at the Action Center here on April 16 for a World View Forum featuring Joyce Chediac, editor of the new book, “Gaza: Symbol of Resistance.” Chediac’s topics were the U.S.’s real aims in Libya and the central role of the Palestinian struggle.

Chediac discussed the current imperialist war that has been launched against Libya and analyzed the role of the U.S. She pointed out how terms like “democracy” mask what is really going on, and that the only way to make sense of it is to start from the role of imperialism. Chediac showed on a map how at the beginning of the 20th century the imperialists had carved up the territory of the Arab world to suit their own interests and described how every imperialist intervention for “humanitarian” purposes has actually harmed the people and served only to tighten imperialist control, citing recent events in Haiti as an example.

Chediac also highlighted the heroic role of the Palestinian people in resisting Zionism and imperialism, pointing out that the recent Arab uprisings show that the Israeli settler state remains imperialism’s only reliable police force in the Middle East. Israel is prepared to take any military action to further imperialism’s control of and access to the resources that belong to the people of the Middle East — above all, oil. A lively and vigorous discussion followed, and at the end of the evening many copies of “Gaza: Symbol of Resistance” were sold, signed by the editor.

The program was rounded out with a dynamic eyewitness report from the workers’ struggles in Wisconsin presented by Ed Childs, chief shop steward of UNITE/HERE Local 26, Harvard University’s cafeteria workers. Childs gave a vivid sense of the surging rise in mass consciousness that is palpable in the workers’ resistance movement in Wisconsin. He cited as an example an anti-war demonstration that became a workers’ demonstration with the unions, leading the way, carrying anti-war signs.

Indiana Prosecutor Suggested Fake Attack on Wisconsin Governor

FoxNews

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana prosecutor said one of his deputies resigned Thursday

after admitting he sent an email to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker suggesting the Republican fake an attack on himself to discredit the public employee unions protesting his plan to strip them of nearly all collective bargaining rights.

Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper said Carlos Lam resigned in a phone call about 5 a.m. Thursday after acknowledging that he sent the Feb. 19 email to Walker suggesting "the situation in WI presents a good opportunity for what's called a 'false flag' operation."

"If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions' cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the public unions," Lam wrote in the email, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

Cooper said Lam initially denied sending the email and said someone had hacked into his email account. But Lam later acknowledged he had written the message, and resigned hours before the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism reported the contents publicly Thursday.

"He wanted to come clean, I guess, and said he is the one who sent that email," Cooper told the Daily Journal newspaper in Franklin, south of Indianapolis.

A message left by the AP at a telephone listing for Lam was not immediately returned Thursday.

Lam's email was sent amid daily protests at the Wisconsin Capitol against Walker's plan to take away public employees' rights to collectively bargain for anything except wages no higher than inflation.

"We cannot have the public unions hold the taxpayer hostage with their outrageous demands," said the email, which urged Walker to "stay strong."

Lam is the second Indiana prosecutor to lose his job over volatile comments about the Wisconsin protests. Jeffrey Cox, a deputy attorney general, was fired last month after tweeting that police should use live ammunition against labor protesters.

Wisconsin Republicans eventually used a procedural maneuver to pass the collective bargaining measure without Democrats who had fled to block a vote and Walker has signed it in to law. But a judge has issued a temporary restraining order to block the law from taking effect while courts consider a lawsuit alleging the Republicans' move violated the state's open meetings law and constitution.

Fox News Airs Random Protest Video To Make Wisconsin Demonstrations Appear Violent

ThinkProgress

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly isn’t happy that protesters in Wisconsin have been calling out his network for its shoddy journalism practices. Last week, O’Reilly sent his ambush goon Jesse Watters out to badger people protesting Fox outside their studios in New York. On Monday during an interview with Fox News’ Mike Tobin, who is reporting from Wisconsin, O’Reilly was at it again, calling chants that “Fox lies” from pro-union demonstrators “some kind of organized deal.” But during the interview, Fox aired b-roll of some unknown protest that contained physical confrontations among demonstrators and simply labeled it “union protests,” as if it was coming out of Wisconsin. Watch it:



Digby asked of the video, “What’s wrong with this picture?” adding, “If you guessed the snowless ground and palm trees in Wisconsin you win a big prize. Your sanity.”

