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Wisconsin governor won't challenge recall signatures

Total BS. The unions had already agreed to Walker's main demands.


Wrong....I understand that you must follow the meme of the progressive line concerning this, but you couldn't be further from the truth here my friend....But I'll save it for a thread concerning this matter...


j-mac
 
What the unions said was that they would agree to his wage and pension demands IF he dropped the effort to abolish their bargaining rights. Obviously he did not accept their offer.

The unions had no intention of agreeing to pension/health care concessions. The leaders, with barely any member support, claimed they would. It was not a real offer and the chances it would have been approved were slim. They were trying to buy time for recall elections to get started. That's all.

This was before Act10 passed:
Walker Renews Calls For Union Concessions - Politics News Story - WISC Madison
"State workers and other public workers aren't about to sacrifice their benefits for some political future of a tyrant," said Marty Beil, executive director of AFSCME, the largest state employee union. "This is all about Scott Walker kind of bringing back, instead of public service, it is public servitude. He's the master of the plantation and we're supposed to be his slaves; that's his philosophy here. So I think he'd be real happy if we were paid minimum wage and had no pension at all."

And, another district's rejection of pension contributions in order to save jobs:

Teachers reject Janesville School Board's offer -- GazetteXtra

The Janesville teachers union has said no to the school board's latest effort to exact economic concessions.

The Janesville Education Association's Representative Assembly on Monday voted not to reopen its contract.

The board on Friday sent a letter with a new proposal: No cuts of teaching positions next year except for enrollment declines if the teachers pay 2.9 percent of their salaries toward their pensions this year and 5.8 percent starting next year.

They were all for pension contributions, until the chance came for them to actually except them... You are free to believe it, but you are being naive.
 
They were all for pension contributions, until the chance came for them to actually except them... You are free to believe it, but you are being naive.

Again, they were for all of the concessions conditioned on Walker agreeing to drop the collective bargaining ban. He did not accept their offer and therefore the offer was withdrawn. It's not a brain teaser.
 
Those done by organizations to the political right and most newspapers (Seattle Times had an interesting study) show that they are typically overpaid.
You mean this one?

Local News | How state workers' pay really stacks up | Seattle Times Newspaper

"In general, private-sector pay is higher than in the public sector, and the higher up the occupational hierarchy the job is, the greater the pay advantage for the private sector," Kearney said.

At lower-level jobs, he said, unionization among government workers operates to raise pay levels, but that advantage dissipates the higher up the job hierarchy one goes, he said.

The median wage for the 2,000 janitors working for the state last year was $13.44 an hour, or $27,955 a year. Their 37,100 nonstate counterparts earned about 6 percent less.

The opposite was true for the state's 1,200 computer-systems analysts. Their median wage last year was $31.47, or $65,463 a year — nothing to sneeze at, but 22 percent below the median for nonstate systems analysts.
 
Again, they were for all of the concessions conditioned on Walker agreeing to drop the collective bargaining ban. He did not accept their offer and therefore the offer was withdrawn. It's not a brain teaser.

It really isn't a brain teaser, but it served it's purpose. fooling people into thinking the unions were the reasonable ones. It failed at the other purpose, to buy time for recall elections

No Concessions Protest Jazzes Up Madison | Labor Notes

Wisconsin showed its lively protest colors March 3 with 7,000 protesters joining a jazz funeral march to the Madison statehouse.

The action challenged not only Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union measures and service cuts but also the concessions offered by public sector union leaders.

The offer seemed a hurried “public relations” response to the governor, made without consulting members.

A no-concessions meeting organized by the National Nurses Union February 27 had drawn 70 attendees and a panel of speakers that included two prominent Madison-area labor leaders, Jim Cavanaugh, president of the South Central Federation of Labor, and J. Eric Cobb, Building Trades Council executive director.
 
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Yes, if you read a bit futher, they did not take into account pension and medical benefits. The part you are quoting was only discussing hourly pay. I never said they were paid more, I said they were over compensated - which includes benefits - even benefits way beyond pension and healthcare.

Now add just pension ad medical into the janitor's or IT guy's salary, and total compenastion is much higher. Include other benefits, and it's higher yet.

The Times did not compare state health-care plans and pensions to the private sector. Such benefits are a major part of total state employee compensation — about 30 percent, on average — but are difficult to put present-day dollar values on and even harder to compare across different employers and job categories.
 
Yes, if you read a bit futher, they did not take into account pension and medical benefits. The part you are quoting was only discussing hourly pay. I never said they were paid more, I said they were over compensated - which includes benefits - even benefits way beyond pension and healthcare.

