The old so-called Wisconsin Idea was that government would collaborate with experts drawn from the state’s university system to craft progressive legislation. The new Wisconsin Idea is that the state is broke.
Gov. Scott Walker is bringing austerity to the intellectual breadbasket of American progressivism, and seeks to break the grip of the public-sector unions in a state that had a large hand in empowering them. His effort could become a national model for recalibrating the relationship of state governments to the unions that are bankrupting them.
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To attempt this anywhere brings yelps of outrage. To do it in Wisconsin, practically the inventor of liberalism as we know it, adds insult to injury. It’s a little like heaping abuse on the Kennedys in Massachusetts, or telling Texans to forget about the Alamo.
Wisconsin faces a $3.6 billion budget shortfall over the next two years. Walker’s first move is a bill to address an immediate $137 million hole by, among other things, requiring most public workers to pay half their pension costs (up from zero) and 12.6 percent of their health-care costs (up from about 6 percent). The bill also curtails the institutional advantages that have fueled public-sector union power, including collective bargaining.
Early in the 20th century, Wisconsin was the self-conscious vanguard of progressivism. In keeping with this role, in 1959 it became the first state to allow collective bargaining for public employees. It was one of the first states to have a statewide teachers’ union. Christian Schneider of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute notes that an acrimonious teacher strike in the tiny town of Hortonville in 1974 radicalized the union and won more liberal collective-bargaining rules for public employees.
After Hortonville, according to Schneider, teacher pay and benefits and education spending all markedly increased. These trends have been basically immune to economic conditions. In the latest recession, public-sector employment in the state increased while private-sector employment shrank. In the current straits, Governor Walker wants to halt the inexorable upward climb.
The unions have reacted with their usual class and public-spiritedness. Teachers in Madison have staged a sickout, and brought their students with them to demonstrations at the state capitol. The lecturing that has clouded the nation’s airwaves for weeks about the need for civility is apparently lost on the protesters. They carry signs comparing Walker to Hitler, putting a target on his face, and denouncing him as a dictator. A Washington Post writer penned a column — picking up a slur from the governor’s opponents — suggesting Walker is America’s answer to Hosni Mubarak.
This savagery has been directed at a governor who invariably says the state has “good, hardworking, decent employees.” But he’s frank that the state can’t continue to give its employees free and cut-rate benefits. “I don’t have anything to negotiate,” Walker said the other day, not by way of bravado, but in a flat statement of penury.
Walker’s reforms, though, go beyond the immediate bottom line. They are aimed at curtailing the power of public-sector unions that feast on the circularity of their relationship with government. The unions work to elect politicians, then sit across a bargaining table from them — and, lo and behold, get what they want.
Walker supports denying public employees — with the exception of police and firemen — the ability to engage in collective bargaining over anything but wages. This would make it harder for unions to boost compensation with ever-more-generous benefits that, in the near term, don’t seem to cost anything. And he wants to end the practice of the state deducting union dues from the paychecks of its employees. Unions would have to collect dues themselves, and state employees might opt not to pay dues at all. Walker, in short, wants Wisconsin to stop participating in a conspiracy to fleece itself.
According to the The MacIver Institute the budget crisis has nothing to do with unions or collective bargaining: "Agency overspending in medical assistance, the Public Defender’s Office, and in the Department of Corrections is the chief reason for the current shortfall. Making matters worse, moving forward into the next biennial budget, agency requests will outpace expected tax revenue by $3.6 billion."
How much do teachers in Wisconsin make? Are they living a comfortable middle class life which Americans by and large would consider the fulfillment of the American Dream? Or are they rolling in dough, buying jewelry and deciding on which cruise to take?
Should a teacher earn what a McDonald's fry cook is paid? A sanitation worker? A corporate lawyer?
I have no idea what the answers to these questions are. I just want to get some idea of what the real issue is here. If nobody except hedge fund managers can live a decent life anymore, if we only have enough money to pay everyone basically the same package as hotel night clerks at the Courtyard By Marriott or something like that, then the problem isn't that union workers are paid too much, it's that we're not the American Dream nation we used to be.
Saying "let the market set wages" is fine, but what if the result of the market is that the top 2% has a great life and everyone else fights a losing battle to make ends meet?
I am much more confident that a workable solution will be arrived at since Mr. Obama has ordered the minions of OFA to WI to help out the simpletons running the unions out there. This will obviously help the situation come to a quick and aquitable resolution.
Thanks Mr. President for all you do. While your administration may not exactly be the most transparent in history, you are certainly becoming much more so.
The circularity is the problem that invalidates the rationale for a public union; it is a circular firing squad for taxpayers..thanks for the article Rich.
@MikeB: Although I don't agree with your overall premise (I live in a very affluent area and I don't know a single "hedge fund mgr") I am willing to indulge. Assuming you are correct in your concern - having a growing % of public-union employees sucking ever increasing tax funds from everyone else is simply not the answer to your "American Dream" dilema. Both from a moral standpoint (why should I work to age 70 so that a public union employee can retire at 55) and from a political standpoint (having a large % of voters bought and payed for) is not good for democracy. Add to this the exponentially growing unfunded liability dam that is going to burst down the road and a catastrophe is looming that will make the American dream look like a luxurious dream.
