The Plum Line: The stakes in Wisconsin

[cali]

By Greg Sargent

It's worth stepping back and trying to appreciate how big the stakes have become in Wisconsin for public employees and for organized labor in general.

Union officials say they're investing a surprising amount of energy in trying to defeat the push to strip public employees of their bargaining rights because they view this as a precedent setter for a whole range of other coming battles against anti-labor proposals in other states. If labor can defeat this proposal, it will put other GOP-controlled state governments on notice that if they move forward with similarly aggressive proposals targeting public employees, they can expect to have a massive fight on their hands.

At the same time, there may be bit of a potential downside in turning this into an opening skirmish in a much larger war, one that's now unfolding in the national media spotlight as national unions send operatives into the state. If labor loses after staking so much on this battle, other state governments may feel emboldened about forging forward with their own efforts to weaken municipal unions.

Why is this particular fight such an important precedent-setter? Wisconsin governor Scott Walker insists his proposal is all about fiscal austerity. But as Brian Beutler notes, it actually goes far beyond this: Scaling back the bargaining rights of public workers doesn't save money by itself. It knocks down a barrier in a way that makes cutting into workers' benefits generally easier, and strikes at a core set of rights that labor stands for.

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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/02/the_stakes_in_wisconsin_1.html

[ewagner]

1. Understand this:

This is an existential battle for the unions.

And, by association, it is also an existential battle for the Democratic party

If the unions are disbanded or severely crippled, a major leg of Democratic support is gone and the odds of winning in 2012 or beyond are greatly diminished.

This is a NATIONAL issue and I'm not sure that the Democratic leadership in DC understands how well coordinated this strategy really is.

Wake up before its too late!!!!

[Bandit]

2. But Democrats in Washington will tell you that we have no where else to go..

They feel they can do or not do any damn thing they please because their "people" have no where else to go.. IMO If they won't stand up for their largest group of supporters they won't stand up for any of us.. So what good are they? I suggest we look very hard for new people to represent us.. They don't seem to want to do that..They seem only to want to support money......