video of sleeping at the capitol

http://host.madison.com/video/page/?asset_id=65834391&genre_id=9077

Budget Repair Bill Facts

by Middleton Education Association on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 11:09pm

The Budget Repair Bill…What Exactly Does it Say?

1. Public employees would be required to contribute 5.8% of their salaries toward their retirement funds

2. Public employees would be required to pay 12.6% of their health insurance premiums. Actually, that’s how this is publicized. What the document actually says is that public employers can pay a maximum of 87.4% of insurance premiums, which doesn’t require them to pay any.

3. Collectively these concessions would amount to an 8-10% cut in pay for all public employees.

4. The bill repeals the authority of the following groups to collectively bargain:

a. Home health care workers under the Medicaid program

b. Family child care workers

c. University of WI hospital and clinic employees

5. These groups are exempt from any collective bargaining changes:

a. Policemen

b. Firefighters

c. State patrol

6. For all other public employees, including the following, the bill limits collective bargaining to wage negotiation only.

a. Teachers

b. Prison guards

c. DNR employees

d. Social workers

e. Trash collectors

f. Snow removal crews

7. This “wage negotiation”, the only surviving entity to collective bargaining, applies only to base wage negotiations. Total wage increases could not exceed a cap based on the consumer price index , which currently would give public employees a 1% increase in pay.

8. Public employers would not be allowed to offer pay raises above this cap unless approved by referendum.

9. The collective bargaining rights lost:

a. Contracts are limited to one year

b. Wages would be frozen until the new contract is settled

c. Collective bargaining units are required to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union

d. Employers would be prohibited from collecting union dues

e. Members of collective bargaining units would not be required to pay dues

10. If the Governor declares a state of emergency, the bill authorizes the termination of any employees that are absent for three days without approval of the employer. It also authorizes the termination of any employees that participate in an organized action to stop or slow work.

Why Are the Unions of Some Groups Protected?

Walker openly said it is because he knew he might need their services once he unveiled his repair bill. If that is the case, wouldn’t he need prison guards as well? It must just be coincidence that firefighters, policemen, and the state patrol all publicly endorsed Walker in the campaign. The prison guards endorsed Barrett.

Collective Bargaining

1. This is a process of voluntary, respectful negotiations between employers and the union representative(s) of the employees.

2. The agreements regulate the following aspects of employment:

a. Working conditions

b. Wage scales

c. Working hours

d. Training

e. Overtime

3. For teachers this would also include class sizes, prep time, personal days, and course loads.

4. These negotiations result in a contract by which both sides must abide.

5. For teachers in Wisconsin, these negotiations almost always include salary concessions based on the rising cost of insurance.

6. From 1993 to 2009, the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) limited the pay and benefits for K-12 teachers to a combined increase of 3.8%.

7. As rising health insurance costs ate up most of the 3.8%, teacher salaries in Wisconsin have steadily declined when adjusted for inflation. Wisconsin teacher salaries currently rank 24th in the nation.

What the Protest is About

1. Leaders of the AFL have been trying to sit down at the bargaining table with Scott Walker since his swear-in. He has refused every request.

2. The teacher’s union alone offered him $100 million dollars before the bill came out and he turned it down.

3. Since then, we have said over and over and over that we will accept the concessions but we refuse to lose our voice.

4. This is called the “Budget Repair Bill”, what does this have to do with union busting? THAT is the reason the democratic senators left.

5. Some 200,000 peaceful protests have taken place at the capitol in the first 9 days after the release of the bill.

Unions and the Middle Class

The following is an excerpt from an article that sums up what I’ve read from many different sources.

Regardless of your opinion of unions, love them or hate them, the fact is that labor unions created our middle class. The unions established the 40 hour work week, fair pay for a reasonable day’s work, vacations, work place safety and protected our children from child labor abuses.

This is not someone’s opinion; it’s our nation’s history.

It was in 1983 that the numbers of unionized workers began to decrease in our country. At that time about 20 percent of our work force was unionized. Today less than 11 percent is unionized, about half.

