Scott Walker's economic mess: How Workers wages were gutted in Wisconsin

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http://www.salon.com/2015/02/24/scott_walkers_economic_mess_how_worker_wages_were_gutted_in_wisconsin/




I was in Wisconsin for the labor uprising of 2011. Faced with the threat from newly elected Gov. Scott Walker of eviscerated collective bargaining protections, unions and their allies brought hundreds of thousands of workers into the streets in protest. They fought like their lives depended on it. Four years later, we now know that they did.

The Washington Post returned to Wisconsin this past weekend to empty union halls and a depressed workforce. The public employee union law – which barred contract negotiations on everything but base wages and limited annual salary increases to the rate of inflation, forced most unions to collect their own dues rather than having them deducted automatically by the state and mandated annual recertification of affiliates – has been more successful than even its supporters hoped.

In the state where public employee unions got their start, public workers see no need to stay enrolled, since unions cannot by law effectively advocate on their behalf. Membership in the Wisconsin affiliate of the National Education Association is down one-third; the American Federation of Teachers dropped by one-half; the state employees union fell 70 percent.