Here’s the email to alders from Jim Cavanaugh:
At our meeting this past Monday night, Delegates to the South Central Federation of Labor, an umbrella organization for all the labor unions in this part of Wisconsin, voted unanimously to oppose the privatization of any work at the Overture Center which is currently being done by city-employed workers. If Overture’s viability is dependent on privatizing the workforce and no doubt thereby cutting the pay and benefits of the line workers, then Overture’s long term viability is seriously in question.
From a business point of view, even if there are other good reasons for a non-profit entity to run the entertainment side of the operation, it still makes no sense for Overture to create and support the added cost of a personnel, payroll, etc. structure when it could simply contract with the city to continue to provide city employees, hired and managed through the city’s already existing structures.
We strongly urge you to not support any restructuring deal with Overture that in any way diminishes the presence of city-employed workers at the Overture Center.
I wonder how some of the folks who spoke against the labor language at the meeting on the Overture (part 1 and 2) the other night feel about this now? I wonder if they are going to stick with the line that they have to look at the bottom line. I swear, some of these alders don’t even pass for Democrats anymore.
I wish I could wade through all of the stuff — but there’s no way I can keep up with all the meeting notes. So it goes without saying that it’s awesome that you pull all that together Brenda. Any chance you could give us the digest version of what went down?
I’m strongly opposed to privatizing Overture Center jobs — and I was one of those unanimous votes at SCFL the other night. I’m curious as to who on the council is pushing privatization and union-busting. [Let’s call it what it is.]
The info is in the second post
https://www.forwardlookout.com/2010/07/second-half-of-overture-discussion/4255
A brief summary is:
Rummel made motion to remove offensive language.
Clear objected to that being friendly.
Bidar-Sielaff “flip-flopped” in her own words, started against, then supported Rummel
Schumacher didn’t want to balance this on the backs of the workers, supported Rummel
Cnare tried to find a compromise.
Maniaci “needs to see the numbers” to make a decision.
Eagon supported Clear.
And with that, once again, I felt pretty sick. There was compromise language that passed but not before people showed their true intentions. I wasn’t clear where Bruer stood on it and the rest were quiet.