During this same period, the salary gap between the CEO and the lowest paid employee of a company widened significantly. In 1983 the average CEO earned 50 times more than the lowest paid employee of the same company.

Today that gap is over 550 times. That means that about half way through the first work day in a year, the CEO of that company has earned more than the lowest paid employee will earn for the entire year.

The recent ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court that allowed businesses to make unlimited, anonymous contributions to our politicians, set the stage for the ultra rich to destroy our unions, and eventually, our middle class.

Paul Carmen

The Division of the People

Scott Walker has very skillfully pitted the private and public employees of our state, when all of us should be concerned with what is going on here. We are no different than they are, together we are the middle class. We are all little people, living paycheck to paycheck. Their anger is directed at the wrong group.

I was in Madison on Saturday, when 70,000 people converged on the Capitol. Some 3,000 of these were pro-Walker demonstrators. Every single one of them talked about the money, they do not seem to understand what this protest is about.

Some of their signs….

“You don’t care about this country! “

“Shame on you and your selfishness!”

“Sorry I couldn’t get here until today, Scott, I was working all week paying for union greed!”

If you look at Walker’s propaganda tactics, it is all about trying to anger the private sector. His television ads say “It’s time they paid just like the rest of us”, and “As a taxpayer, I don’t think they should get away with it anymore!”

Why would Walker continue to air these toxic ads when the unions agreed to the concessions? Why doesn’t he talk about collective bargaining? He uses the money piece because he can incite people with it. Because he wants the private sector to think that while they are all suffering in this recession, public employees are living the high life. It’s a message that is easily translated into, “this is their fault”.

And he is also very careful to always refer to us as public employees. He never uses the words teacher, social worker, firefighter, policeman, nurse, trash collector…all those professions that serve the state.

Scott Walker has YET to answer the question, “What does collective bargaining have to do with repairing the budget?” He doesn’t respond because the answer is unacceptable. With his pending budget cuts, he needs to bust unions in order for schools to stay open.

The Budget Cuts

1. Walker was supposed to unveil his budget plan on Tuesday, Feb. 25, but he has postponed it until the bill is settled. He may still speak about it but will not release any numbers.

2. Some of it has been leaked and we can probably expect at least the following:

a. A decrease in educational funds by $500 per student.

b. The revocation of Title IX funding, which provides for children of poverty and disadvantage. The Milwaukee Public Schools are the recipients of the largest amount of these funds. (If both these cuts take place, the Green Bay Public Schools will be facing a deficit of $18 million)

c. An increase in state university tuition costs by 25%.

3. Fitzgerald, one of the republican senators, when asked if there were any chance that they might reconsider their position responded, “The republicans remain rock solid in support of Walker’s plan. The new budget slashes spending on public schools and municipal services by 1 billion dollars or more. Employers will need to make cuts without bargaining with employees.” That is word for word.

What This Bill Will Do to Education in Wisconsin

1. Although the actual amounts have yet to be revealed, Walker has warned school districts to expect significant cuts. He reasons that they should be able to absorb this loss of funding with the money they save by having teachers pay more of the districts’ costs. Those concessions could save as much as $300 of this per student loss, but the remaining $200 would have to be found elsewhere.

2. The more immediate problem is that many districts have contracts with teachers that extend as long as four years out. How can he drastically cut district funding when districts are still obliged to pay their teachers? They will have no choice but to lay off teachers. Didn’t he say he was doing all this to save jobs and avoid layoffs?

3. Without a union, and without any money, districts could be forced to lay off their most experienced and/or highest educated teachers. They will be forced to increase class sizes, cut courses, cut programs, and eliminate prep time and personal days for teachers. ALL of these result in lower quality education in Wisconsin. This WILL hurt kids.

4. Quality education requires quality teachers. To attract quality people to this profession and to this state, they need to treat teachers fairly and compensate them for their hard work. The hard work they do with the children of our state, and the long hours they put in outside the school day. I doubt there are many teachers outside Wisconsin right now wishing they worked here.

