Carol Lobes: A Bill of Pariculars

Governor Scott Walker and Republican Co-Conspirators’ Blatant, Divisive Actions to Destroy Cooperation and Collective Bargaining in the State of Wisconsin

Carol Lobes breaks it down for us! Pass this along to those family members and neighbors in Wisconsin who didn’t live the last month like many of us did and did not eat, sleep and breathe state politics and might have questions about what is happening in Madison and why. We need more information out there if recall is going to work. I’m continually surprised by conversations I have with people who I think are more informed, but have just been busy with life . . .

1. As the Executive for the County of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Scott Walker illegally fired county employees who served to provide security at various government facilities. These employees were replaced by a private company, Wackenhut, from outside Wisconsin. It turned out that the head of the Wisconsin operation was a felon. After Walker was elected Governor, the courts decreed that the firing of county employees was illegal. As a result, the fired employees had to be brought back and given back pay. Currently Milwaukee County must pay two sets of employees (Wackenhut and the illegally fired County employees) until the Wackenhut contract expires. This is an early example of a reckless attempt to weaken employee rights by Scott Walker. The significant cost to Milwaukee County has been unnecessary and outrageous.

2. Once inaugurated as Wisconsin’s Governor, one of Mr. Walker’s first actions was to award over 130 million dollars in tax breaks to Wisconsin corporations. These “gifts” will go into effect in the 2011-2013 biennial budget year, only adding to the current deficit. These are not the actions of a person concerned about budget deficits. The additional deficits created only further shift the burden to persons with disabilities, poor people, public employees and the middle class.

3. There is in place a short-term budget deficit for the remainder of this fiscal year. It could have been handled without the “Budget Repair Bill” proposed by Governor Walker.

4. Under cover of “the Budget Repair Bill” the Governor also sought to strip all collective bargaining rights from state and local public employees. He claimed that it was fiscally necessary. This argument had no substance because employee unions had agreed to all financial and benefit sacrifices demanded in “the Budget Repair Bill”. Nonetheless, the claim of fiscal necessity continued to be alleged.

5. These massive labor law changes would undo 50 years of public employee collective bargaining in Wisconsin. This proposal was made after the Governor was in office for only one month. He made not one mention of his union-killing intention in any of his campaign appearances or literature. It can clearly be called a radical, stealth intention. Polls show that, by a wide margin, the citizens of Wisconsin do not approve of this initiative by Mr. Walker.

6. The Governor asserted that if “the Budget Repair Bill” did not pass, he would have to immediately lay off more than one thousand state workers. Yet since his election, there has ensued an unprecedented massive retirement of state employees with many more in the process, the need to lay off state employees is clearly unnecessary given the high volume of new vacancies. Employees who took early retirement did it despite the financial penalty they would personally experience out of a fear that they would lose even more. This exodus has weakened state government by an abrupt loss of decades of organizational memory and invaluable skills. The usual adjustments made possible by gradual attrition are not currently happening.

7. The entire process was structured by the Governor and his Republican Senate and Assembly co-conspirators to ram the proposal through. It was announced on a Friday afternoon with the intention to have it passed by the next Tuesday, given majority Republican control of both houses. The Senate Democrats did the only thing they could to stop the juggernaut; they left the state thus denying the Wisconsin Senate the quorum needed for any proposed legislation with fiscal content. This action by Democrats created a time frame in which the citizens could understand, discuss and respond to the radical provisions contained in the bill.

8. The loss of collective bargaining rights for public employees will also cost Wisconsin millions of dollars in U.S. Transportation allocations that are conditioned on employees having the right to collective bargaining.

9. The cost of security for law enforcement can be defined as the money the state must reimburse local governments for police-related personnel from across the state who have been called to Madison to respond to the massive demonstrations that “the Budget Repair bill” has provoked. The current estimate is that it will cost the state $ 4 million to date.

10. When the initial plan to ramrod through the radical provisions in “the Budget Repair Bill” were stymied, there followed a series of highly questionable actions to pressure the absent Democrats to return: financial penalties, reassigning staff, denying copying and other resources needed for constituent response. This also included sending law enforcement personnel to the homes of the absent senators.

11. One of the “reasons” offered by Walker for stripping the rights of local union employees was that this was a critical tool for local and school managers to deal with their budget cuts. This was disputed by many local managers including the Wisconsin Association of School Superintendents. No single example of local support for this provision has been offered.

12. When the response to the proposal was an overwhelming outpouring of citizens coming to the Capitol in unprecedented tens of thousands, other repressive actions were taken. These included denying citizens access to the Capitol- an action that was subsequently overturned by court order.

13. The Governor also revealed his true colors in a taped telephone call in which he thought David Koch, billionaire and a major financial contributor, was on the line. He not only revealed his unprincipled dishonesty, but candidly admitted considering planting agitators among the crowds of protesters. While this option was considered, it was not rejected on ethical grounds, but on the cynical political assessment that it would not work. In the 20 minute conversation, there was not a single mention of concern about the budget – only a clear intention to bring down all public unions and a gross unconcern for public safety.

14. On March 9th, despite ongoing assertions that the collective bargaining provisions were in the budget for a fiscal impact, the Senate took the abrupt and unexplained stance that now, magically, the collective bargaining provisions did not have a fiscal impact. They were therefore stripped from “the Budget Repair Bill” taken to a conference committee, despite the fact that neither house had passed the bill. The stripped provisions were then taken back to the Senate for a vote. This was done in violation of Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law as the Conference Committee was noticed less than 2 hours before it occurred; the law requires at least 24 hours notice.

15. The State Department of Administration, under the Governor’s Cabinet has made two wildly untrue assertions: first that the cost to clean up the Capitol would exceed $7 million dollars; second: that protesters had broken windows to gain access to the Capitol once the illegal vote had been taken on March 9th. Both assertions were patently untrue and had to be retracted.

16. The Governor’s headlong obsession with demolishing public unions has resulted in his failure to fill numerous other appointive positions within state government, creating further chaos and confusion in the government for which he is responsible.

This bill of particulars does not touch the substance of the Governor’s proposed budget which contains even greater provisions to radically shift power to the Governor’s office, thus undoing a critical balance of power needed for healthy and viable government.

We have structured our civil society to protect minority rights from majority tyranny. All people are entitled to basic civil rights, as listed in the Bill of Rights, but also as adopted informally through social contracts over the years. The right to form unions, while given through legal authority, is generally a matter of social contract. It is a way for management and labor to communicate, for each stakeholder to be respected and have a voice in the operations in which both are involved.

The state of Wisconsin is not broke. We do not deny that there are budget deficit issues that must be dealt with. However, they require a thoughtful, balanced response and shared pain. Massive structural changes should not be enacted under the guise of a “budget crisis”. We demand fairness, integrity, and a balance of power with decisions being made for the common good. None of these critical dynamics are evident in the actions taken by the Governor and most Republican legislators to date.

It is also clear that the Governor intends to “privatize” a number of the functions currently done by state employees by these actions. He has already begun this process by the restructuring of the Department of Commerce, giving private business a far greater hand in the operation of that important agency. This kind of restructuring is a major change that should not occur by fiat, but by broad and sweeping public discussion. That is clearly not a democratic value held by Governor Walker.

For the above reasons, the Governor has violated his oath of office to “faithfully discharge” the duties of office. The faith and trust that each citizen can reasonably expect to have in the state’s chief executive officer has been severely betrayed. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor should be expeditiously removed before even more damage can be done to the health and well-being of this state.