Scott Walker’s economic mess: How worker wages were gutted in Wisconsin

[riversedge]

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


Tuesday, Feb 24, 2015 10:30 AM CST
Scott Walker’s economic mess: How worker wages were gutted in Wisconsin


A depressed workforce. Median household income down. Empty union halls. Here's Scott Walker's real 2016 problem
David Dayen





Scott Walker (Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas)

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.

There are fewer public employees working, too, even though Gov. Walker claimed that the passage of the anti-union law would save jobs. The Wisconsin Budget Project finds that the ratio of public employees to total population is at its lowest level in at least two decades.................

[libodem]

1. Just what they wanted

A nice broken right to work state like Idaho. All the tax breaks for business and all kinds of regressive taxes on the citizens.

[randys1]

2. And there are people terribly harmed by this asshole who cant wait to vote for him again.

They will keep voting for him as long as he nods at them in saying:

"I am like you, I hate Black people too"

"I am like you, I hate Gay people too"

"I am like you, I hate Asian people too"

"I am like you, I hate Muslims too"


etc...America is badly , terribly, horribly broken

[libodem]

3. It's sad that we have to repeat history

Because we can not remember it. Humans have gone daft. Stupid asses.

[randys1]

4. I really believe it is about their shared common feelings about minorities

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." ~
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, 1960, remark to Bill Moyers, "What a Real President Was Like," Washington Post, 13 November 1988

[libodem]

6. No Doubt

Pecking order for people. If there is someone you consider less than yourself it elevates one's status.

People are feeling pretty low if that is the best self esteem booster they can manage. It's pathetic.

Racism has really enjoyed a resurgence in the US. It's a sorry trend. It's sickening.

[Still In Wisconsin]

7. "I am like you...

I hate elitist egghead intellectual University professors too."

That's his latest smash hit.

[uhnope]

5. He will be GOP nominee for president