5. The five lowest achieving states on the ACT and SAT are the only five with non-unionized teachers. Wisconsin currently ranks #2.

6. Every citizen of this state should take note that Scott Walker has not uttered a single word about maintaining high quality education in Wisconsin.

Walker’s History in Milwaukee

If Wisconsin citizens learn any lesson from this, it should be to get informed and get involved. This radicalism should be no surprise given the fact that he did exactly the same thing in his previous position.

In Walker’s first term as Milwaukee’s County Executive, he announced layoffs that decimated the county's public parks staff and also reduced the number of county social workers, corrections officers and janitors. As a result, park bathrooms were shuttered and pools were closed. Trash was piled up so high in the Milwaukee County Courthouse that visitors had to sidestep apple cores and coffee cups, and some judges resorted to cleaning toilets, a local newspaper reported.

Rich Abelson, executive director of AFSCME District Council 48, Milwaukee's largest union, said , "The result of his tenure is an absolute devastation of the programs and services in Milwaukee County."

The union filed multiple lawsuits against Walker over the years for unfair labor practices. Those unfair practices included favoritism toward select groups, exactly as he has shown in this bill. He was found guilty of doing so, but he was already elected governor by the time the judgment was made. He is currently appealing that ruling.

Why Other States Would Want to Do the Same

It is no coincidence that the other states who would like to impose this radical change all have Republican governors. Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Tennessee are looking to curtail or even eliminate collective bargaining rights for state and local government workers.

Unions have been the biggest sources of financial and grass roots organizational support for Democrats and have long been a target of business-backed Republicans. Unions are also extremely successful at getting voters to the polls.

Unions were the only liberal groups to make the top 10 list of groups spending money on the 2010 election outside of the more regulated political party system, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Hence the national interest in the events at our Capitol this last week. This has become ground zero for the battle to save union rights. On Sunday, $4 million poured into the state of Wisconsin to support the fight to save our collective voice. In Madison on Saturday the trades union (not targeted in the bill) served free brats to demonstrators all day, volunteering in the cold. A local pizza pub gave away free pizza all night, donated by groups from 30 states and 5 countries, including Egypt, Korea, and Canada.

This is history in the making. What happens here will set the precedent for all other states.

It Isn’t About the Money but Let’s Be Honest, That Hurts

1. Through collective bargaining, the insurance and pension benefits of public employees have been bought and paid for. We have left salaries on every bargaining table to maintain them. Wisconsin needs to pay its debts, no one argues that. But that debt should be absorbed by everyone that lives in Wisconsin. The salaries and benefits of public employees did not cause this deficit.

2. For me personally, this means a salary cut of about $6,000. Gross. I will pay this every year for the rest of my career. And with Walker’s caps on salary increase it will probably take me 10 years to get back to where I am now. If I work another 15 years, I will have contributed $90,000 to Wisconsin’s debt. If I manage to get any raises in there this contribution to the state will be even greater, because those raises will be on a lower base.

3. Still, I will make it. There are others who won’t. I have a friend who is a master’s educated teacher with 10 years of experience. He has 3 small children and his wife stays home to care for them. With this salary cut, their family will qualify for WIC. Well, actually, they would qualify if the IRS recognized this salary reduction. But they won’t see it because we will still earn the same salary, we just have to fork over our “contribution” right off the top. This accounting method also disqualifies families from receiving any reduced income support.

4. Teachers are among the highest paid public employees. However, teachers are the only public employees required to have a four-year college degree. The average cost of a college degree is $20,000 per year. To move up on the pay scale, teachers can earn a master’s degree plus 30 additional graduate credits. Graduate credits usually range between $400 and $800 per credit.

5. To reach the top of the pay scale (in my district), a teacher needs to take 66 graduate credits. A teacher reaching that right now would have spent $113,000 on their education (if we use $500 per graduate credit and graduation in 4 years, both underestimates).

6. Teachers are not the only ones affected. I met a jail receptionist who makes $10.50 an hour, which is already poverty level. Should she be forced to pay down Wisconsin’s debt? I met a social worker who makes $27,000 a year and is a single mother to two children. Should she?

