Illegal Ban On Collective Bargaining Overturned!

Yes!

Basically, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi said that the Senate vote on March 9 failed to comply with the open meetings law. Such laws are enacted in many states and require adequate notice to the public. Wisconsin law requires at least two hours notice.

Now, they could just go back in, give proper notice, and then pass it again. However, the public is now fully aware that:

1. It was all a big lie. Wisconsin government workers fund 100% of their pensions. So the saving money/cutting pension argument was a complete falsehood by the governor and his cronies.


2. The public woke up and realized that once government workers were denied their rights to unionize, it wasn't a big step to deny union rights to ALL employees, public and private.


3. Recall elections are already pending. Voting on the topic again will add fuel to the fire and that's the last thing those Republicans need right now.

As the Judge wrote, quoting from a previous Wisconsin Supreme Court decision, “The right of the people to monitor the people’s business is one of the core principles of democracy.”

Good job to Judge Sumi! May you "live long and prosper"!

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/us/27wisconsin.html

Goverment Employees = Second Class Citizens

So, that idiot in Wisconsin wants to strip state employees' rights to representation?

I can see the handwriting on the wall on this one.

Basically, the union has already agreed to concessions. But the governor is out to bust the union. All the rest of his posturing is just that, posturing. He's blatantly admitted that his goal is to get the union out.

So, government employees don't have a right to representation?

Wait a minute. So he's saying that if you have a government job, you aren't as good as the next citizen?

I see this as yet another Republican jerk attempting to force the worker bees into a second-class citizen status. When workers are not represented, and not ALLOWED to have representation, then we're taking a huge step backwards. Unions came into being because of the way workers were treated and mistreated.

Without the union, employees could be fired for no reason at all.

Now, before you start commenting, let me set the record straight. Government employees CAN be fired. Oh yes they can! It takes a little longer, but it is done every day and in these tough economic times, trust me, they're getting fired on a regular basis. The difference is that (usually) the employee did something stupid like: didn't follow rules and regulations, broke confidentiality, or just didn't show up for work. Like durrrr, anybody can be fired for these reasons.

And when budget is tight, positions are eliminated. The seniority list is posted and if you're at the bottom, guess what? You get laid off!

Having a government job is not a job for life.

Oh, yeah, and those pension figures that they throw around, those aren't relevant to the worker bees. Most pensions, even in California, average $25,000 a year and many agencies don't pay a nickel toward the medical insurance.

Now the fat cats who are way overpaid already (since when does it make it OK to pay a County's CAO more than the President of the United States?!?), those are the pensions spouted by the anti-employee, anti-union idiots.

So, while the union may be busted in Wisconsin, we don't know yet, don't think that this can happen everywhere. The general public is against this BS. They can read the handwriting on the wall. Once the government employees are forbidden to have unions, forbidden to have representation, forbidden to negotiate, then regular private industry will follow.

And then maybe the underlying agenda will appear -- letting the politicians' fat sticky fingers plunder the pension funds.

Oh, yeah, trust me. This is more than just union busting. This is yet another ploy to steal pensions.

Can you say ENRON?

Yep. Don't be surprised if the governor's next step is to make up some rule, regulation, law, that the government is allowed take the pensions of the worker bees and drop it into the General Fund. And once it's in the General Fund, trust me, it's gone.

"Thieves in the temple."

Just wait and see just how ugly it's going to be.