And creating emergencies that have to be fixed by draconian measures.
Last night, ReThugs in Wisconsin and Michigan stole democracy. In what is a doubtlessly illegal move, the Wisconsin 'Budget Repair Bill' that guts union powers was stripped of spending issues -- though it wasn't really -- to make it passable without a quorum. In other words, passable despite the fact that all 14 Democratic Senators are out of state to prevent just this.
And then it was passed.
One Republican voted against it.
In the video posted by Buckdog you can hear protesters shouting 'Shame' in the background.
Remember that the unions had already made all the financial concessions called for in the bill. But they wouldn't agree to having their rights fucked with.
Scott Walker, elected governor by 52% of voters, kept saying that the the bill was all about the budget. The people kept saying it was all about union-busting.
Unions called for an emergency rally this morning. The #WIUnion twitter tag is rolling like mad but it's clear that protesters are at the Capitol again. Locked out. State troopers are guarding the doors and riot gear has arrived.
Just now, people are tweeting that cops are dragging out the protesters who managed to get into the assembly area.
You think that's bad?
Over in Michigan -- Michigan for chrissake -- there is practically no opposition to the ReThugs and looky what they passed yesterday.
A day after facing hundreds of rowdy, pro-union protesters that filled the state Capitol, the Senate voted on Wednesday to grant broad new powers to emergency managers who oversee financially struggling cities and schools, including the authority to void union contracts and remove elected officials.
Got that? Remove elected officials.
And just for extra ReThug frothy fun, there are also new taxes on the poor and elderly. And, of course, it strips unions of collective bargaining rights.
Michael Moore was on the Rachel Maddow Show last night.
Watch.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
This is how it starts, folks.
ADDED: Good summary from the Guardian.
4 comments:
Do We Need Labor Unions Anymore?
The short answer is yes.
The view we don’t need unions anymore is a popular one. It is also an uninformed, narrow and incorrect one.
It is unclear as to what specific expertise or fact set you have based your view on. When considering the economic downturn I cannot discern whether you thought about poor product designs, overinflated executive compensation, consumer excesses, or even hordes of dishonest financiers. Inasmuch as you did not comment on these then I trust that you were content to simply contain your focus to trade unions. Always a pity when one does not do even the most basic homework.
Unions, like any other organization, are as good or bad as their leadership and membership. They serve a purpose in our society. Unions bargain for workers as a collective in an effort to bring some sort of fairness to the employer-employee relationship. This is a mechanism to curb management's appetite for excess and to create basic guidelines for employee treatment, as well as recourse when those guidlines are ignored.
One may believe that laws will always take care of us. Sadly, that has not been historically true. One only needs to look at voting rights and civil rights as two examples where the law lagged society by decades. Laws also change and thus cannot be consistently relied upon by workers for protection. That is why workers continue to need unions.
Unions are imperfect but so are corporations. Both will endure this recession and both will likely change in the process.
Unions are a benefit to the lower classess. Upper classes would love to destroy unions as it means more money for them because they can never have enough. Nobody knows why.
http://youth.ofl.ca/index.php/myths/
Huh?
Am I unclear? I support unions.
Well Fern, take heart. Each and every one of these Right wing excesses ratchets up the pressure to trigger a truly seismic, progressive rebound. I'm convinced it is inevitable because actions like those taken in Wisconsin and Michigan destabilize society and that opens eyes. It gives everyone an "Am I Next?" moment. It creates a vacuum of uncertainty which fuels the fires of progressive reform. America is not the "sleeping giant" as so often claimed. The American people are.
Thanks for following this - great post!
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