Night, have you gotten all your facts straight?

Union membership is optional. To make it mandatory is to violate one's right of association.
This bill makes it more difficult for unions to get members. It does this by adding
another hoop for prospective members to jump through: instead of just having dues
deducted from a paycheck, they have to go through a separate process.

If you want to make a union as corrupt as it can possibly be, there's scarcely a better
way to do that than taking steps that will minimize its membership.

I agree that unions should be regulated too, but these regulations should just be for
quality-of-work standards.

Yet you have the money to give billionaires and corporations tax breaks.

The whole purpose of this bill is to take the public service sectors bargaining rights,
weaken the unions, and sell off the public services such as electricity.

With that a private group can come in take over, and charge any price they want for that
service and no one can say anything.

You guys aren't looking at this bill fully.

In Wisconsin though, we are talking about public sector unions not workers at corporations. It's a
pretty big difference.

Public sector pay in America has been growing far faster than inflation for the last 20 years. And
school districts (for example) keep increasing the overhead (pay for administrators, trips, etc). Over
that time, working in education has gone from a low paying gig, to one that is relatively highly paid
(incl great benefits, little accountability, no chance of being transferred, fewer work days).

Because of that many states are having big budget crises. We simply don't have the money to keep
increasing govt pay. That is the main issue here.

@kings

Personally I think it is our political system that is broken and as a result anything that
deals with it is corrupted. Since the unions purpose is to deal with politicians the
unions have been twisted.

We need to fix our system before we break down into violence.

The teamsters are terribly corrupt we know that even in Canada.

It's not the Unions sole fault though that the Government allowed those things so out of
control how ever is it? They agreed to these terrible of terms, no one would held at gun
point.

It is obvious your Unions are much further out of control then our own in Canada, as we
have to pay into our own Pension funds and benefit packages which is topped off by the
corporations, when they aren't trying to embezzle it.

Everyone screams and points at the Union, but the union did it's job in those cases, it
got the little man the best deal it could. Why aren't we trying to to hang the individuals
who accepted these terms?


How ever Night, what is the job and what is the pay for the private sector? The private
sector tends to under pay dramatically when it isn't regulated via Union or another form.

I don't think unions should be removed but I do think that they should be regulated more
like the corporations are.

This is what my uncles wife says.

"In Oregon state workers pay nothing into their retirement or health care. They make twice
what workers in the private sector do for the same job. Payment for this is on the backs
of taxpayers here many of which have lost their jobs and health care. Only 30% of the
nation is registered Democrat and yet all of us are paying those union dues to elect
Democrats who push for deals for union members that we can no longer afford. Governor
Walker is absolutely right. Unions must get in line with the rest of the nation. They can
no longer demand lifetime tenure or be paid more than the private sector.The춓e are plenty
of laws to protect them in the workplace now. "


Edit:It isn't just a few unions here it's almost all of them. Four of the last eight
teamster presidents for instance have been criminally indicted.

I agree completely a few unions are too big, and public money should be agreed up on by
the public.

How ever it's all the hidden laws in these bills I am royally pissed at. I'm pissed at the
corporations especially the Koch brothers who are behind a lot of this. Let me go about it
this way.

"So we should go back 100 years and start over.

No 40 hour week, child labor laws, OSHA, age / sex discrimination rules, minimum wage,
workman's compensation, etc.

How come one or two bad unions are a cause to get rid of all unions, but BP oil spill
[which killed 11 actual human beings] and the Toyota brake failure case isn't a reason to
get rid of corporations?" - dagwood111

@kings

I agree with you about the fact that we need unions to help off set corrupt corporations.

But the bill in wisconsin does this.

"The measure forbids most government workers from collectively bargaining for wage
increases beyond the rate of inflation unless approved by referendum. It also requires
public workers to pay more toward their pensions and double their health insurance
contribution, a combination equivalent to an 8 percent pay cut for the average worker.

Police and firefighters are exempt."

So they can negotiate for higher wages but since they are paid by public taxes they have
to get the approval of the public first. They also have to pay more for their benefits but
still at a much lower rate then their civilian counter part.

The Unions in the US get a bad name because they have a tendency to be corrupt and bully
their own workers.

And that comes back to misrepresentation and people not attending the union votes when it
matters. Happens in Canada all the time, happens in basic politics. It also comes to poor
management and laws.

The point I'm trying to get across though is, the unions accepted the pays cuts and asked
to retain there bargaining rights, this was objected.

This is the rich having paid off the right people to make themselves richer.

America sadly needs a revolution.

"Not to mention if at
year A you have $100 in the bank and $500,000 in inventory and the next year you
have $100 in the bank and $1,000,000 in inventory. The government says you've
made $500,000 and will be taxed about $200,000 that year. (Lean manufacturing
helps this)"

You have made 500k, you effectively used tax cuts to buy new equipment and not pay taxes,
and it's done in Canada all the time. We can either use these years profit to pay taxes or
we can go buy a lot more equipment and not be such a profitable company.

Your right your not in Wisconsin and America greatly screwed up voting in the Republicans
this time, especially Tea Party members.

http://i.imgur.com/SLQnO.jpg I applaud this people in Madison.

Theres more to a corporation then just the rich people running it. Usually those rich
people are salaried people and get bonuses depending on how much of a asset they
are to a company. Ever wonder why a person makes $10/hour compared to
$2,000,000+ a year? Well it deals with responsibilities, performance, and skills.
Anyone ever hear of a factory line worker making $500,000 a year?

Then we have businesses, depending on where you want to place legal
responsibility, one may opt for ownership or partnership or limited liability or a
corporation. This all depends on the type of business to. Now its not just
responsibility but also taxibility. Without the Bush tax cuts a company that makes
$250,000 or more has to be taxed under the highest bracket. Not to mention if at
year A you have $100 in the bank and $500,000 in inventory and the next year you
have $100 in the bank and $1,000,000 in inventory. The government says you've
made $500,000 and will be taxed about $200,000 that year. (Lean manufacturing
helps this)

Then on top of that you have unions. Look how well they did with the auto industry,
ever see a non union worker in the factories? Well lets say they run a monopoly at
companies and will basically get people fired for not unionizing. I've heard about it
many times and all the while you have idiots working that are protected by the
unions, drinking on the job and sleeping on the job.

Of course with teachers its different, a state job is different from a private one. For
one they don't work for a company where the goal is profit, now we keep paying the
unionized teachers more and more and more. With teachers getting more and more
money and our education gets poorer and poorer, is it worth paying more for less?
Should schools be able to hire non-union teachers? These are questions that I think
are important.

Now I'm not from Wisconsin so my voice isn't needed for their lawmakers.