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker gives $140 million in tax breaks right before announcing this fiscal year's deficit of $137 million

The Nation

It should be the sound of the other shoe dropping, but you’ll have to listen hard to Governor Scott Walker’s budget address because most media will miss most of it. It’s a funny thing about covering budgets. Cutting spending garners a whole lot more attention than cutting taxes.

How many Americans know, for example, that Governor Walker gave $140 million in tax breaks to corporations—right before he announced this fiscal year's deficit of $137 million? The good people I met last week at the Wisconsin Budget Project call that a structural deficit. I’d go further. It’s not only structural; it’s structured—to bring about exactly this phony budget crisis.



As Scott Walker refuses to budge on his so-called budget repair bill, Wisconsin is bracing now for his actual budget. It's anticipated to cut almost a billion from education, literally scuttling public schools in heavily African-American cities like Milwaukee. And we already know Walker’s plans include shrinking Medicaid while privatizing public utilities, shrinking yet more routes for revenue.

Tea Partyers convening in Phoenix this week, sprang to their feet at the mention of Walker. But they’re only one side of this argument. According to a New York Times poll this week, Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions—as Walker would—by a margin of nearly two to one. Given a list of options to reduce the deficit, 40 percent said they would increase taxes; only 3 percent opt for cutting education.

What’s really playing out here isn’t a battle over numbers. It’s that debate: What is government for? Stripping profit of all responsibility to people, or protecting the public welfare? Walker’s making his answer clear. And the conflict, as “Fighting Bob” LaFollette said, has been joined by the people. It’s wealth vs. the common weal. Capital or community.

Wisconsin Governor Defies Court Order to Open Capitol

PRWatch

Local Sheriff's Department Refuses to be Part of the "Palace Guard"

Madison – In a dramatic turn of events at the Wisconsin State Capitol today, Governor Scott Walker defied a court order to open the Capitol for normal business operations. State legislator, Representative Marc Pocan, called the move "not only unprecedented, but contempt of court as well."

On Monday at 8:00 a.m., the Wisconsin Capitol building, which was the site of dozens of major protests in the last two weeks -- including one of over 100,00 on Sunday -- was virtually locked down as the Governor moved to limit protester access in advance of his scheduled budget address on Tuesday.

After untold numbers were turned away at the door Monday and told they could not speak to their legislators, Dane County Sheriff David Mahoney pulled his deputies from the Capitol saying it was not their job to act as "palace guard." Wisconsin has some of the strongest open meetings and open government laws in the nation, and the local sheriff's department had played a key role in allowing protesters to exercise their legal rights in a public space, while keeping the protests inside and outside the Capitol safe and incident-free.

On Tuesday morning, it became clear that nothing had changed. Former Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager petitioned the Dane County Court to open the Capitol. That petition was heard early on Tuesday and a temporary restraining order granting the request was issued promptly at 9:30 a.m.

The order said that the respondent, Walker's Department of Administration, "shall open the Wisconsin Capitol to members of the public during business hours and at times when governmental matters, such as hearings, listening sessions and court arguments are being conducted." The Capitol had dozens of hearings scheduled Monday and Tuesday. It has long been state law to allow unfettered access to the Capitol building when legislative business was underway. Now citizens are faced with a barrage of new rules. They could see their legislator, in some instances, if they called ahead and were escorted by an aide. (Some Republican legislators could not be bothered to ferry their constituents into the Capitol building.) They could attend a committee hearing if they called the Sergeant at Arms to register in advance. All people entering the Capitol are wanded. "Even after 9-11 we never did any of this stuff," one protester in the crowd said.

