If You Can't Beat Them; Buy Them

Big Labor lost at the ballot box and had their forced unionism power rolled back by the legislature and is now trying to buy Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices to undo the reforms pushed enacted by Gov. Scott Walker. The Wall Street Journal reports: Wisconsin Democrats and unions are still seething over their failure to thwart Governor Scott Walker's government union reforms. Now they're trying to spin their rage into gold by aiming it at the state Supreme Court election on April 5. If they defeat David Prosser's re-election bid, labor leaders and their Democratic allies hope a newly activist court will be their proxy in the fight against Mr. Walker's policies. Until the recent political inferno in Madison took over national headlines, the Supreme Court race was a snoozefest. Justice Prosser, who has served on the court for more than a decade, was the heavy favorite to hold onto his seat. In February's jungle primary that includes all candidates (all of whom are officially nonpartisan), he won 58% of the vote, followed by 25% for second place Joanne Kloppenburg, the assistant attorney general and an environmental attorney who is now the union darling. The top two primary finishers compete in the run-off, and that race is narrowing. A liberal outfit called the Greater Wisconsin Committee has thrown some $3 million into the race and launched a website, ProsserEqualsWalker.com, to whip heat against the Governor into the race. Democrats hope a victory would discourage other Republicans who might dare to face down Big Labor. The Wisconsin Supreme Court is divided 4-3 on many cases and tilts slightly right. A defeat for Justice Prosser would shift that balance, and a notoriously liberal contingent led by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson would dominate when the court hears the Democratic challenges to Mr. Walker's reforms, which limited collective bargaining and required government unions to be recertified every year by their members. That battle was recently joined when Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi put a hold on the law, and a state appeals court ruled yesterday that the Supreme Court should decide the case. If they flip the court, Democrats are also sure to target major tort reforms that Governor Walker signed earlier this year. Watch for trial lawyers dancing in the streets. From 2004 to 2008, the court's liberal majority, including Obama nominee to the federal bench Louis Butler, overturned medical malpractice caps and established a collective guilt standard whereby any company that had ever sold lead paint in Wisconsin could be subject to tort claims.
President Obama Eggs on Big Labor Lawbreakers

President Obama Eggs on Big Labor Lawbreakers

(Source: March 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) Labels Proposed Rollback of Union Monopoly Powers As an 'Assault' As the cover story of this Right to Work Newsletter edition reports, last month Wisconsin teacher union bosses encouraged educators in Madison, Milwaukee, and other school districts to strike illegally in order to participate in protests against GOP Gov. Scott Walker's monopoly-bargaining rollback proposal. Most teachers rejected union bosses' exhortations and reported for their jobs. However, the number of teachers who heeded the siren call of union militancy was sufficient to force multiple school districts, including Milwaukee's, to cancel classes. Madison's schools were closed for a total of four days. Many of the striking union militants, convinced that they should be paid for protesting rather than carrying out their assigned duties, collected phony "sick notes" from pro-forced unionism doctors. Wisconsin taxpayers may have to furnish these outlaw teachers with up to $6 million in "sick pay" for work they were perfectly capable of performing, but chose not to. Wisconsites quoted in media reports, including some who are normally sympathetic to Big Labor, are outraged by the actions of a relatively small share of Badger State teachers (in Milwaukee, for example, just a few more than 600 out of 5,400 teachers joined in the union-instigated "sickout"). Former Union Czar Andy Stern: President's Statement 'Helped Enormously' Even as they were losing the good will of the people of Wisconsin, however, teacher union zealots and thousands of other government union radicals who joined in their wildcat strikes got a "thumbs up" from the White House. On February 17, the second day of illegal teacher strikes, President Obama took the extraordinary step of inviting a reporter and camera crew from a Milwaukee TV station to sit down with him at the White House for an interview. Mr. Obama suggested he was okay with the portions of Gov. Walker's reform package that authorize public agencies to divert a significantly higher share of employees' wages and salaries into their health care and pension plans, and thus reduce taxpayers' total compensation liabilities. At the same time, the President blasted the provision that would, for the first time in decades, restore for most Wisconsin public employees the Right to Work without being fired for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union.
Don't Forget the Lights

Don't Forget the Lights

Will the last person living in Detroit, please turn out the lights. It may be a bad joke, but it is quickly become sad reality. Detroit is dying thanks to the greed, power and corruption of the labor union bosses and the politicians who did their bidding. An Investors Business Daily editorial asks: Who Killed Detroit? Poor Detroit. It hasn't had any good news for decades, and now, despite a $77 billion bailout of the auto industry, its population continues to implode. The No. 1 reason: the United Auto Workers union. Census data released Tuesday show Detroit's population has plunged 25% since 2000 to just 713,777 souls — the same as 100 years ago, before the auto industry's heyday. As recently as the 1970s, Detroit had 1.8 million people. What's happening is no secret: Detroiters are fleeing an economic disaster, the irreversible decline of the Big Three automakers. In his now-famous Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler, rapper Eminem drives up to a theater in a sleek new 200 model and says, "This is the Motor City. And this is what we do." But, sadly, that's no longer the case. Detroit's decline has been shocking. Sure, a lot of the blame goes to a generation of bad management. But the main reason for Detroit's decline is the greed of the industry's main union, the UAW, which priced the Big Three out of the market. As recently as 2008, GM, Ford and Chrysler paid their employees on average more than $73 an hour in total compensation. The 12 foreign transplants, operating in nonunion states mostly in the South and Midwest, averaged about $42 an hour. Guess which manufacturers are healthiest and expanding their market today? In 2008, the Big Three still made 59% of all cars in the U.S. But, according to recent estimates, their market share is now 46% — with foreign companies selling the bulk of all U.S. cars. So Detroit's loss has been the South's and Midwest's gain. Behind this is the gold-plated benefits package once guaranteed to UAW workers. We're not against workers getting what they deserve, but total pay and benefits for a full-time worker for the Big Three until recently averaged about $140,000 a year.
Don't Forget the Lights

