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Recall Of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Appears Inevitable

A recall of controversial Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker now appear inevitable. In just 28 days, activists collected 507,533 signatures. Organizers have until January 17 to collect 540,208 signatures, which is equal to 25% of the state’s 2010 general election turnout. To be safe, recall advocates have set a new goal of 720,277 signatures by the deadline.

The recall efforts success has propted the Scott Walker’s campaign to take aggressive action to invalidate signatures. Walker sued his own Government Accountability Board, arguing the proceedures adopted by the board to review signatures aren’t agressive enough. Without citing any concrete evidence, Walker alleged to Fox News that there was massive fraud in the signature gathering effort. The case is still pending.

Nevertheless, Walker has changed his tone in recent days and acknowleged making mistakes in pursuing his an anti-union effort in his first few days in office. Walker told the LaCross Tribune that “that he’s made mistakes in how he’s gone about achieving his agenda” and “he regretted not having done a better job of selling his changes to state government.” Walker also said he regretted his statements on a phone call with a man pretending to be billionaire David Koch. He said his comments on the call, where he referred to his plan to undermine collective bargaining as “dropping a bomb” and admitted he considered planting troublemakers among the protesters, were “stupid.”

Assuming the final signatures are collected and verified, a recall election is expected in the late-Spring or Summer.

 

By: Judd Legum, Think Progress, December 31, 2011

January 2, 2012 Posted by | Collective Bargaining, Democracy, GOP | , , , , , | 1 Comment

“A Partisan Morass”: Crippling The Right To Organize

Unless something changes in Washington, American workers will, on New Year’s Day, effectively lose their right to be represented by a union. Two of the five seats on the National Labor Relations Board, which protects collective bargaining, are vacant, and on Dec. 31, the term of Craig Becker, a labor lawyer whom President Obama named to the board last year through a recess appointment, will expire. Without a quorum, the Supreme Court ruled last year, the board cannot decide cases.

What would this mean?

Workers illegally fired for union organizing won’t be reinstated with back pay. Employers will be able to get away with interfering with union elections. Perhaps most important, employers won’t have to recognize unions despite a majority vote by workers. Without the board to enforce labor law, most companies will not voluntarily deal with unions.

If this nightmare comes to pass, it will represent the culmination of three decades of Republican resistance to the board — an unwillingness to recognize the fundamental right of workers to band together, if they wish, to seek better pay and working conditions. But Mr. Obama is also partly to blame; in trying to install partisan stalwarts on the board, as his predecessors did, he is all but guaranteeing that the impasse will continue. On Wednesday, he announced his intention to nominate two pro-union lawyers to the board, though there is no realistic chance that either can gain Senate confirmation anytime soon.

For decades after its creation in 1935, the board was a relatively fair arbiter between labor and capital. It has protected workers’ right to organize by, among other things, overseeing elections that decide on union representation. Employers may not engage in unfair labor practices, like intimidating organizers and discriminating against union members. Unions are prohibited, too, from doing things like improperly pressuring workers to join.

The system began to run into trouble in the 1970s. Employers found loopholes that enabled them to delay the board’s administrative proceedings, sometimes for years. Reforms intended to speed up the board’s resolution of disputes have repeatedly foundered in Congress.

The precipitous decline of organized labor — principally a result of economic forces, not legal ones — cemented unions’ dependence on the board, despite its imperfections. Meanwhile, business interests, represented by an increasingly conservative Republican Party, became more assertive in fighting unions.

The board became dysfunctional. Traditionally, members were career civil servants or distinguished lawyers and academics from across the country. But starting in the Reagan era, the board’s composition began to tilt toward Washington insiders like former Congressional staff members and former lobbyists.

Starting with a compromise that allowed my confirmation in 1994, the board’s members and general counsel have been nominated in groups. In contrast to the old system, the new “batching” meant that nominees were named as a package acceptable to both parties. As a result, the board came to be filled with rigid ideologues. Some didn’t even have a background in labor law.

Under President George W. Bush, the board all but stopped using its discretion to obtain court orders against employers before the board’s own, convoluted, administrative process was completed — a power that, used fairly, is a crucial protection for workers. In 2007, in what has been called the September Massacre, the board issued rulings that made it easier for employers to block union organizing and harder for illegally fired employees to collect back pay. Democratic senators then blocked Mr. Bush from making recess appointments to the board, as President Bill Clinton had done. For 27 months, until March 2010, the board operated with only two members; in June 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that it needed at least three to issue decisions.