By 10:30 a.m., a crowd of about 500 had gathered outside the Capitol seeking to be let in, but were blocked by a coalition of police from around the state. The diverse crowd of protesters included a contingent from the Jackson Correctional Center in Black River Falls, a group of Janesville firefighters and representatives of the Menominee Indian tribe from Northern Wisconsin.

Someone grabbed a megaphone and read the court order, prompting emphatic cries of "Let Us In!" and "Whose house? Our house!" But as the day wore on and no additional access was granted, tensions were high and many were left dumbfounded and disbelieving. The state Department of Administration issued a statement late in the day, stating that the limited access measures they had in place were compliant with the court order.

The whole matter ended up back in court at 2:15 p.m. Hoping for a quick resolution that would allow the Capitol to open for the Governor's budget address, the burgeoning crowds were disappointed when the court hearing wore on and on and was eventually extended into the next day. In the mean time, well-dressed supporters of the Governor were granted tickets and escorted inside. Various lobbyists were seen entering and exiting the Capitol including the lobbyist for alcohol and tobacco interests in the state.

"You expect this kind of thing in Alabama not Wisconsin," said one person at the barred door, referring to the Governor George Wallace's attempted to deny black students their civil right to an education in 1963.

When the Governor's budget was unveiled at 4:00 p.m., it became quite clear why the Governor feared his constituents. No Wisconsinite will be unaffected by the bill. He cuts funding for schools and local governments by $1 billion, Medicaid and Badger Care by $500 million, ends state aid for recycling, expands school choice, gets rid of phosphorus rules that keep lakes and rivers clean, and cuts programs that poor college-bound students. He hands out $82 million in corporate tax breaks -- on top of the $100 million already approved -- while at the same time he takes away $42 million in tax credits for the poorest Wisconsinites. A crowd now registering many thousands made a ruckus outside that could be heard faintly inside the Assembly Chamber. The few protesters who managed to make it into the chamber were escorted out after one let loose a single "boo."

All this on top of his "budget repair bill" which guts collective bargaining for state workers -- a 50-year tradition in Wisconsin. "What we're seeing is a hostile corporate takeover of Wisconsin," State Senator John Erpenbach, one of the Wisconsin 14 currently visiting the great state of Illinois. Plus, the budget will result in the "absolute annihilation" of public education, according to state Rep. Tamara Grigsby.

Tomorrow a new day will dawn on Walker's Wisconsin. Already voters are expressing buyer's remorse. A new poll says if the election were held again today, Wisconsinites would elect Walker's opponent 52-45. If Walker keeps this up, Badger State voters may have a chance to do so in a recall election next year.

R.I. city votes to fire all teachers

Providence uses strategy on deficit

School board officials in Providence, amid a growing national debate about the role of labor unions, voted this week to fire every teacher in the financially strapped city’s public schools.

The move, which has enraged the city’s nearly 2,000 teachers, came after officials advised the board that it would provide them more flexibility in coping with a yawning budget deficit. City officials said the decision was necessary because Rhode Island law requires schools to notify teachers by March 1 if they will not be rehired the following school year.

“Given where we are in the budget process, we needed to retain the maximum flexibility we could to manage what inevitably will be significant cuts to the school budget,’’ said Melissa Withers, a spokeswoman for Mayor Angel Taveras. ‘We could not afford any situation where we would have more teachers on the payroll than we could pay.’’

Teachers received letters from Superintendent Thomas Brady this week that described the “unprecedented action’’ he was advising the school board to take by issuing every teacher a termination letter. Brady noted in his letter that the city would have “the right to dismiss teachers as necessary, but not all teachers will actually be dismissed at the end of this school year.’’

Steve Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union, said the school board’s 4-to-3 vote on Thursday to send the termination letters was equivalent to legislative efforts elsewhere in the country that would strip collective bargaining rights from public unions. He said the vote violates the union’s contract with the city and that the union was meeting with its lawyers to plan how to respond.

“The firing of every teacher has nothing to do with the budget or flexibility,’’ Smith said. “It has everything to do with disrespecting 1,926 professionals who show up to work every day and do an outstanding job. This is more about power and control. We feel very strongly that legally this can’t happen.’’