NJ Gov. Chris Christie had it right: if teachers think they are underpaid, they should find another job.
Why should I pay higher taxes so teachers whose income is higher than my own can have health care and pension benefits that I (and no one in the private sector) enjoy?
The average salary for a teacher in Madison Wisconsin is $51,745 and that puts them ahead of retail store manager for one and about equal to registered Nurse. Their benefits however are very generous and that is the crux of problem here. The salaries are held down to reasonable levels but the benefits explode. If a couple were both teachers and earned exactly average their household would earn over a $100,000 per year not too bad.
The main issue here is that government employee union hire their own boss this is not healthy.
I don't think the modest changes that the Gov. of Wis. is proposing seem very reasonable. I don't think teachers will be starving in the streets and I am sure Registered nurses in Madison Wisconsin would love to have the Summer off.
Anyway since google seems beyond you MikeB here is the link: External Link
You can shop around the site for comparisons if you would like.
They make a comfortable living, and the current propositions ask them to contribute a small additional amount to their insurance premiums and something to their pension, which is defined benefit, not defined contribution, and changes some of the negotiation rules. These are modest changes which would by no means reduce them to fry cookdom. For this Walker is being compared to Hitler et al.
Some years ago, Tommy Thompson had a budget shortfall. He offered the teachers' union this: You can accept a smaller raise next year (not no raise) or we'll have to let some of the teachers go. Since they were able to calculate exactly who would be let go because of seniority, it's a no-brainer what the union voted for, and new teachers said bye-bye.
I was a teacher in a private school in WI, as was my father for 35 years. We managed to provide a good education to our students at a much lower cost than public schools.
I'm confident Gov Walker will address overspending in the Public Defender's office, as well as the DOC.
The voters of Wisconsin did the impossible--they turned over the governor's office and their legislature in a single election. So where are those who supported this? I'm not seeing many standing with Governor Walker...or are the good people of Wisconsin busy working at their Monday-Friday non-public union jobs and not being rallied and bullied into attending these protests? Perhaps the weekend will bring more supporters out?
Oh, and "Quit Blaming the Unions", your MacIver Institute must surely have their Obama blinders on too...if they are not seeing pensions and benefits of public sector as another inequity of today's world that has begun to spin out of control and must be reeled back in.
A serious debate about the appropriateness of public sector unions can not be held in one week (or four days as the Governor might have hoped for). It is simply not good governance just like a health care reform apparently needed time to digest, debate and amend. Rich, be honest and at least call out Governor Walker on this charade of "reform." This is absolute union busting and it's being done in days, hours really. The progressives in Wisconsin did not improve the lives of ALL working people (through our role in the development of unemployment insurance, Social Security) overnight. Why should Conservatives be allowed to tear it down so quickly? Is it because they know that it's not what their so-called mandate provided for.
Is $600,00 too much?
Don't believe me? External Link
How about 198 teachers and administrators making over $200,000?
Sorry public empoyee unions, the barn door is open and it is over for you.
The most recent report I could find on teacher's salaries in Wisconsin was an NEA report that listed the average teacher salary in Wisconsin in 2009 at just under $57,000 a year.
The same report listed the average salary for all workers in Wisconsin as just over $37,000 a year.
I live in Wisconsin. It's not the cheapest place to live, but I know a a lot of people making much less than $57,000 a year that are definitely in the middle class here. I don't make much more than that myself and do not have a pension fund (other than a 401K) and I pay $2,000 a year for a high deductible medical insurance plan (doesn't pay anything until I meet my $1,800 a year deductible and then only pays 80%).
I enjoy what I do. No complaints about my income and I'd gladly cough up 5.8% of what I'm currently making for a cushy pension plan. (Had a pension plan at one time, but my employer was bought and the new owner doesn't offer a pension plan. Wasn't happy about it, but again, I enjoy what I do and was happy to keep my job.)
Here is an answer to MikeB's question. (See how it is done MikeB? You ask a question and people answer it directly. BTW, do we have to tie your shoes for you? This took all of 2 minutes to find by searching.)
"Currently, teachers can retire at 57 after 30 years of experience and receive annual pension payments equal to 48% of their top pay, in addition to Social Security and other annuity benefits, WASB staff counsel Barry Forbes said."
Assuming an annual salary of $51000 at time of retirement and further assuming the individual lives for an additional 20 years the pension amount is $489600.
This amount does not include Social Security or medical benefits which these retirees are also allowed to collect.
It is worth noting the teachers contribute essentially nothing to their retirement. I have read (somewhere, the reference escapes me) that the amount is something around $1 of contribution by the teacher for every $54 contributed by the taxpayers.
These benefits are out of all proportion to the free market and an abomination.
This fight is more serious than people seem to realize. What is happening here is the fundamental fight over whether the Mandarins in the government work for the taxpayers or the taxpayers work for the government.
If these states lose this fight the people will be powerless to control their governments and we, the taxpayers, will be slaves.
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