Under Mr. Obama, the board has begun to take enforcement more seriously, by pursuing the court orders that the board under Mr. Bush had abandoned. Sadly, though, the board has also been plagued by unnecessary controversy. In April, the acting general counsel issued a complaint over Boeing’s decision to build airplanes at a nonunion plant in South Carolina, following a dispute with Boeing machinists in Washington State. Although the complaint was dropped last week after the machinists reached a new contract agreement with Boeing, the controversy reignited Republican threats to cut financing for the board.

In my view, the complaint against Boeing was legally flawed, but the threats to cut the board’s budget represent unacceptable political interference. The shenanigans continue: last month, before the board tentatively approved new proposals that would expedite unionization elections, the sole Republican member threatened to resign, which would have again deprived the board of a quorum.

Mr. Obama needs to make this an election-year issue; if the board goes dark in January, he should draw attention to Congressional obstructionism during the campaign and defend the board’s role in protecting employees and employers. A new vision for labor-management cooperation must include not only a more powerful board, but also a less partisan one, with members who are independent and neutral experts. Otherwise, the partisan morass will continue, and American workers will suffer.

 

By: William B. Gould, Op_Ed Columnist, The New York Times, December 16, 2011

December 18, 2011 Posted by | Collective Bargaining, Election 2012 | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Biggest Loser: The New, New Mitt Romney

The new, new Mitt Romney has been doing everything he can to fit in. But on Tuesday, he faced a big setback: he found out that he had been trying too hard to fit in with the wrong crowd.

Mitt was having a hard time figuring out which side to pick in two statewide referendums that pit the most extreme interests of the Republican party against the common sense interests of American voters. In Ohio, he endorsed a bill that took a sledgehammer to workers’ rights, then couldn’t decide if he would oppose its repeal, then finally decided he was for the anti-worker bill all along.  On Tuesday, Ohio voters killed the bill by a whopping 61-39 percent margin.

The former governor performed an almost unbelievable flip-flop on a proposed referendum in Mississippi, which would have defined “personhood” as beginning at the moment of fertilization — thereby banning not only all abortions regardless of circumstances, but also hormonal birth control, in vitro fertilization and the treatment of ectopic pregnancies. Asked about such “personhood” bills by Mike Huckabee, Romney said he “absolutely” supported them. Asked by a participant at a town hall meeting whether he really supported banning hormonal birth control, Romney hedged the question. Finally, the day after Mississippi resoundingly rejected the restrictive amendment, surprise! Romney’s campaign came out to clarify that he was on the side of the majority after all, that he had never supported personhood, and thought these decisions should be left up to the states anyway.

Got that? Pick the one of those three positions that work best for you.

The GOP’s radical shift to the right in recent years has caused Mitt Romney to do whatever it takes to get with the right Right crowd. In his endless quest for electability, Romney has followed Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and the rest of the Radical GOP off a cliff — and appears not to have noticed that the rest of America has stayed behind.

What Romney might not have counted on is that American voters, unlike him, know when a line has been crossed. While the GOP establishment steadfastly supported Ohio’s anti-worker law, voters rejected the policy across party lines. Protecting the fundamental right to collective bargaining wasn’t a partisan issue — it was an issue of core values.

Similarly, Mississippi voters rejected the “personhood” amendment by a decisive 16-point margin. Banning birth control and life-saving procedures for pregnant women was a line that Romney easily crossed, but it is one which voters in one of the most conservative states in the nation would not.

Romney must have felt a similar unpleasant jolt when voters in Arizona unseated state senate president Russell Pearce, the author of the state’s devastating anti-immigrant reforms. Whoops — Mitt Romney had already moved his position on immigration to the right of Rick Perry.

We can only expect that Romney will keep radically reversing all of his earlier positions on every important issue. That is until it is time to start changing them back again for the general election. Is anyone, no matter what their politics, going to buy that?

By: Michael B. Keegan, President, People For The American Way, Published in The Huffington Post, November 10, 2011

November 11, 2011 Posted by | Collective Bargaining | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Wisconsin GOP Stumbles In Effort To Rig Recalls

Republican efforts to inoculate themselves against recall hit a snag Monday when a moderate Republican announced his opposition to a plan that would permit recalls to happen in newly-drawn partisan districts.

