Unions

Remember what Governor Scott Walker said when he eliminated public workers' ability to collectively bargain and be part of a union?

The 7th Cirtcuit Court of Appeals today upheld Wisconsin Act 10, which removed most collective bargaining rights from public employees in the state.  Parts of the act had been declared unconstitutional previously in federal court, but a 3-person panel today re-instated the law in its entirety.

Predictably, both A. G. VanHollen and Governor Walker praised the decision this afternoon while WEAC and other plaintiffs in the case are re-considering their options for appeal.

It is currently not clear what effect this decision may have on the other appeal of the law which is currently workin its way through Wisconsin courts.

Public jobs downWisconsin state employees, if they're represented by a Scott Walker-finagled, "certified" public labor union, and assuming they will ever succeed in getting absolutely everything Walker's "collective bargaining law" allows them, will at best throw away time and money "negotiating" with the GOP authoritarians for an inflation-capped, base-wage increase.

OutrageousWhen you read about some horrendous new decision from the Walker administration,  never overlook the disturbing likelihood that  there sometimes is even more awful stuff going on behind the scenes -- or, in some  cases, nothing going on when it should be. For example:

On Monday, two state employee unions, the  State Professional Education and Information Council and the Wisconsin State Attorneys  Association, filed unfair labor practice complaints with the Wisconsin Employment  Relations Commission (WERC).

The complaint in each case: Gov. Scott Walker has failed to bargain with the unions since he took office 14 months ago -- both before and after he got the Republican-dominated legislature to gut collective bargaining with most public employees, local and state.

Walker's signature measure all but ending meaningful collective bargaining finally was enacted late in June 2011 after court challenges. Since then, say the two unions, the Walker administration has not responded to their repeated requests  for a  bargaining date, even though they succeeded in elections to certify their bargaining status.

One of the most damning aspects of the current Wisconsin Republican majority under Gov. Scott Walker is has been its impatience. The state's GOP leaders have displayed an extreme bias toward moving the law-making progress along at maximum speed. In part they appear to do this in order to neutralize the opposition. In part, too, it may be the GOP's own repressed uncertainty over the effiicacy of its policies. Better to act before you think things all the way through, than admit or just realize that your ideological stance is at best questionable.

EsenbergMilwaukee lawyer, law professor and conservative pundit Rick Esenberg apparently didn't get the memo from Politifact that Gov. Scott Walker raised taxes.

Esenberg is an adjunct professor of law at Marquette University who also writes regularly as a guest columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, home of Politifact.

In an extended interview today with WUWM-FM, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's public radio station, Esenberg repeated the frequent conservative canard that Walker this year balanced the state's two-year budget without raising taxes. Moreover, Esenberg said, Walker did it without cutting services.

Of course, neither is true. Not only did the Walker budget, as approved by the legislature, represent the biggest state budget in history, it did include tax increases. Not on corporations or the wealthy, two interests that obtained tax cuts, but on low and middle income Wisconsin residents. Here's the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Politifact column, coincidentally also appearing today and weighing in once again on that subject:

When last we met, it was to discuss a Big Idea that the Obama Administration might apply to get some job creation going, despite a difficult Congress; the Big Idea was to look at the “Buy American” provisions that exist in our laws, regulations, and Executive Orders and see if we could practice a bit of “jobs arbitrage” by not just meeting the “Made in USA” requirements when governments across this country make purchases, but exceeding them.

(As it stands today, pretty much any “good or service” with more than 50% Made in USA content qualifies as a Made in USA purchase, even if 49% of the “good or service” comes from somewhere else).

At the time, I told you that if all went well we could look forward to comments from both Labor and the Administration as to the practicality of the Big Idea, and as it turns out I have comments for you that hit close to that mark – and a bit more besides:

On Saturday I just happened to bump into Congressman Adam Smith (WA-09); in the course of that conversation I told him what we’re doing here, and he wanted to offer a few thoughts of his own…and when you put all that together, I think we’re going to have a lot to talk about.

Edward Fallone on the Marquette Law School blog:

For doing her job, Judge Maryann Sumi has been subjected to specious attacks on her character and competence. Every sitting judge in Wisconsin must be watching this case with great interest. Every judge in the state has to be wondering, ”Will I be subjected to the same attacks, simply if I get assigned a case that requires the two political branches to comply with the rule of law ?”

As a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin, I am an officer of the court. I commend Judge Sumi for doing her job, for staying focused on the issues before her, and for ignoring the personal attacks and distractions that have been directed her way. She has done her job, and done it well. Now the focus turns to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.