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Human
Events...
Apocalypse Now:
Wisconsin vs. Big Labor
by Michelle Malkin
02/18/2011
Welcome to the reckoning. We have met the fiscal apocalypse, and it is
smack dab in the middle of the heartland. As Wisconsin goes, so goes
the nation. Let us pray it does not go the way of the decrepit welfare
states of the European Union.
The lowdown: State government workers in the Badger State pay piddling
amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits. Faced with a
$3.6 billion budget hole and a state constitutional ban on running a
deficit, new GOP Gov. Scott Walker wants public unions to pony up a
little more. He has proposed raising the public employee share of
health insurance premiums from less than 5 percent to 12.4 percent. He
is also pushing for state workers to cover half of their pension
contributions. To spare taxpayers the soaring costs of Byzantine
union-negotiated work rules, he would rein in Big Labor’s collective
bargaining power to cover only wages unless approved at the ballot box.
As the free-market MacIver Institute in Wisconsin points out, the
benefits concessions Walker is asking public union workers to make
would still maintain their health insurance contribution rates at the
second-lowest among Midwest states for family coverage. Moreover, a new
analysis by benefits think tank HCTrends shows that the new rate “would
also be less than the employee contributions required at 85 percent of
large Milwaukee-area employers.”
This modest call for shared sacrifice has triggered the wrath of the
White House-Big Labor-Michael Moore axis. On Thursday, President Obama
lamented the “assault on unions.” AFL-CIO and Service Employees
International Union bosses dubbed Walker the “Mubarak of the Midwest”
while their minions toted posters of Walker’s face superimposed on
Hitler’s. Moore goaded thousands of striking union protesters to “shut
down” the “new Cairo” while the state’s Democratic legislators bailed
on floor debate over the union reform package.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan spurned the opportunity to condemn
thousands of Wisconsin public school teachers for lying about being
“sick” and shutting down at least eight school districts across the
state to attend capitol protests (many of whom dragged their students
on a social justice field trip with them). Instead, Duncan defended
teachers for “doing probably the most important work in society.” Only
striking government teachers could win federal praise for NOT doing
their jobs.
Yes, the so-called progressives truly believe that bringing American
union workers into the 21st century in line with the rest of the
workforce is tantamount to dictatorship.
Yes, the so-called progressives truly believe that by walking off their
jobs and out of their classrooms, they are “putting children first.”
If ever there were proof that public unions no longer work in the
public interest, this is it. Big Labor dragoons workers into exclusive
representation agreements, forces them to pay compulsory dues that
fatten Democratic political coffers and then has the chutzpah to cast
itself as an Egyptian-style “freedom” and “human rights” movement.
Meanwhile, union leaders elsewhere are quietly forcing their low-wage
members to share the sacrifice in order to preserve teetering health
funds. In New York state, Skidmore College campus janitors, dining
service workers and other maintenance employees received late notice
from the SEIU that 4.15 percent of their gross earnings will now be
deducted from their paychecks to cover the cost of the health plan
provided through the behemoth 1199 SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund.
(If the name sounds familiar, it’s because this is one of several
privileged SEIU affiliates that has received an Obamacare waiver.)
These workers are forced to join the union in order to preserve their
jobs, and unlike non-union workers, they are locked into a single
health plan. The SEIU has now decreed that they must pay new fees to
include spouses on their plans and has hiked employee co-pays for
doctor visits and prescription drugs.
What’s necessary for New York union workers is necessary for Wisconsin
union workers -- and for the rest of the protected union worker class
in bankrupt and near-bankrupt states across America. The “persuasion of
power” so ruthlessly and recklessly exercised by the SEIU and its
thuggish allies must be broken by the moral courage of fiscal
discipline. It’s now or never.
Read it at Human Events
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