The people who plow our streets, on evenings and weekends and holidays…is there any reason they should be more responsible for Wisconsin’s debt than any private sector employee?

7. This will be a serious financial hardship for tens of thousands of people. Many, many families will lose their homes, guaranteed. But at least Scott Walker will have kept his promise…he did not raise taxes.

Other links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uQ0-ed5IuE8

http://vimeo.com/20277863

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/shep-smith-pretending-wisconsin-is-about-a-fiscal-crisis-is-malarkey/

Video of Madison Rallies

http://vimeo.com/20089255

http://vimeo.com/20168864

High paid teachers

Many different sources for this one, so I'm sorry, I don't know who to credit. Just know, I got it somewhere else!
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I, for one, am sick and tired of those high paid teachers. Their hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year!

It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do...baby-sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's right......I would give them $3.00 dollars an hour and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time. That would be 15 dollars a day.

Each parent should pay 15 dollars a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children!

Now, how many do they teach in a day....maybe 25. Then that's 15 X 25=$375 a day. But remember they only work 180 days a year!

I'm not going to pay them for any vacations. Let's see.. *that's 375x180= $67,500.00 (Hold on, my calculator must need batteries!)

What about those special education teachers or the ones with masters degrees?

Well, we could pay them minimum wage just to be fair. Let's round it off to $6.00 an hour. That would be $6 times 5 hours times 25 children times180 days =$135,000.00 per year.

Wait a minute, there is something wrong here!!!

There sure is, huh????!!!!!!!!!!!!

What if we treated doctors the way we treat teachers?

by Shaun Johnson in The Huffington Post

A good friend and colleague who is now in Chicago first gifted me with this parable. It's been in my thoughts lately as my wife pursues her medical degree. In fact, she and I have talked about this at length, and when making comparisons between how physicians and teachers are treated, she is just as astounded.

Parallels are occasionally noted between medical training and education, especially the capstone clinical experiences present in both professions. Let us pretend that physicians of all specialties were held to similar measures of accountability and enveloped with the same kinds of discourses that we see in education reform debates. What might that look like, and how would the general public, in addition to doctors, feel about that?

It would not take a skilled social scientist to observe that, despite exceptional achievements in treating disease and diagnostic technologies, for example, the medical profession is failing. It has failed in its tasks to disseminate good information about health, quash misconceptions, fight corporations and health lobbies that keep people sick, and prevent high rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, particularly in low-income populations. What do we do about this? Well, I have a few proposals listed in no particular order:

• We must begin to hold all physicians accountable, regardless of specialization, to certain quantifiable measures of health, namely cholesterol levels, blood pressure, weight, and BMI. All patients assigned to a physician must meet specific annual minimum standards of health. Bad doctors will be those who do not meet their patients' annual minimums, and they may be subject to certain penalties if the health scores of their patients do not improve in a reasonable amount of time.

• It will be mandatory for the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as all of the major governing bodies in medicine, to set a goal for reaching universal health and well-being in the United States. That is, a target year will be identified in which every person will achieve the ideal values in cholesterol, blood pressure, and BMI. Future targets may include assessments of mental health. A specific interval of time will also be determined to assess all patients for these values. Although pharmaceuticals may be used to stabilize or improve health outcomes, the patient must not be on any medications at the time of assessment unless approved by an official of the administrative body of the national health assessments.

• Quantifiable variables will be utilized to evaluate all practices and hospitals. All of this information will be made public. Additionally, medical schools will be evaluated based on the quantifiable health of patients in the care of their graduates. Medical schools will subsequently be ranked based on the health outcomes of their graduates' patients regardless of specialty. Given more advanced statistical models, these numbers could ultimately be used to assess the impact of pre-medical programs at the undergraduate level.

• In certain high needs areas, such as family practice, emergency medicine, or in practices in low income areas, alternative routes to being licensed will be provided. Moreover, data will determine what skills are necessary to impart in the curriculum of such programs. For instance, if a certain community prevails in specific medical conditions over others, then time will not be wasted covering rare conditions so that alternative programs can operate expeditiously.

