Wisconsin bill allows state to fire any employee who joins a strike, walk-out, sit-in or sickout

[somone]

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/03/wisconsin-walker-union-republican-senate-budget-bill

Wisconsin GOP Bill Allows State to Fire Employees for Strikes, Walk-Outs
— By Andy Kroll

On Wednesday night, Republicans in Wisconsin's state senate rammed through a retooled version of Governor Scott Walker's controversial "budget repair bill" with the 14 senate Democrats still in hiding in Illinois. The senate bill eliminates collective bargaining rights for most public-sector unions, a provision that has labor leaders and protesters up in arms. But there's another explosive provision in the bill that's received little attention: The bill authorizes state officials to fire any state employee who joins a strike, walk-out, sit-in, or coordinated effort to call in sick.

According to an analysis of the Senate bill by Wisconsin's Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB), the legislation gives state officials the power to fire workers during a "state of emergency" declared by the governor under several conditions. If a state employee misses three working days without an approved leave of absence, that's grounds for being fired. State workers can also be dumped if, according to the LFB's analysis, they participate in a "strike, work stoppage, sit-down, stay-in, slowdown, or other concerted activities to interrupt the operations or services of state government, including mass resignations or sick calls."

The implications of this under-the-radar provision are significant. After the state senate passed its bill, talks swirled of organizing a coordinated strike or walk-out to protest the bill's attack on collective bargaining. In the state Capitol, chants of "general strike!" broke out among protesters stuck outside the building. On Wednesday night, Madison Firefighters union president Joe Conway said he's "in total agreement" with the idea of a general strike. "We should start walking out tomorrow and the next day, and see how long they can last," Conway said. Under this measure, if such protests occur, Walker could declare a state of emergency, and protesting workers could be canned...

The bill's provision giving state officials the power to fire workers for striking or walking out isn't entirely new. It was included in Walker's original "budget repair bill" but received little attention amidst the controversy of the collective bargaining ban and Walker's perceived threat to use the National Guard against protesting workers...
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[Snoutport]

1. sickening

corporate America just bought off a hell of a lot of civil rights.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. Call their bluff

They believe no one on the left will defy them, stand up to them. The teachers will go to their classrooms just like every other day. Each will be afraid to be the "only" one protesting. Same with cops and firefighters, the clerks in the city hall, the janitors in the courthouse. they've never really developed the true solidarity, the willingness to take risks, that it takes to effect change.

The workers need to call the aristos' bluff.

[Freddie Stubbs]

4. Easy to suggest when it isn't your job on the line

[MineralMan]

6. The reality is that everyone's job is on the line with this bill.

Sometimes, you have to take the risk as a group and insist that your job NOT be on the line by law. Yes, everyone's worried about losing his or her job, but the whole idea of collective bargaining is that the employer CANNOT replace everyone. That's impossible. If ALL the firefighters or police or teachers walk off, replacement isn't an option. It's an impossibility. That's the power of organized labor. That's why it works.

[FBaggins]

10. No they aren't.

That's just hyperbole. It's fine for political debate, but that doesn't make it so.

Even after this bill, WI public employees will have more collective bargaining rights than millions of federal employees and many (most?) state employees in other states that already lack such rights.

It's an attack on the unions and it sucks, but it isn't the end of the world... particularly if the public outcry ends up having substantial long-term political benefits (as it very well might).

There's nothing in here that can't be undone at the ballot box if the people are with us.

[Tansy_Gold]

9. You just made my point for me, Freddie

The teachers and firefighters and cops and janitors all have jobs and they are more concerned about keeping those jobs today than about what might happen to those jobs tomorrow. They will most likely go along to get along, and if that means pay cuts and loss of pensions and loss of collective bargaining rights and higher insurance premiums and longer hours and no tenure and no overtime and no right to strike and gag orders on political campaigning and forced contributions to incumbents' political campaigns -- they will do it. they will do it to protect their jobs as long as they have jobs.

They will not stand up until it is too late, until the jobs are gone or the pay reduced to poverty and the unions destroyed. Then, maybe, they will rise up and it will not be pretty, because this is how it happened in France and Russia and China and Mexico. The aristos do not go easily, and they have all the power in their hands.


Do you think Scott Wanker is afraid of the unions? Of course he's not. He has no reason to be afraid of them. They were virtually powerless before he took office, and they are even more powerless now. The protestors occupied the capitol for almost three weeks and nothing changed. Not a fucking thing.

Do you remember the story of the Exodus from Egypt? Not the 10 Commandments that came at the end of the Exodus, but the whole "Let my people go" part of the story? How God, through Moses, rained down all the plagues on Egypt and "hardened Pharoah's heart" against the Hebrews? And there were plagues of frogs and boils and the rivers ran with blood and Egypt was pretty messed up. But Pharoah didn't give a shit because none of it affected him. So what if the peasants lost their crops to locusts? There was plenty stored in the granaries for Pharoah, and if the peasants starved, so what? "Don't bother me none," said Pharoah.

But then it hit home. Pharoah's beloved son died of the last plague, and the Hebrews were allowed to leave.

Wanker, like Pharoah, doesn't give a rat's ass if the peasant kids go to school or not. He doesn't give a rat's ass if whole neighborhoods of Milwaukee or Madison or Kenosha or Racine or Fond du Lac or Union Grove or Spooner or Minong or Hayward burn to the ground because the firefighters are staging a sit down and they all got fired. WANKER DOESN'T CARE.

And he and the rest of his royal household won't care unless and until the issues are brought home to them.


Tansy Gold, the socialist atheist who knows at least a little bit about the Bible as parable.


(edit to correct spelling of governor's name)

[FBaggins]

11. +1 n/t

[KansDem]

3. You might as well go and work for company owned by the Koch Bros!

...oh, wait...that's what they want.

[Snoutport]

15. you mean public ed ?

it feels like the public schools are slated to be the next big Koch money maker!

[rdking647]

5. loophole

the governor would have to declare a state of emergency . that soe cant last more than 60 days. the soe has do be because of a disaster or immenient threat of a disaster. in addition it says interrupt the service of state government.. alot of these are provided by local governemts not state government.

[Morning Dew]

7. I kinda like the idea of being fired for resigning.

Typical Puke asshattery.

[iamtechus]

8. They want an excuse to fire union employees en mass

The air traffic controllers were stupid enough to grant Reagan his wish when he was able to fire them all with a stroke of the pen. Wisconsin workers shouldn't fall for this. They can accomplish so much more by staying on the job and pouring their energies into legal challenges and the recalls.

[1776Forever]

12. Hmmm sounds like MI - they are all on the same playbook it seems:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x594395

[Skip_In_Boulder]

13. And that would give Scottie the opportunity to privatize all

of these state jobs which is after all what his real goal is. This could get to be a real tough battle.

[ladjf]

14. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck then it is a duck.

This is the clear blueprint of a dictatorship. nt