With the recent political targeting of worker’s unions in Wisconsin, it’s evident that the GOP’s battle plan is ramping up. Unions are being attacked under the guise of cutting bloated salaries by people like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, but this has very little to do with budgets and salaries. This is about union destruction.
In Wisconsin the union has conceded to Governor Walker’s fake budgetary concerns, but as of this time the governor has refused to sign off on any bill that doesn’t take away the union’s collective bargaining rights. He has also indicated that he has no intention of negotiating. The union’s bargaining rights have absolutely no effect on the budget. What Walker and his Republican constituents want is to put a strangle hold on Democratic power. Unions typically support Democratic candidates while corporations typically support Republican candidates. If a union doesn’t have any bargaining power then it’s virtually useless. If you destroy a union then you eliminate another obstacle during election season.
We’re now seeing this political tactic take place in other states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, where Republicans are using public policy for partisan causes. In Tennessee, Republican lawmakers have proposed a bill that would reverse the 1978 law that gave teachers the right to bargain through a union. “It’s time all teachers have a seat at the table and not let unions speak for them,” said State Senator Jack Johnson. “Everything must pass through the funnel of the hyper-partisan, politically charged union, whose primary objective is preservation of the union and its power.” The last part is ironic considering that Johnson’s bill is based on preserving GOP power, as is this entire political scheme.
The Tennessee Education Association is planning a protest march on March 5 starting at the Bicentennial Mall. In yet another paradoxical move, The Tennessee Tea Party is planning a countermarch on the same day to protest the protestors. Apparently, in the Tea Party bizzaro world unions are a big government problem, which is exactly why they want the government to step in and create a bill regulating another group who is independent from the government. In the Tea Party’s press release, they state that “It is time for fiscally responsible and free market principals to be adopted into the bloated education system.” As a side note, most businesses within the free market fail.
According to Gallup polling, roughly half of Americans say that they approve of labor unions. The approval ratings have been dropping for the last few years, and this can be attributed to the steady economic downturn. Many Americans are looking for a scapegoat for businesses failing and moving out of the country, and union labor is an easy target. It’s easy to take for granted everything that unions have helped to give to the American worker, whether it’s better wages or overtime pay. Most Americans have no firsthand knowledge of a struggle for worker’s rights. A common thought is that unions are a thing of the past. If that’s true, then the American people apparently have a growing faith in the empathy of major corporations or maybe even faith in that big government that Republicans appear to hate so much. What they are failing to see is that if you take away a worker’s power, that power doesn’t disappear. You’re handing it back to the people who already wield the bulk of the power.