Don't Forget the Lights

Will the last person living in Detroit, please turn out the lights. It may be a bad joke, but it is quickly become sad reality. Detroit is dying thanks to the greed, power and corruption of the labor union bosses and the politicians who did their bidding. An Investors Business Daily editorial asks: Who Killed Detroit? Poor Detroit. It hasn't had any good news for decades, and now, despite a $77 billion bailout of the auto industry, its population continues to implode. The No. 1 reason: the United Auto Workers union. Census data released Tuesday show Detroit's population has plunged 25% since 2000 to just 713,777 souls — the same as 100 years ago, before the auto industry's heyday. As recently as the 1970s, Detroit had 1.8 million people. What's happening is no secret: Detroiters are fleeing an economic disaster, the irreversible decline of the Big Three automakers. In his now-famous Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler, rapper Eminem drives up to a theater in a sleek new 200 model and says, "This is the Motor City. And this is what we do." But, sadly, that's no longer the case. Detroit's decline has been shocking. Sure, a lot of the blame goes to a generation of bad management. But the main reason for Detroit's decline is the greed of the industry's main union, the UAW, which priced the Big Three out of the market. As recently as 2008, GM, Ford and Chrysler paid their employees on average more than $73 an hour in total compensation. The 12 foreign transplants, operating in nonunion states mostly in the South and Midwest, averaged about $42 an hour. Guess which manufacturers are healthiest and expanding their market today? In 2008, the Big Three still made 59% of all cars in the U.S. But, according to recent estimates, their market share is now 46% — with foreign companies selling the bulk of all U.S. cars. So Detroit's loss has been the South's and Midwest's gain. Behind this is the gold-plated benefits package once guaranteed to UAW workers. We're not against workers getting what they deserve, but total pay and benefits for a full-time worker for the Big Three until recently averaged about $140,000 a year.
Winners in Wisconsin: Taxpayers

Winners in Wisconsin: Taxpayers

Subscribe to The National Right to Work Committee® Website Updates by Email Wisconsin demonstrates the monopoly power of government unions can be broken and the Wall Street Journal takes notice: Congratulations to Wisconsin Republicans, who held together this week to pass their government union reforms despite unprecedented acting out by Democrats and their union allies. Three weeks ago we described this battle as a foretaste of Greece come to America, but maybe there's hope for taxpayers after all. The good news is that Governor Scott Walker's reforms have been worth the fight on the policy merits. The conventional media wisdom is that Mr. Walker "overreached" by proposing limits on the ability of government unions to bargain collectively for benefits. But before he offered those proposals, Democrats and unions had refused to support his plan that public workers pay more for their pensions and health care. Only later did they concede that these changes were reasonable and will spare thousands of public workers from layoffs. Unions can still bargain for wages, but annual increases can't exceed the rate of inflation. Unions will also have to be certified each year, which will give their dues-paying members a chance to revisit their decision to unionize. No longer will it be one worker, one vote, once. Perhaps most important, the state will no longer collect those dues automatically and give them to the union to spend almost entirely on politics. The unions will have to collect those dues themselves.The collective bargaining reforms also mean that this won't merely be a one-time budget victory. Government unions know that financial concessions (and layoffs) they agree to during recessions are typically won back when tax revenues increase and the public stops paying attention. They merely need to elect a friendly governor. Mr. Walker's reforms change the balance of negotiating power in ways that give taxpayers more protection. If Mr. Walker's effort can be faulted, we'd say it's for not stressing enough the value of these collective bargaining changes for taxpayers, and how public unions too often end up on both sides of the bargaining table.
Murdock's defense of

Murdock's defense of "workers' rights"

Excerpts from Scripps Howard News Service and Hoover Institution Fellow Deroy Murdock's recent defense of "workers' rights" (link to complete column): Even as they scream for "workers' rights," the one workers' right that union bosses despise is the Right To Work.  Big Labor and its overwhelmingly Democratic allies oppose a woman's right to choose whether or not to join a union. Instead, they prefer that predominantly male employers and labor leaders make that choice for her. The American Left has hoisted "choice" onto a pedestal taller than the Washington Monument. Liberals and their Big Labor buddies will race to their battle stations to defend a woman's right to choose to abort her unborn child. Meanwhile, they holler themselves hoarse to prevent her (and her male counterparts) from freely choosing to accept or avoid union membership. Sen. Jim DeMint introduced the National Right To Work Act this week. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., understands that exercising this choice is a basic human right, and neither private employment nor government work should require joining or paying dues to a union. "Many Americans already are struggling just to put food on the table," DeMint said, "and they shouldn't have to fear losing their jobs or face discrimination if they don't want to join a union." Thus, on Tuesday, DeMint introduced the National Right to Work Act. Notwithstanding that right-to-work states are comparatively prosperous engines of job growth, the case for right-to-work is not merely economic but also moral.