He and others said the city could have sent layoff notices as opposed to termination notices. Under the contract’s layoff provisions, teachers could be recalled based on seniority. They said there is no guarantee now that the city would use seniority to re scind the termination letters, and city officials were vague in responding to how they would choose which teachers would remain.

City officials said they are trying to determine the ultimate number of teachers that will be fired as a result of the school department’s $40 million budget deficit.

“Procedurally, a layoff comes with a set of provisions that could have a huge impact on the changes we need to make,’’ Withers said.

“When you terminate someone, your financial obligations to them end. With a layoff, depending on the kind of layoff, there are all kinds of provisions that you still may have financial obligations to that teacher.’’

The mass firings come little more than a year after officials in Central Falls, R.I., a small community just north of Providence, fired every teacher in the academically struggling high school. They were rehired after agreeing to work a longer school day and make other changes.

Teachers in Providence voiced anxiety about the city’s moves.

Debbie Pilkington, an eighth-grade teacher at Nathanael Greene Middle School, who has taught in the district for 17 years, said she fears she will not be rehired because she earns more than double the $36,000 entry-level salary teachers are paid.

“What they did is shocking,’’ she said. “I couldn’t believe it. What makes this worse is that if I have to apply for another job, I have to write down that I have been terminated, and it will make it so I can’t get a job anywhere else.’’

She and other teachers said their termination was not explained and they argued that they could only be laid off — rather than terminated — for financial reasons.

Debbie Zuckerman, who has taught learning-disabled students for 21 years at Central High School, saw the move as an effort to end seniority.

“I’m just very, very frustrated,’’ she said. “I know there’s a deficit and financial problems, but I don’t think they had to do this. They just want the ability to fire at will.’’

Marybeth Calabro, who also teaches at Nathanael Greene and has taught for 17 years in the district, said the union would have been willing to work with the district to make concessions.

“Initially, I thought this was a joke or that I misheard it,’’ she said. “I still can’t believe it.’’

Walker Bolting Capitol Windows NOW to Keep Workers from Passing Food to Those Inside

AFL-CIO
by Tula Connell, Feb 28, 2011

Editor's Note:  Austerity measure or a fire hazard?  Third world techniques introduced to a declining superpower. 

This from AFL-CIO Political Communications Director Eddie Vale who’s on the ground in Madison, Wis.

As we speak, Gov. Scott Walker & the Senate R’s are literally having the windows of the capital bolted shut to keep people from passing food into the building to the people inside.
Our attorneys are collecting affidavits from the people who witnessed this, along with people who have been illegally denied access to a public, government, building.
 We will be filing for a TRO [temporary restraining order] to open the Capitol.
It is a sad for democracy when Governor Walker and his R Senate allies are locking the people of Wisconsin out of their own state capitol.

Honolulu Rally in Support of Wisconsin Teachers

Will Obama Find Those Shoes?

FireDogLake
Michael Monk



In the “flashback quote of the day” at Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire, he highlights words from candidate Barack Obama, made in a 2007 speech (and referenced in Slate). That quote is as follows (spoken word differs slightly from the prepared text quoted by others, what follows is transcribed from the video):

And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.

Well, will we see it? Or will it end up like the closing of Guantanamo Bay, a public option, or restoring constitutional checks and balances? He has given credence lately to false framing from the right with his freezing of pay of government workers, extention of the Bush tax cuts, a “deficit commission,” more budget cutting, and lip service to looking into deregulation when deregulation led us to financial collapse. Will he find those shoes?