• Barriers to participation will be lowered in certain instances, in the form of direct subsidies or significant tax exemptions, for the opening of small hospitals or short-term care centers by private organizations or motivated members of the community.

• Any hospital or practice is subject to a turnaround plan if minimum health requirements are not met. Should the facility not meet those requirements of minimum annual health, the entire staff will be terminated and reconstituted with more competent practitioners. Moreover, staff may be required to enroll in continuing medical education in advanced and remedial level re-licensing courses, including basic physics, chemistry, and biology.

• In addition to in- or out-of-network information and basic demographics, an online data warehouse will be established that will provide all health data and outcomes for every licensed physician in the United States, regardless of specialty. The individual physician's education, license information, and health outcomes of patients will be listed. Should in-network physicians be deemed unfit for local health care consumers, the Federal government, with matching funds by health providers, will offer subsidies for consumers to see other practitioners.

• Finally, a certain percentage of any and all physicians' patients will be assigned to them, care of those who qualify will be fully covered by providers. This will ensure adequate racial, income, and overall demographic diversity of clientele. The annual minimum health outcome data of these patients will also be included in the physician's overall quality.

Did I miss any? What if we indeed held doctors and other professionals to the same bloat and condescension that we currently hold teachers? I can predict some of the responses that physicians might make: "We can't control what our patients do or eat outside of our offices to maintain minimum levels of health. Also, these variables -- BMI, cholesterol, blood pressure -- are limited and don't adequately measure a healthy person. And one other thing, you can't expect us to be evaluated based on all patients equally, regardless of family history, poverty, and other complications." As an educator, my sentiments exactly!

And then they came for me...

These were the words written on a protest sign at the Capitol Building in Madison, WI one day this week. They rang a bell for me, but I wasn't quite sure why that was. So I did a little research.

These words are attributed to a man named Pastor Martin Niemoller, and were written soon after World War II. Pastor Niemoller served in the German army during WWI. He began as a supporter of the Nazi party, but eventually spoke up against them. He opposed Hitler and was sent to Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. After the war, Pastor Niemoller became a leader in the Evangelical Church in Germany and in the World Peace Movement.

These are his words:

"They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was Protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

I want to thank my former high school teacher, and I'm sorry I can't remember which one, who referenced these words. You made me think then and I have remembered still some twenty years later.

So Wisconsinites, I ask you to "speak up." Exercise your First Amendment rights to practice free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition your government for a redress of grievances. Three of the Five Freedoms in one shot. Forward Wisconsin.

One response to my email

Rep. Hulsey is not my representative, but he has some great points.

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Dear Friend,

I’m writing today to tell you that I share your opposition to the provisions within Governor Walker’s “budget repair” bill that would destroy a 50 year tradition of state support for the rights of working people and families in our state.

This action is beyond radical – it’s a step backward that amounts to an attack on all Wisconsin’s working families. This isn’t the way we do things in Wisconsin. We have always worked out our differences by sitting down together and reaching a reasonable compromise. Beyond that, this is being sold as a budget repair bill, but it has nothing to do with Wisconsin’s budget, and everything to do with punishing people that Governor Walker sees as his political opponents and destroying their rights.

The time for us to take action against this legislation is limited. Here’s what we can do together:

• The State Assembly will reconvene on Tuesday to consider the bill on the floor. Show up and shake the foundations of this building with your opposition as we debate the power hungry GOP representatives on the floor of the Assembly.

• Contact friends, relatives, and supporters of collective bargaining rights around the state, and urge them to contact their Republican representatives. If you know anyone in Appleton or Neenah (Senator Ellis), the LaCrosse area (Senator Kapanke), the Hudson area (Senator Harsdorf), the Ripon area (Senator Olsen), Waupun or Beaver Dam (Senate Majority Leader Fitzgerald), Platteville or Dodgeville (Senator Schultz), Sheboygan or Manitowoc (Senator Leibham), the Green Bay area (Senator Cowles), Fond du Lac or Oshkosh (Senator Hopper), communication from the constituents of these Senators would be especially helpful. You can find contact information on the Legislature’s website at

http://legis.wi.gov/.