Senator Mary Lazich introduced two bills on Friday that opponents say will rig recall elections in favor of Republicans. Democrats plan to start collecting signatures on November 15 to recall Governor Scott Walker, as well as state Senators who voted in favor of collective bargaining limits. Lazich’s bills are the latest in a series of moves by Wisconsin Republicans to change the recall election rules in their favor.

Redistricting and Recalls

One of the Lazich bills would have required that recalls be conducted in the new legislative boundaries re-drawn in this year’s partisan redistricting process. The law enacting the redistricting map says the new boundaries are not to take effect until November 2012, and the state elections board had determined the recall elections would take place in the old districts.

Lazich’s bill would overturn the election board’s determination and make the new maps effective next week, making a recall more difficult by putting GOP Senators in the much safer districts they created for themselves earlier this year. It would also put the maps into effect before two legal challenges to the new boundaries were resolved.

According to Jay Heck of Common Cause Wisconsin, holding recall elections along the new boundaries would be “terribly confusing,” with “voters unsure about whether they are eligible to vote in their district, which could deter voters from turning out.”

It also would have put some voters into the position of recalling a Senator they never elected in the first place, and preventing other voters from recalling the Senator that they put in office.

“I’m not going to vote for [Lazich’s bill] because the people who sent me to Madison are the ones who should decide whether I ought to be recalled or not,” said Senator Dale Schultz (R-Richmond Center). “I’m not interested in further adding confusion by changing the rules.”

With Republicans holding only a one-vote Senate majority, Schultz’ vote against Lazich’s bill means that it will not pass (assuming all Democrats oppose it). Senate Republicans held a 19-14 majority until recall elections this summer removed two Republicans from office, narrowing the GOP majority to 17-16. In March, Schultz voted against Governor Walker’s controversial Act 10 limiting collective bargaining rights, but under the Senate makeup at the time, his opposition was not enough to keep the bill from becoming law.

For some, the fact that extreme Republican bills can no longer be steamrolled through the legislature is proof that last summer’s recall elections were effective.

Notary Requirement for Recall Petitions

Another Lazich proposal introduced Friday and originally scheduled for a vote Tuesday (but delayed until Wednesday) would add an additional layer of process by requiring that each page of recall petitions be notarized. Organizers need over 540,000 signatures to recall Walker, and with up to ten signatures per page, more than 54,000 pages will need notarization. Lazich said the bill would bring “a little more accountability” for recall signature gatherers, but Common Cause’s Heck says the bill “assumes Wisconsin citizens are dishonest” and is intended “to result in fewer recall signatures.”

Scot Ross of the liberal One Wisconsin Now says of the last-minute bill that “if Mary Lazich thought recall signature notarization was such an issue, she had the last 20 years of her undistinguished career as a state legislator to do something about it,” pointing out that Lazich did not introduce bills to change recall election rules when Republicans threatened to recall former Democratic Governor Jim Doyle or Democratic U.S. Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold.

Additionally, the notary bill may be unconstitutional. Article XIII, Section 12 of the Wisconsin Constitution deals with recalls, and sub-section (7) states:

Laws may be enacted to facilitate its operation but no law shall be enacted to hamper, restrict or impair the right of recall.

Other Recall Rigging

These bills are part of a larger GOP effort to control the way elections and recalls are conducted.

Lazich, a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), also introduced the ALEC-inspired voter ID legislation that will make it significantly more difficult for students, people of color, and the elderly to vote in Wisconsin.

In late September, Republican lawmakers announced they would give Governor Walker authority to reverse two elections policies developed by the non-partisan Government Accountability Board.

One policy would have allowed voters to access a form online, print their recall petition, sign it, then send it to the group coordinating recalls. It would have made it easier for those collecting recall petitions because the groups would not have to gather the signatures face-to-face and door-to-door.

The other would have permitted universities to put stickers on student ID cards that could then be used for voting. Wisconsin’s new voter ID law permits the use of student IDs for voting, but only if the ID includes certain information not currently on any of the student IDs issued in the state. The sticker would have allowed student IDs to meet the necessary criteria, and made it easier for students to participate in recall votes.

The Republican-led Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, led by ALEC member Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) and Rep. Jim Ott (R-Mequon), told the Board these matters should not have been adopted as “policies,” but instead as administrative rules, which require the approval of Governor Walker. Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) told Republicans that, by giving Walker veto power over the rules that govern his recall, “you have given the governor control of the chicken coop.”