Koch Brothers “Prank” No Laughing Matter

Center for Media and Democracy

Embattled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker came under fire today after news broke about statements he made in a 20-minute phone call from a Buffalo-area alternative news reporter, Ian Murphy of the Daily Beast, posing as David Koch, a billionaire whose corporate PAC directly supported Walker and who has given millions to groups that have run ads to aid Walker's rise to the state's highest office. (Listen to the call here.)
As the Center for Media and Democracy has reported, the Koch PAC not only spent $43,000 directly on Walker's race, but Koch personally donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association which spent $5 million in the state. Besides the Governor, the Koch brothers have other “vested interests" in the state.
They include Koch Pipeline Company, which operates a pipeline system that crosses Wisconsin. It also owns Flint Hill Resources, which distributes refined fuel through pipelines and terminals in Junction City, Waupun, Madison and Milwaukee. Koch Industries also owns the C. Reiss Coal Company, a power plant company located in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan.
The Koch company opened a lobby shop in Wisconsin two days after Walker was elected.  Many protesters have suspected that the “budget repair bill” provisions allowing the no-bid sell-off of any state-owned heating, cooling, or power plant, plus new rules on pipeline transport may be of interest to Koch. The company has denied any interest in these assets. 

Pink Slips as Poker Chips Raises Legal Concerns

At the start of the call, Walker eagerly reports on all he is doing: 

 First, he tells the fake Koch brother about a plan to change Senate rules on pay to reel-in the out-of state Democratic senators who are holding out to protect collective bargaining. The new rule would force the Senators to pick up their paychecks in person. This rule was passed in a partisan vote in the Senate yesterday -- a move that went unnoticed by the mainstream press. 

The fake Koch asks Walker how they might get others in Senate to vote to stop collective bargaining. Walker responds that he's involved the Justice Department in investigating whether the union is paying the absent Democratic senators to remain out of state, or providing them with food, shelter, etc., saying it would be an ethics violation or potentially a felony. Wisconsin legislators are well aware of these rules and have already stated they are using their own money while they are out of state.

But the Governor also explains how he is going to lay off thousands of Wisconsin workers as a tactic to get the Democrats to cooperate: "So, we’re trying about four or five different angles. Each day we crank up a little bit more pressure. The other thing is I’ve got layoff notices ready, we put out the at-risk notices, we’ll announce Thursday, they’ll go out early next week and we’ll probably get five to six thousand state workers will get at-risk notices for layoffs. We might
 ratchet that up a little bit too."
The move has been called “despicable” and “ruthless “ and “sickening.” But most importantly, if Walker is choosing to lay off workers as a political tactic when he wasn’t otherwise planning to do so, then it is not just morally repugnant, but legally questionable. State and federal contract and labor law has protections against this type of abusive behavior and inappropriate quid pro quo.

This morning the Capital Times quotes the state’s former Attorney General: “There clearly are potential ethics violations, and there are potential election-law violations and there are a lot of what look to me like labor-law violations,” said Peg Lautenschlager, a Democrat who served as Wisconsin’s Attorney General after serving for many years as a U.S. Attorney. The head of the state teacher's association, Mary Bell, reminds us: “He literally planned to use five to six thousand hardworking Wisconsin taxpayers as political pawns in his political game. He actually thought through a strategy to lay people off -- deny them the ability to feed their families -- and use it as leverage for his political goals."

Kids and Hired Thugs

Walker also says he considered then rejected the idea of hiring trouble makers to disrupt the rallies, which have been packed with elementary school children and highs schoolers. When fake Koch says “We’ll back you any way we can. But what we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.” Walker says: “we thought about that," but he rejected the idea in case it back-fired, but not in the way one might think.  He didn’t want to  “scare the public into thinking maybe the governor as to settle to avoid all these problems.”


Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said Thursday “very unsettling and troubling.” “I would like to hear more of an explanation from Governor Walker as to what exactly was being considered, and to what degree it was discussed by his cabinet members. I find it very unsettling and troubling that anyone would consider creating safety risks for our citizens and law enforcement officers,” the chief said.

Wisconsin Ethics Rules



 Wisconsin has the toughest ethics law in the nation. Public officials are prohibited from soliciting or receiving anything of value if it could reasonably be expected to influence or reward official actions. The rules against “pay-to-play politics” say a public official is prohibited from taking official action in exchange for political contributions, or anything else of value for the benefit of a candidate, political party, or any person making certain candidate-related communications. You can’t even take a cup of coffee from a lobbyist.