• Protests continue at the state capitol building, including musical performances on Monday and major rallies every day until the people of our state are heard by this Governor.

Again, thank you for contacting me regarding this urgently important issue. You have my assurance that I will do everything possible to oppose this ridiculous overreach by the Governor. I hope you will do the same.

Sincerely,

Brett Hulsey

State Representative

77th Assembly District

My buget email

Dear Senators,

Please take the opportunity to rethink your vote on Governor Walker's budget proposal. This is not a decision to made lightly or quickly. This decision needs to be made after each legislator has exercised due deliberation and due diligence. Neither can be achieved with the speed that this bill is being pushed through the legislature.

Everyone in the state understands that this is a tough economy. We all know that monetary concessions will need to be made, but they should be made by ALL people in the state not just some of them. We also need to consider monetary and policy points separately. Removing collective bargaining except for wages is not the type of item that should be included in a budget bill. We need to protect the many gains that have been made in our great state in the past, and stand by the rights that people have fought and died for.

Please take the time to fully examine this bill, remove the non-monetary issues, protect the right to collectively bargain, and sit down with all involved parties to find a solution. We can work together to make things better, but the key word is together. Without bringing all involved parties to the table, no good will come from this legislation.

Sincerely,

Julie J.

Thank you!

In Loco Parentis

In Loco Parentis: “Why aren’t the teachers doing their jobs today?”

by Jon Hawkins on Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 8:54am

Today all public schools in Madison, Wisconsin, are closed. No services provided. A “sick-in” has been declared as part of a protest against Governor Scott Walker and his move to unilaterally dissolve all collective bargaining (i.e. “unions”) for state workers. Our union released a statement explaining that we are doing this for our kids.

I know some people--people I care about and respect--will disagree with what we’re doing. Some will say we serve kids best by staying in the classroom. Some that they don’t like or can’t stand by unions. But here’s why so many of us have made the decision we have.

“In loco parentis.” Latin for, “In the place of the parent.” That’s my job. It is my duty to be the parent for every *single* child who walks through the door of my school. It is my job to see to their safety, welfare, and health. *Every* child, without exception, and it is my union contract that allows me to do this. It makes sure that I can speak and act as a parent (even if only a substitute parent) needs to, and I can’t simply be shuffled off or fired because doing so is inconvenient for the people above me.

I have taught the children of politicians, principals, and district administrators and never once had to back down from what was right and true. Because they can’t fire me. If I feel that a teacher in my building is shoving a student into a special education ghetto, I can speak up against it publicly and force the district to abide by the rules. And they can’t fire me. I can be active in local politics, fighting to make sure that my students’ rights are being protected, no matter what pressure is brought against the district. And they can’t fire me. I can speak truth at a PTO meeting, telling the parents what they need to know about how their children are being educated. And they can’t fire me. I can go toe-to-toe with my principal to ensure that all kids are being treated fairly and getting the services they are entitled to. And they can’t fire me. I can disagree publicly, and loudly, with my superintendent about what should be done in our schools to best serve our kids, and not back down until the right thing is done. And they can’t fire me, because it is my *job* and my contract makes sure I can do it. “In loco parentis.”

My union contract protects my job in times of conflict, and Governor Walker wants to make that go away.

Two months and one week ago my wife gave birth to the most beautiful child that has ever existed. He is happy and healthy and wonderful and the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. No doubts.

Now, a question... If I have to choose between *your* child’s welfare and *my* child’s welfare--between doing my duty and having a job--which am I going to choose? No doubts.

Teachers’ working conditions are children’s learning conditions. Your teachers’ protections are your child’s protections.

I hope this helps explain why we’re doing what we’re doing, and I hope you’ll help explain it to others.

Wisconsin. Forward.