Now add just pension ad medical into the janitor's or IT guy's salary, and total compenastion is much higher. Include other benefits, and it's higher yet.

As someone mentioned above, there are studies that come out both ways on this -- which suggests to me that the truth is probably in the middle, i.e. they are probably paid pretty fairly relative to the private sector.
 
As someone mentioned above, there are studies that come out both ways on this -- which suggests to me that the truth is probably in the middle, i.e. they are probably paid pretty fairly relative to the private sector.

I'm the "someone". Based on what i've seen of the studies, I tend to trust the ones showing they are over-compensated. I understand there are certainly people that will disagree with me. and some that will just want to split the difference.
 
I'm the "someone". Based on what i've seen of the studies, I tend to trust the ones showing they are over-compensated. I understand there are certainly people that will disagree with me. and some that will just want to split the difference.

Yeah, that's not too surprising given your self-identified lean.
 
Yeah, that's not too surprising given your self-identified lean.

Lean aside, I was able to make up my mind after reviewing all of the data. You jumped to the conclusion that the unions were really accepting the concessions without being too well informed on the topic. Simply taking the words of 2 leaders that their own rank and file called a public relations stunt.
 
Lean aside, I was able to make up my mind after reviewing all of the data. You jumped to the conclusion that the unions were really accepting the concessions without being too well informed on the topic. Simply taking the words of 2 leaders that their own rank and file called a public relations stunt.

Actually I've followed the Wisconsin battle from the very beginning, so I'm basing my opinion on a lot more than the few cites I posted. Not sure what that has to do with how union employees are payed relative to private employees, though.
 
Actually I've followed the Wisconsin battle from the very beginning, so I'm basing my opinion on a lot more than the few cites I posted. Not sure what that has to do with how union employees are payed relative to private employees, though.

My overall point was that an undisclosed lean wasn't really fooling anyone. You made up your mind after only seeing part of the info that confirmed your opinion. You didn't seek out the rest of the story. And if you still beleive the offer was real despite what the rank and file and other big unions leaders were saying, that would pretty well solidify your lean even further.
 
Yes, if you read a bit futher, they did not take into account pension and medical benefits. The part you are quoting was only discussing hourly pay. I never said they were paid more, I said they were over compensated - which includes benefits - even benefits way beyond pension and healthcare.

Now add just pension ad medical into the janitor's or IT guy's salary, and total compenastion is much higher. Include other benefits, and it's higher yet.
I did read it - and I'm sure YOU are much more qualified than the people doing the research on this subject - but just for grins lets highlight what they had to say, anyway.

The Times did not compare state health-care plans and pensions to the private sector. Such benefits are a major part of total state employee compensation — about 30 percent, on average — but are difficult to put present-day dollar values on and even harder to compare across different employers and job categories.
Your obvious assumption is a private sector IT Tech gets less than 8% of their pay in benefits and we both know that's pure crap.
 
Your obvious assumption is a private sector IT Tech gets less than 8% of their pay in benefits and we both know that's pure crap.

Just 401K and health care? Probably not too far from that.

As just a quick example:

Workers in Private sector pay an average of 32.0% of family health care premium.
Health care benefits: Share of premiums paid by employer and employee

And in the public sector (and this is WI, I couldn't find data for Washington) employees pay about 5 percent of the premium - this is something I recall when the debate in WI was ongoing - if you really need proof, I can try to find it.

I'm sure I could do a similar comparison of fully employer funded defined benefit pensions allowing early retirnements vs. employee funded 401Ks.
 
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Just 401K and health care? Probably not too far from that.

As just a quick example:

Workers in Private sector pay an average of 32.0% of family health care premium.
Health care benefits: Share of premiums paid by employer and employee

And in the public sector (and this is WI, I couldn't find data for Washington) employees pay about 5 percent of the premium - this is something I recall when the debate in WI was ongoing - if you really need proof, I can try to find it.

I'm sure I could do a similar comparison of fully employer funded defined benefit pensions allowing early retirnements vs. employee funded 401Ks.
You've already quoted and bolded the 30% in benefits for the public sector and now you want to preach about it, too? Fine - then let's take a closer look at those numbers.

Assuming your private sector IT guy makes $36,000 then the public IT (22% less) makes $28,080. Add on 30% to that for benefits (28080*1.3) and we're at $36,504. Assuming the private sector guys has NO BENEFITS AT ALL then the public sector guy wins by a whopping $42 per month. You can't hardly buy a parking space for that kind of money. I've been through this before with other people who have no real clue about government pay or compensation.