Earlier in the call, Walker had asked the fake Koch for help “spreading the word,” especially in the "swing" districts, in defense of his determination to break the unions, and help get calls in to shore up his Republican allies in the legislature. Walker benefited from a high-dollar "issue ad" campaign by groups funded by Koch group before the election. Americans for Prosperity, which Koch chairs, also promoted and funded a couple thousand counter-protestors last Saturday.

On the same day that the scandal broke here in Wisconsin, Americans for Prosperity went up with a $342,000 TV ad campaign in support of Walker –- an enormous sum in a state like Wisconsin. If such ads are effectively coordinated with the Governor's office, they may be subject to rules requiring greater disclosure of expenditures and contributors.



Toward the end of the call, the fake Koch offers to fly Walker out to California, after they "crush the bastards," and show him "a good time," to which Walker responds enthusiastically, "All right, that would be outstanding." But,Wisconsin rules bar state officials from taking action for something of value. After Walker agrees to the junket, the fake Koch adds, "And, you know, we have a little bit of a vested interest as well" to which Walker responds, "Well that's just it."



Conclusion

So while Walker did not apparently not recognize Koch's voice, he certainly recognized his name, eagerly recounting his efforts to crush collective bargaining in Wisconsin to an out-of-state billionaire backer and thanking him for all Koch had done for him. The entire conversation raises ethical concerns that warrant much closer examination, especially with Wisconsin's tough pay-to-play rules. A week ago the Center for Media and Democracy filed an open records request for the Governor's phone records, email records, and other communications. Perhaps these records will help us understand all the influences behind the Governor's recent radical actions.

Wisconsin is not Illinois; it has a reputation for being a squeaky clean state where lesser scandals than this have brought down political officials. Governor Walker likes to complain of “outside agitators.” It's hard to imagine an outside agitator with more influence and money than the Koch-family.

Wisconsin Fight: It's Not About the Budget

PR Watch

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, in a February 20, 2011 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, exposed Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's disingenuousness in linking restrictions on collective bargaining to a need to cut the state's budget. Wisconsin's unionized workers have declared they are ready to start contributing to their pensions and health care to help resolve the state's budget problems, Granholm pointed out. But despite extracting these financial concessions, Walker insists on trying to curtail unionized workers' right to collectively bargain. Granholm stated, "What is this [Scott Walker's effort] really exposed to be, but an attack on collective bargaining?...This is really about collective bargaining," and not cutting the state's budget.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker alleges that dismantling public sector collective bargaining rights is made necessary by a $3.6 billion deficit in the next budget, and a $137 million shortfall this year. Setting aside the fact that the ability to negotiate shifts, seniority, benefits and conditions of employment would have a negligible impact on the deficit, and looking beyond Walker's deceptive claim that the alternative to union-busting is to kick 200,000 children off Medicaid (called "false" by Politifact), how deep is the state's economic crisis?

Representative Mark Pocan (D- Madison) has looked more closely at the numbers and writes that the $3.6 billion deficit is bogus. The alleged deficit is based on $3.9 billion in new agency requests for the 2011-2013 budget, a 7.2% spending increase. However, these are merely requests, not dollars actually allocated or spent, and Pocan writes that the legislature never votes to grant 100% of agency requests: "I don't think there is a member in the legislature that would vote for [the requested budget increase]. In fact, I asked [Legislative Fiscal Bureau] Director [Robert] Lang when was the last time we gave agencies exactly what they requested and was told he couldn't think of one and he's been here decades."

For example, the state's non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau reports that the difference between the amount requested for the 2009-2011 budget and the amount actually allocated was almost $3.5 billion, a sum nearly identical to Walker's alleged "deficit" for the next budget cycle. State agencies had requested a 9.7% increase but were actually granted a reduction of 2.6%.

