Walker may have violated laws and ethics rules

Before retiring for the evening, just wanted to point out that the Gov may well have violated labor laws and ethics rules in the way he attempted to ram through a budget repair bill full of radical policy changes that have little to do with the budget and a lot to do with destroying state government and handing the state over to corporate interests.

Here's the story on the legal and ethical issues sent to me by one of my alert brothers:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/158824/wisconsin-governor-may-have-violated-labor-law-koch-call

Then there's Nobel laureate Paul Krugman who compares what Walker is trying to do here to Iraq in 2003. I found the comparison far more apt than I thought it would be.

"...Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence."

Right.  Here's the link: Shock Doctrine, USA

Heading to Madison on Saturday with a group of faith-based folks. They are answering the call from the Wisconsin Conference of Churches. Meanwhile, the US Catholic Bishops Conference sent a letter to Archbishop Jerome Listecki supporting his defense of worker rights in the state of Wisconsin.

“You and our brother bishops in Wisconsin are offering a timely reminder of what the Church teaches on the rights and duties of workers, including the right to form and belong to unions and other associations, and the obligation to address difficult problems with respect for the rights and needs of all. As you insist, ‘hard times do not nullify the moral obligation each of us has to respect the legitimate rights of workers.’”

You can find the entire statement here: http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2011/11-038.shtml

Walker and state Repub legislators are not only losing the political battle, but they have lost the moral and ethical battle as well. They may get their legislative way in the end, but, oh, the sleeping giant that has awakened!

Now we see the great divide

Gov Walker and Republican state legislators have certainly helped to do one important thing - to surface the great cultural divide in my state.

* Solidarity v. fierce individualism

* Workers v. corporate powers

* Cutting taxes as an ideology v. a strong social safety net based on a sense of shared responsibility

* Government as outside monster v. government as a service to its people

* Government as guarantor of private business and wealth generation v. government as guarantor of rights and fairness

* Leave me alone! v. we are all in this together

It doesn't have to be this way. What we are seeing now in the public sector in this state we saw in recent years in the private sector - a divide-and-conquer strategy. Threaten to move a plant out of the state to force workers into huge wage and benefits concessions. Threaten massive layoffs of public workers if they don't accept being stripped of collective bargaining rights. Worse, there is a calculated campaign to drive a wedge between the unemployed or workers seeing their wages fall and benefits disappear, and public sector workers who still have jobs and benefits.

It's an old, tired, anti-people strategy - breakdown solidarity among workers, make them feel like the unions are the enemy, rather than the bosses who are trying to remake the workforce to their benefit.

What in the world happened to our once-inspiring pro-labor culture here, to our sense of pride in what workers built here?  This city was built on the labor of my ancestors, my uncles, my cousins, musicians who worked for my father - all of whom had access to decent well-paid work and benefits because of unions, who had clout in setting work rules (like the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, safe factories, grievance procedures, and more) and from all of that were able to own a house, raise their kids, send them to good public schools, etc., etc. - because of unions, because of organized labor fighting for their rights.

The powers-that-be say we can't afford this anymore, but before we rush to that judgment, take a look at what is happening to the earnings of the already wealthy, to the soaring Wall Street companies. Read articles in the business news about how many corporations are awash in cash but not hiring - because they don't need to do that to make money anymore.

Then check out how many of the wealthy pay little or no state taxes at all (Chris Abele being among them) because tax rules are stacked in their favor. And here, while you're at it, study this document and its many graphs indicating how the top 1% in the US own 34.6% of all privately held wealth while the bottom 80% owns just 15% of all wealth.  This is a staggering divide and something to keep in mind when the anti-tax rhetoric is soaring across the airwaves.

One thing you won't hear our governor talk about is how revenue could be raised to help meet the needs of our people. That actually could be done. But if you think public service is a cancer on the body politic rather than a service - educating our kids, answering the phone when you call 911, plowing snow during and after a blizzard, picking up the garbage, processing marriage certificates and birth records, staffing courtrooms and public health centers - if you think all these public sector workers are sitting with their feet up on desks raking in the dough and not working very hard, then you think Scott Walker a hero.

He is not. And if he gets to run the show here, this state is headed for real trouble.

Journal Sentinel's Scott Walker contradictions

In last year's election, the Journal Sentinel editorial board endorsed Scott Walker. The reason why was as dismaying as the endorsement itself: "...in a time of economic peril and at a time when government must be reformed, it's time to throw away the playbook...in this election, we're looking for a kind of fiscal tenacity that this state has, perhaps, never seen. Talk that Barrett isn't 'tough enough' is a bum rap. But, on fiscal matters, there is tough and then there is the right kind of experience. Walker has both, and that makes him the better choice."

Now today you are all upset because Walker is about to declare himself our supreme leader by granting to himself the right to veto all state rule-making.  What is it about all these rightist conservative constitutionalists who hate democracy and the Constitution, who when they get into office, are ready to throw out things like separation of powers? Neither the feds nor the states created a governing system that allows the executive to simply overturn work that belongs to the legislature. There's another word for that, and it ain't 'democracy.'

Now you guys knew exactly who Walker is. He derides government and the public sector. He loathes public sector unions. He is a 'business above all other interests' kind of guy. He hates high-speed rail as he takes large campaign contributions from road-building interests.  Business trumps worker rights, including decent wages and benefits as dignified compensation for the labor workers provide to those business interests, whose CEOs are very wealthy.

Over the past 3 decades, wages in the US have been stagnant or in decline. The public sector was one of the few where one could still work for a good wage and benefits. Now politicians like Walker are trying to undermine those workers, too, in part by creating resentment towards those workers among those losing good-paying jobs and benefits in the private sector. For decades we have seen a relentless assault on unions and on worker rights by business interests in league with anti-labor politicians.

As Kohler, Mercury Marine, and Harley Davidson made clear (and I worked on issues like these for many years in DC before returning to my hometown), corporations have been intent on bringing the costs of labor in this country down to the scale of developing countries. With little effect, some US-based unions had the forethought to try to create international labor solidarity to move things in the opposite direction, to bring global wage scales up closer to the West. But corporate lobbyists simply have more resources to get their guys in office. Now watch what happens to labor conditions, environmental policies, quality of life for the working poor, the already vast gap between rich and poor in this state and around the country, as Walker's time in office unfolds, with no push-back from the legislature.

So, good job JS Editorial Board! You endorsed the guy and he turned out to be exactly who we thought he would be. I look forward to your continuing upset over the way in which he does exactly what he set out to do - a power grab intent on gutting the public sector and favoring business interests over those of the people who voted him into office.

From your endorsement: "...there is tough and then there is the right kind of experience. Walker has both, and that makes him the better choice."  Good luck explaining that away!