You want to know what government employees get that makes them government employees? (I won't bother to mention the public service aspect of it though it's a big part for many of them.) Public servants get job security, that's what they get - and generally less office politics than the private sector. Compared to the private sector the pay sucks and it always has. The ONLY time the government employees win is where we're at right now, during the hard times because their pay doesn't get reduced, though it's often frozen, and they're less likely to be laid off. THAT's your advantage to being a public servant and it's the only advantage.
 
Assuming your private sector IT guy makes $36,000 then the public IT (22% less) makes $28,080. Add on 30% to that for benefits (28080*1.3) and we're at $36,504. Assuming the private sector guys has NO BENEFITS AT ALL then the public sector guy wins by a whopping $42 per month. You can't hardly buy a parking space for that kind of money. I've been through this before with other people who have no real clue about government pay or compensation.

As I indicatd ealier, the difference is more pronounced for less skilled jobs. So, for example, the government janitor is winning in both wage and benefits, when compared to the private sector.

You want to know what government employees get that makes them government employees? (I won't bother to mention the public service aspect of it though it's a big part for many of them.) Public servants get job security, that's what they get - and generally less office politics than the private sector. Compared to the private sector the pay sucks and it always has. The ONLY time the government employees win is where we're at right now, during the hard times because their pay doesn't get reduced, though it's often frozen, and they're less likely to be laid off. THAT's your advantage to being a public servant and it's the only advantage.

Yes, that is certainly a pretty big benefit, and I alluded to it earlier. Job security is part of the compensation. Being able to retire with defined benefit pension and retiree health insurance in your 50s (rather then 60's in private sector) is also part of the compensation.
 
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My overall point was that an undisclosed lean wasn't really fooling anyone. You made up your mind after only seeing part of the info that confirmed your opinion. You didn't seek out the rest of the story. And if you still beleive the offer was real despite what the rank and file and other big unions leaders were saying, that would pretty well solidify your lean even further.

Well, that is your assertion but it has no basis in fact. As I said, I've followed the story from day one and read a lot that's been written about it from both sides. I don't think there's any doubt that the unions would have accepted the vast majority Walker's austerity demands in exchange for him dropping the attack on collective bargaining. OTOH, it's completely disingenuous to and/or illogical to point to what the unions did after Walker rejected their offer and suggest that they would have done exactly the same thing if he had accepted their offer.

So how do we know that the unions would make good on their promises? We know that because many of the unions actually signed CONTRACTS baking in Walker's demands in advance of his decision. They did so in order to lock in existing labor contract rules.
 
I don't think there's any doubt that the unions would have accepted the vast majority Walker's austerity demands in exchange for him dropping the attack on collective bargaining.

The union members themselves and other big WI union leaders disagreed with your certainty.

So how do we know that the unions would make good on their promises? We know that because many of the unions actually signed CONTRACTS baking in Walker's demands in advance of his decision. They did so in order to lock in existing labor contract rules.

Are you talking about the time between the law being passed but before it was published? Because the union contracts signed prior to Act10 being passed did not include pension contributions - unions were still hopeful they would delay the proposals until recalls.

After Act10 was passed, a bunch of unions wanted to rush through contracts before it was published so they could still have some say. In some of those cases, they agreed to pension contributions because the districts had the upper hand - and wouldn't/couldn't cave - due to the upcoming changes. This wasn't some benevolent act by the unions, they had zero choice in the matter.
 
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The union members themselves and other big WI union leaders disagreed with your certainty.



Are you talking about the time between the law being passed but before it was published? Because the union contracts signed prior to Act10 being passed did not include pension contributions - unions were still hopeful they would delay the proposals until recalls.

After Act10 was passed, a bunch of unions wanted to rush through contracts before it was published so they could still have some say. In some of those cases, they agreed to pension contributions because the districts had the upper hand - and wouldn't/couldn't cave - due to the upcoming changes. This wasn't some benevolent act by the unions, they had zero choice in the matter.

I'm talking about contracts that the unions actually signed that included Walker's pay and pension demands.

More unions agree to concessions ahead of new Wisconsin law

By Nick Rodriguez
22 March 2011

More unions in Wisconsin have agreed to impose concessions on their members in exchange for preserving automatic dues deductions and other interests of the labor bureaucracy before a new law, stripping workers of collective bargaining rights, goes into effect.

Last week Dane County District Court Judge Maryann Sumi issued a temporary restraining order delaying the imposition of the anti-worker law signed by Governor Scott Walker. She said Republicans violated the state’s Open Meetings Law—which requires a 24-hour notice prior to meetings—when they rushed the measure through the Joint Conference Committee of the state legislature on March 9.