For this year's budget, any shortfalls are a direct result of Walker's policies. The Fiscal Bureau told legislators in January that the state will end the year with a balance of $121.4 million. The $137 million deficit Walker uses as an excuse to crush collective bargaining results from the tax cuts and incentives Walker has pushed through since taking office; this includes the loss of $48 million in revenue from private health savings account taxation, a move lauded by the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce business lobby (who spent nearly $1 million on Walker's campaign).

Demonstrators protest Ohio labor law changes

Toledo Blade
Jim Provance

COLUMBUS — Organized labor Thursday told legislators that outlawing collective bargaining for public employees would not end strikes but could return Ohio to the days when walkouts occurred frequently, illegally, and sometimes violently.

A crush of about 3,800 protesters inside the Statehouse and many others outside punctuated their point with heated debate about the proposed reforms.

D. Michael Collins, who has been on both sides of the bargaining table as a current Toledo city councilman and former negotiator for city police, asked members of the Senate Insurance, Commerce, and Labor Committee to imagine Toledo in the midst of its devastating public employee strike of 1979.

“I would sincerely hope that, when you do your due diligence, close your eyes and imagine your city,” he said. “Imagine your city from every single compass point a burning inferno … Ask [Toledo Sen. Edna Brown] what it was like to sit in her house that evening wondering when the next firebomb would be coming. …We broke down.”

A Senate committee continued debate into the night on a bill to enact the most sweeping changes in state labor law in nearly three decades. Among numerous provisions, the bill would outlaw collective bargaining by state employees, including those at public universities and colleges.
 The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Shannon Jones (R., Springboro), who has been greeted with jeers from the labor crowd during recent hearings, was escorted about the Statehouse Thursday by a member of the highway patrol, who is a union member.

The majority of those in the crowd were there to oppose the bill, their shouts from elsewhere in the Statehouse clearly audible in the Senate committee room.

But for the first time, an organized effort to support the bill led by Tea Party members also weighed in with a rally outside the Statehouse.

“We’re here today because of common sense,’’ said Mike Wilson, president of the Cincinnati Tea Party. “Somehow over the last few years, things got out of line. … Unfortunately, we’ve got to make some hard choices. … All we’re asking is for the public sector to accept a little bit of the pain.’’

While not outlawing collective bargaining at the local government and school levels, Senate Bill 5 would impose new restrictions that the bill’s backers say would tilt the balance of power back toward management.

It would end final binding arbitration as a means to resolve disputes involving police and firefighters, who are already prohibited from striking. It would prohibit the use of seniority as the sole factor in determining who is laid off, allow the hiring of permanent replacement workers by the government during strikes, and take health care off the negotiating table.

Representatives of police and firefighter unions agreed it may be time to revisit Ohio’s collective-bargaining law, which has been largely unchanged since it was passed in 1983.  They expressed a willingness to work on increasing transparency, letting the public know more about the competing offers on the table during impasses.

But they said elimination of collective-bargaining rights should be off the table. They also argued that ending binding arbitration, in which an independent third party settles disputes between local governments and public safety employees, would renege on the deal made in 1983. That’s when public safety workers got binding arbitration in exchange for not seeking the right to strike that some other public employees received.

Some supporters of the bill, however, argued that it doesn’t go far enough.

“The people not in this room and who will never be in this room pay for all of this, and they would like their voices to be heard,” Ray Warrick, a Tea Party member from Mason, told the committee. “Please know that, even if you can’t see and hear them in the state Capitol halls. They are out there every day doing their jobs. Please do yours.”

Before the hearing began, Sandusky firefighter Adam Butler said the proposed changes, particularly the mandate that public employees pay at least 20 percent of their health-care premiums, would undermine innovative efforts that the city and firefighters have taken through contracts to avoid layoffs and keep fire stations open.

“We have a wellness program where we get deductible decreases based on how healthy we are,” said Mr. Butler. “It’s been a successful program so far. We work all year around to figure out cost-fighting measures because it’s in everybody’s interest.”

