latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wisconsin-unions-20110218,0,5074043.story
Wisconsin in near-chaos over anti-union bill
Protesters swarm Wisconsin's Capitol and Democratic lawmakers flee the state
to stall the new Republican governor's anti-union bill.
By Dan Hinkel and Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times
February 18, 2011
Wisconsin was in political limbo, if not chaos, on Thursday as more than
20,000 protesters swarmed the state Capitol to denounce the new Republican
governor's plan to strip collective bargaining rights from most public-sector
unions, and Democratic lawmakers fled the state, denying the GOP majority the
quorum it needed to pass the bill.
Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill
has sparked days of demonstrations and is one of a number of attempts by newly
elected Republicans to strike at public-sector unions, one of the pillars of the
Democratic Party.
Conservative analysts have long contended that
excessively powerful unions representing teachers, welfare workers and other
state and local employees have boosted pay and pensions across the country,
laying the groundwork for the nation's fiscal crisis.
The biggest crowds
of the week squeezed into the Capitol on Thursday, shouting down the state
Senate president as he tried to start the session. Thousands more gathered
outside, their cries echoing off the building's stone walls well into Thursday
night. During the day, 15 school districts in the state closed because teachers
were at the protests.
Before the expected vote on Walker's proposal, all
14 Democratic senators fled, leaving Republicans one senator short of a quorum.
The Senate adjourned without debating the bill.
Demonstrators agreed that
cuts were required but argued that Walker was going too far.
"This is
disgusting," said union ironworker Sean Collins of Waunakee. "Everybody in
Wisconsin should be scared, because if the unions go down, everybody else's
standards will go down."
Walker defended his proposal at a news
conference in Madison, as demonstrators watching a live feed in the Capitol
chanted, "Re-call Wal-ker!"
"These are bold political moves we are
talking about today, but they're modest, modest requests," Walker said, calling
for Democrats to end their "stunt" and return to work. "What we're talking about
here is ultimately about balancing our budget."
But observers said
Walker's proposals went beyond immediate cost savings.
"What's going on
in Wisconsin is not simply an attempt to adjust the benefits or co-pays or
health plans," said Theda Skocpol, a political science professor at Harvard
University. "It's an attempt to bust the unions."
Republicans are hoping
to emulate Walker's actions across the Rust Belt. In Ohio on Thursday, a state
hearing was held on a proposed Wisconsin-style law that is backed by the state's
new governor. That drew about 1,800 protesters.
Similar measures are
making their way through legislatures in Iowa and Michigan — all union
strongholds, but also states where Republicans seized the governorships and both
houses of each legislature in last year's election.
In 1959, Wisconsin
was the first state in the nation to give all public-sector workers collective
bargaining rights. Many states soon followed, and public-sector union membership
swelled even as the labor movement began to lose workers in the private sector.
Currently, only 12 states deny public workers the right to collective
bargaining, and more workers are unionized in government than in the private
sector.
"If we live in a dynamic global economy where unions have gone
the way of the dinosaur in the private sector, why should we still have unions
in the public sector?" asked Chris Edwards, an economist at the Cato Institute
in Washington. "The issue has been under the radar for some time and these
problems have built up over the years."
To labor groups, the assault is
purely political.
"All across the country, Republican governors and
legislators have almost immediately moved to strip working families of their
rights and eliminate their unions as political payback to their Wall Street and
corporate CEO donors," said Eddie Vale, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO.
In
most states, including California, state legislation is what permits government
workers to bargain collectively for pay raises. It takes a simple change in the
law to remove much of labor unions' clout. (Private-sector workers and federal
employees are governed by federal law, and states cannot deny them the right to
collective bargaining.)
Steve Smith, a spokesman for the California Labor
Federation, noted that it was unlikely that similar steps would be taken in
California, which is controlled by Democrats. But, he noted, Republican
gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman blamed much of the state's fiscal mess on
unions.
"Had she won," Smith said, "we might be looking at a situation
like we have in Wisconsin."
Walker's proposal would not apply to police,
firefighters or state troopers. It would require all other state workers to pay
half their pension costs and 12.6% of their healthcare coverage, shaving an
estimated $330 million off a $3.6-billion deficit. It would also prevent public
workers from receiving raises above the inflation rate unless the increases were
put to a vote. Walker promises no layoffs of public workers should the measure
pass.
He said his office had received 8,000 e-mails, most urging him to
stick to his guns. "The protesters have every right to be heard," Walker said.
"But I'm going to make sure the taxpayers are also heard."
Teachers were
heavily represented in the Capitol demonstration, but their ranks were swollen
by solidarity-minded union workers from the private sector, some in hardhats. In
a distinctively Wisconsin touch, a union electrician passed out
bratwurst.
Protesters carried signs, including one with the slogan
"Impeach Scott Mubarak," an allusion to Egypt's recently unseated leader, Hosni
Mubarak.
Walker's plan is expected to easily pass the state Assembly,
which Republicans control by a wide margin. Their margin in the Senate is
narrower, and a few GOP senators have expressed reservations about the plan. But
everything was turned upside down midday Thursday when the chamber's Democrats
vanished. The Senate's leading Republican asked Capitol police to track down the
lawmakers, but they had already cleared out.
"Senate Democrats took
action today to allow time for the involved parties to work together to balance
the budget," Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller said in a statement. "We
believe, out of respect for our public institutions, the people of Wisconsin and
our long tradition of working together, our fiscal challenges can be met without
taking away workers' rights."
The caucus headed to the Clock Tower
Resort, a hotel and water park just across the state line in Rockford, Ill., but
they scattered from there. Hotel management said the senators left before their
presence would conflict with a scheduled Chocoholic Frolic.
In an
interview with a Wisconsin television station, President Obama raised concerns
about the proposal.
"Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin,
where you're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain,
generally seems like more of an assault on unions," Obama said. "And I think
it's very important for us to understand that public employees, they're our
neighbors, they're our friends."
It was unclear whether anything would
change Friday, with Democrats still in hiding, protesters saying they would stay
the night at the Capitol and Republicans vowing to try again to get the measure
through.
dhinkel@tribune.com
nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com
Hinkel
reported from Madison, Wis., and Riccardi reported from
Denver.
Chicago Tribune reporter Rex W. Huppke in Rockford, Ill.,
contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times