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14 March, 2011
In the US, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed into law on 11 March legislation that will strip 200,000 state public employees of their collective bargaining rights, as well as target them for deep health-care benefit cuts. The signing comes after a month of fierce citizen protest inside the state’s capitol building in Madison, the likes of which had not been seen in America in decades.
It also came just days after the state’s Republican senators used a secretive and probably illegal legislative manoeuvre to circumvent the necessary 60% quorum to conduct a vote. With Democratic senators taking hiatus out of Wisconsin to block Republicans from pushing through the regressive measures (see prior ICEM article), the majority party removed fiscal items from the legislation so that the bill needed only 50% present. Republicans control the senate in Wisconsin 19-13.
Late in the evening on 9 March, the 19 voted 18-1 to eliminate collective bargaining for public workers, except police and firefighters. This trickery exposed the real truth to Walker and right-wing America’s assault on US trade unions as played out in Wisconsin: the legislation was never about public budget deficits, but rather stripping Wisconsin public-sector employers of their legitimate work rights.
But the manoeuvre appears to have violated Wisconsin’s Open Meeting Law, which requires public notice of a meeting be given “24 hours prior to the commencement of such meeting unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical.” The late 9 March legislative vote was held on two hours notice.
An emergency request for an injunction was immediately filed to block signing, but a judge on 11 March denied the emergency request. A further court hearing will occur this week to stop enactment on a non-emergency basis, and other court action has already been filed.
Labour unions and other public groups have begun recall petition drives to throw Walker and eight Republican legislators out of office. But that could take a year for Walker and ten junior Republicans. In Wisconsin, the recall law states that elected officials must be in office for one year before being recalled. Walker has been governor of Wisconsin only since January.
The law must now be officially and publicly published before it takes effect. If it does, it will make public workers contribute more to their pensions and health coverage, amounting to an 8% pay cut. It also eliminates their right to bargain collectively on anything except wages and only up to the rate of inflation.
Walker’s law makes all public-sector unions recertify each year with the approval of 50% plus one of workers eligible to vote. It stipulates all union fees be paid on a voluntary basis.
Reaction last week by US trade unions was swift and sharp to the midnight raid on workers’ rights. United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard said the attack on workers in Wisconsin is far from isolated. “This is a nation-wide campaign by billionaires and country-club conservatives, to terminate workers’ rights, giving unfettered power to corporations.”
Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President Phil Neuenfeldt
Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President Phil Neuenfeldt said Walker and Republicans “have been lying throughout this entire process and we have been telling the truth.”
Neuenfeldt added: “Republicans have exercised the nuclear option to ram through their bill attacking Wisconsin’s working families in the dark of night. (They) acted in violation of state open meeting laws … and have demonstrated they will do or say anything to pass their extreme agenda that attacks Wisconsin’s working families.”
Similar assaults on unions in America’s statehouses are currently underway in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Nevada.