In Wisconsin Fight, Officials Search Capitol for Democrats

Market Watch

By Kris Maher And Douglas Belkin 

Wisconsin state officials began searching for 14 missing state senate Democrats who failed to show up at a floor session at the capitol in protest of Republican Gov. Scott Walker's budget bill, which continued to draw massive protests from public-employee union members on Thursday.

The state senate's sergeant at arms searched the Democrats' offices in the capitol building as a first step in locating them, according to a staff member of Republican senate leader Scott Fitzgerald. The staff member said that because of all the union protesters crowding into the capitol, the search of offices was slower than it would have been normally.

The Democrats' action has halted a vote on the bill, which would strip state's public employees of most collective-bargaining rights, because the senate lacks a quorum needed to pass a fiscal bill under state law. Twenty members of the 33-member house need to be present, so the body's 19 Republicans will not be enough to pass the budget-repair bill without at least one Democrat present.

The state assembly has 60 Republicans and 38 Democrats, but it is unclear whether any Democratic lawmakers from that body have left the capitol.

The bill has sparked three days of massive protests by public-sector unions around the state capitol, as well as the closure of public schools in Madison as hundreds of teachers called in sick. On Wednesday President Barack Obama weighed in on the dispute, calling the bill "an assault" on unions.

It's not clear what immediate steps Republican lawmakers or other state officials would take in the absence of Democrats from the capitol. Chris Schrimpf, a spokesman for Mr. Walker, said "We remain confident that the legislation will pass. I think it will happen today."

Last night, at about midnight, the state's joint finance committee passed the bill, which set it up for a vote today by a session of the joint assembly. Mr. Fitzgerald said that Wisconsin is leading the country "in bringing the public sector back in line with the private sector." He added, "There are no easy solutions to the problems our state is facing."  

Thousands of union members and supporters have jammed the capitol grounds and the building itself for the last several days as a powerful legislative committee began hearings this week on a proposal introduced just a week ago by Mr. Walker.

The plan, which Mr. Walker calls a "budget repair" bill, would take away most bargaining rights for about 170,000 public-sector workers. It would limit collective bargaining for most state and local government employees to issues of wages, and exclude pensions and health care. It would also require government workers, who currently contribute little or nothing to their pensions, to contribute 5.8% of their pay to pensions, and pay at least 12.6% of health-care premiums, up from an average of 6%.
Mr. Walker said in an interview Tuesday that eliminating most bargaining rights would give local governments more flexibility to maintain jobs and services while finding ways to cut spending.
"We're giving these people the tools to balance budgets without laying people off," he said.
He said 5,500 state jobs and 5,000 local jobs would be saved under his plan, which would save $30 million in the current budget and $300 million in the two-year budget that begins July 1. Wisconsin faces a $137 million shortfall in the current budget that ends June 30 and a $3.6 billion gap in the coming two-year cycle.

Some union officials said organized labor needs to make the strongest stand possible in Wisconsin, if it hopes to fight off similar attempts to rein in collective-bargaining rights in other states for both public- and private-sector workers, moves that could eventually erode union membership, finances and political clout at a national level.

"This is a big deal," said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, the nation's biggest union with 3.2 million members. "Plain and simple, this is a politically motivated attack."

He framed the Wisconsin fight as being part of a broader debate about workers rights. "This is an important point where we think about what we want as a nation, and do we want to bring people together to solve tough problems. It's not about silencing people that you don't agree with," he said.
Mr. Van Roekel's union, which is also the biggest in Wisconsin with 98,000 members, has used Facebook and email to communicate with members all week. It asked teachers not to report to work on Thursday and Friday and go to Madison to join in protests, which prompted more schools to close on Thursday around the state. He said of Mr. Walker's bill, "It's galvanized our membership. They're on fire."

Separately, in Ohio, more than 5,000 teachers, fire fighters and other union members, many wearing red T-shirts, showed up at the capitol in Columbus to protest a bill that Republican Gov. John Kasich has proposed that would eliminate collective-bargaining rights for many of the state's 400,000 public sector workers.

Unions in Ohio say they delivered tens of thousands of emails, post cards and phone message to the state's lawmakers, opposing the bill.