Working people, union or not, better wake up.
It's not enough that manufacturing, production and assembly jobs have gone overseas, now the wealthy pampered elites want to crush the wages of working people.

I suppose they think the dirty people are too well off.

http://www.thenation.com/video/158600/wisconsins-attack-public-employees-could-lead-nationwide-campaign

http://www.theprogressiveprofessor.com/?p=13603

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110104/ts_yblog_thelookout/states-congress-ready-assault-on-labor

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/13/943816/-So-called-Right-to-Work-and-the-assault-on-the-middle-class

http://socialistworker.org/blog/critical-reading/2010/06/08/republicans-and-democrats-atta

If the American workforce drops the ball on this issue I fear our northern republicans going by the name conservatives here in Canada will feel emboldened to follow.
Following is one thing right wingers do very well.

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

You know Robert, there's a very ugly side to your position.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR9LLjfLv3M&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ksLlAi3iIc&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avB_iFEURY4&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdREEcx0-Qc&feature=player_embedded

If big money can weaken the rights of voters, they will do it.
Big money hates democracy.
If it happens in the US of A it will not be long before it comes to the land of the cold and free.
The rights of free men are protected by their right to vote. It was the unions that have made North America the light of the world.

celttooth

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Wisconsin?

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Alaska?
It gets cold there.
celttooth

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Just a little Reaganomics like PATCO.

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Helping the little guy get smaller since 1980... your Republican party

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I've worked in union and non-union jobs.
I've worked in the private and the public sectors.

Funny thing. Everywhere I've worked the people are the same.
The private sector wasn't filled with Superman employees and the public sector isn't filled with lay-abouts.

If public sector employees have better benefits, it's due to the union and the solidarity of the members.
If the private sector has less, it's due to the loss of the culture of solidarity that unions bring to working people.

Anyone spouting the republican/conservative/right wing/neo-con/libertarian points of view is a willing dupe of the overlords in a class war being fought against working people the world over.

If you work for wages. If you work for someone else's enrichment. If you have no input into the conditions you work under, you need a union.
It's the only way that working people have of advancing their best interests.

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

If public sector employees have better benefits, it's due to the union and the solidarity of the members.
If the private sector has less, it's due to the loss of the culture of solidarity that unions bring to working people.

Maybe in Canada. In the USA it is due to Civil Service rules.

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When the public sector, including politicians, realizes that they are not the 'entitled' sector, we may be getting somewhere.
They seem to think there is no end to the benefits they are and should be receiving, and have lost all sight of the fact that they are in fact employees of those in private sector jobs.

In Wisconsin's case, Walker was elected by the majority of voters, based in part on the platform he is now putting forth.
And believe me, we expect him to carry through with it.

And know this also.....the majority that voted him into office FAR outnumber those who are raising such a ruckus right now about having to share the pain that many of us have been enduring for years already.

The UAW in Detroit got away with these tactics for years too. Until they finally drove their employers bankrupt because the wages and benefits the Union greedily demanded whilst times were good could no longer be sustained as the marketplace changed. I would say that the public sector Unions can not be allowed to do this to our state and take everybody else that lives here for the ride with them.

I hope Walker stands firm, and does not buckle in to the special interest Unionized cry babies. The private sector, even the Unionized ones, have been taking the hit for a long time already.

Time to wake up and face reality, folks.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Time to wake up and face reality, folks.

Agreed, and the reality that all Americans must face is that yours is the most business driven society on Earth.
Government policies, both foreign and domestic, are geared to support and enhance the powerful elites who control the corporations.

Unions are demonized by the elites because they give the working people the only real opportunity to challenge that power.
Unions are a force for democracy in the workplace.

Corporations are not structured as a democracy, they are structured after the model of a fascist state. They are a system in which all decisions and all power is held by the very few at the top.

Most of you claim to revere your American freedoms, yet accept the role of subservient peasant in the workplace.
This is not a healthy situation for a country which claims to be the greatest democracy on the planet.

It's citizens, who are indoctrinated into believing in the top down power structure at work will soon come to accept that same behaviour from their government.
If you can't see this happening already, than I fear it's too late to stop it.

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Corporations are not structured as a democracy, they are structured after the model of a fascist state. They are a system in which all decisions and all power is held by the very few at the top.

Funny, I get a proxy from every one of them.

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LOL
Don't let all the power go to your head

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

LOL
Don't let all the power go to your head

Well, I can't out vote the Public Employee Pension Plans, because they are the ones with all the power.

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LOL
Don't let all the power go to your head

Well, I can't out vote the Public Employee Pension Plans, because they are the ones with all the power.

You cannot outvote the board of directors who decides who to put on that ballot to begin with.

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Janice

Franklin D. Roosevelt
112 - Letter on the Resolution of Federation of Federal Employees Against Strikes in Federal Service.
August 16, 1937

Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937


My dear Mr. Steward:

As I am unable to accept your kind invitation to be present on the occasion of the Twentieth Jubilee Convention of the National Federation of Federal Employees, I am taking this method of sending greetings and a message.

Reading your letter of July 14, 1937, I was especially interested in the timeliness of your remark that the manner in which the activities of your organization have been carried on during the past two decades "has been in complete consonance with the best traditions of public employee relationships." Organizations of Government employees have a logical place in Government affairs.

The desire of Government employees for fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions, development of opportunities for advancement, facilities for fair and impartial consideration and review of grievances, and other objectives of a proper employee relations policy, is basically no different from that of employees in private industry. Organization on their part to present their views on such matters is both natural and logical, but meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government.

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that "under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government."

I congratulate the National Federation of Federal Employees the twentieth anniversary of its founding and trust that the convention will, in every way, be successful.

Very sincerely yours,


//signed FDR//






Mr. Luther C. Steward,

President, National Federation of Federal Employees,

10 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C



http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15445

"The desire of Government employees for fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions, development of opportunities for advancement, facilities for fair and impartial consideration and review of grievances, and other objectives of a proper employee relations policy, is basically no different from that of employees in private industry. Organization on their part to present their views on such matters is both natural and logical"

Gee so much to ask for.. better treatment of wage slaves.

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Janice

LOL
Don't let all the power go to your head

Well, I can't out vote the Public Employee Pension Plans, because they are the ones with all the power.

You cannot outvote the board of directors who decides who to put on that ballot to begin with.

Gosh, I see shareholder items on nearly every proxy. Then even win once in a while.

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The taxpayers are working people too. They're tired of sweetheart deals like this while they're losing their houses and jobs and retirement plans in the private sector.

Public workers better wake up...

http://www.hudsonstarobserver.com/event/article/id/96949/publisher_ID/19/