A full hearing on the legality of the procedural maneuver by the Republicans is scheduled for Tuesday, March 29. Republicans have appealed Sumi’s restraining order rather than organizing another vote on the bill—this time with proper notice—for fear it would provoke a resumption of the mass protests that rocked the state from mid-February to mid-March.

Trade unions around the state have used the delay to sign contract extensions with school districts and municipalities that include the sharp reductions in take-home pay that Governor Scott Walker has demanded from the state’s 375,000 state and local government employees. By doing so, they have locked in the dues check-off system, which is prohibited under Walker’s law but only when current contracts expire.

City officials in the state capital of Madison announced deals last week with American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 60, the city’s largest union, and other AFSCME bargaining units covering bus drivers and mechanics, Street Division and other laborers, stagehands, building and trades and fire supervisors.

The state’s largest public employee union, Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), which bargains for 98,000 teachers and school employees, has signed similar deals in Madison and school districts across the state.

The concessions contract in Madison will extend labor agreements through March 2014 pending approval by a special meeting of the City Council this week. Under the new agreement wage increases at the end of 2011 and 2012 would drop from three to two percent and remain at three percent in 2013. Additionally, employee contributions to healthcare premiums would increase to six percent in 2013 and further to 12 percent in 2014. Workers will also be compelled to contribute a massive 50 percent of their pension costs beginning next year. Their benefits will also be shifted to something more similar to a 401(k) investment.

These contracts underscore the willingness of the unions to enforce the dictates of the governor and business interests. At no point in the month-long struggle against the bill did the unions oppose the devastating cuts proposed by Walker. On the contrary, AFSCME and WEAC officials announced their willingness to work with the Republican governor to impose the cuts if he would drop his attack on their institutional interests.

The state Democrats who blocked a vote on the bill by fleeing the capitol on February 17 also supported the cuts. Their departure was aimed at forestalling an upheaval by workers and youth—including the thousands that were occupying the state capitol the night of the planned vote by the Republican-controlled state Senate—and create more time to work out a deal to dissipate social anger.

The Democrats repeatedly castigated Walker, saying that under his Democratic predecessor, Governor Jim Doyle, they had imposed the deepest cuts in state history—including pay freezes and furloughs for public employees—by working with the unions.

After AFSCME officials signed the deal, which will save the city an estimated $5.3 million in labor costs in 2012, Madison’s Democratic mayor, Dave Cieslewicz, praised his relationship with the union bureaucracy. “And it proves again, I want to underscore this, that collective bargaining works. This wasn’t the city coming in and saying, ‘AFSCME, take it or leave it.’ This was the union coming to the city saying, ‘We have some ideas on how we can help us all solve the budget problem that Scott Walker is creating,’” Cieslewicz said.

AFSCME Local 60 representative Jennifer McCulley returned the compliment, saying, “We came to the mayor with changes for our contract because we know it is important to work together and negotiate to address the budget challenges we’re facing.”

More unions agree to concessions ahead of new Wisconsin law

Yes, I know it's the "World Socialist" website, but they seem to have the facts right. :)
 
I'm talking about contracts that the unions actually signed that included Walker's pay and pension demands.

Yes, I know it's the "World Socialist" website, but they seem to have the facts right. :)

Yes, that was after the law had been passed but prior to being published. I already addressed that.

Trying to use union's agreement after the law was passed and they had no alternatives and claiming that it proves what they would have done before the law was passed and they still thought they would delay, beat or modify the law doesn't quite work.

Prior to the bill being passed 2 big union leaders verbally claimed they would make the concessions. Many of the actual union members and a couple of other big union leaders said they would not agree to any concessions.

Do you have any examples of unions acepting pension/health care contributions prior to the law being passed? If they were so kind and willing to help out, surely those exist.
 
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The recall election is now inevitable, and it will happen as soon as May 29. This election could go either way, and I am predicting that Walker will survive - barely. However, he will be powerless to foist any more of his extremist agenda onto the people of Wisconsin, as at least one of 4 Senate seats up for grabs will be lost, thus flipping the Senate. And Walker will have more problems ahead, as his advisers and cronies go on trial for theft, election fraud, and even exposing genitals in front of a child.

No matter how Walker's recall election turns out, his extremist dynasty is toast on a stick.

Article is here.
Under those conditions, what public-minded citizen would want to hang onto the position of governor, if it wasn't power for its own sake!
 
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