The elections board backed down in response to pressure from Republicans, leading to accusations the non-partisan board had become politicized.

Even without these efforts, Governor Walker and state Republicans already have an advantage in the recall elections. A loophole in campaign law allows for unlimited funding and spending during the recall signature-gathering period. These additional efforts by the GOP to change election rules in their favor suggest that Walker and his party are taking the recall threat seriously.

By: Brendan Fischer, Center For Media and Democracy, November 2, 2011

November 3, 2011 Posted by | Collective Bargaining | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Michigan Unions And Poor Face 85 Hostile Laws

An “emergency manager” bill allowing a state-appointed executive to unilaterally fire city councils and school boards and cancel union contracts has drawn the ire of Michigan’s labor movement for months. Resistance to the measure, including rallies of a few thousand and a promising repeal effort, have united elements of the state’s labor movement.

The emergency manager law is just the beginning, however. Eighty-five bills now under consideration start from the view that Michigan’s economic problems are the fault of public employees and the poor, rather than driven by a merciless recession and the auto industry’s contraction.

TEACHERS IN CROSSHAIRS

While teachers relaxed over the summer, legislators attacked their tenure and seniority. School boards can now fire teachers for any reason during the first five years of employment. Districts have the power to fire tenured teachers for any reason, not only for “just cause.” Administrators also gained discretion over teacher layoffs and placement, based not on seniority but on “effectiveness.”

Another bill, introduced in October, would make dues checkoff illegal for teacher unions with more than 50,000 members, which means the Michigan Education Association.

MEA drew criticism from lawmakers in April for asking local affiliates whether enough support existed for a strike.

Public employees who use work email for union or political business are threatened with a thousand-dollar fine and a year in prison, under a bill moving through committees. Its author says the law would be enforced by workers reporting on each other.

A school privatization package would rescind the cap on charter schools. Another bill would take away domestic partner benefits for public employees, including those in union contracts.

Unions have staged several rallies, but look to Democrats to stem the tide.

The MEA issued a commercial and website titled “Stand up for kids, not CEOs,” that resembles a 2012 election ad. “It’s time we teach these Republican politicians a lesson,” declares the ad. Seven Democrats, however, voted for the provision facilitating teacher layoffs.

Attacks on workers and the poor go further than legislation. Michigan’s civil service has shrunk by 11,000 employees since 2001, and more devastating cuts to the social safety net are on the way.

Eleven thousand Michigan families will soon be cut off cash assistance, and a recent court ruling jeopardized heating subsidies for low-income households, just in time for winter.

A privatization effort in Grand Rapids has drawn scrutiny from veterans and public employee unions. Hundreds of workers at a state-run veterans’ home are being replaced by underpaid, undertrained contractors. Reports of incompetence and maltreatment are rolling in, and court hearings are scheduled.

Meanwhile, the emergency managers, appointed by the state to run cities and school districts operating in the red, continue to wreak havoc. In Ecorse, near Detroit, the manager forced 60 percent of firefighters to part-time schedules. They lost benefits and nearly half their pay with one day’s notice.

While two ambulances sat in the firehouse collecting dust, an emergency medical contractor took over.

Members of Firefighters Local 684 described an excruciating wait at the scene of a head injury, hearing the siren of the contractor’s ambulance as it searched up and down nearby streets for the location.

“They were holding the guy’s head together with a towel,” said President Scott Douglas. The contractor took more than 20 minutes to arrive. “I still don’t know if the guy made it.”

CIVIL RIGHTS LESSONS

There are signs of progress.

“We’re able to pull together in ways that we haven’t seen in a non-election year,” said Greg Bowens, AFSCME Council 25 spokesperson. Public employee unions entered joint negotiations with the state for the first time.

Community organizations and unions have come together to gather signatures for a fall 2012 referendum on repealing the emergency manager law.

Clergy in Detroit are organizing, too, holding three marches at the governor’s Detroit office ahead of October 1, when the new budget went into effect.

Pastor David Bullock of the Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church in Highland Park is pulling together an anti-poverty summit. Bullock intends to go beyond lobbying to bring lessons from the civil rights movement to the 21st century.

“We lost the point of protesting,” Bullock said. “It’s to disrupt power centers and to challenge them directly.”

By: Evan Rohar, Labor Notes, October 26, 2011

October 31, 2011 Posted by | Collective Bargaining, Conservatives | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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