By Michael Meranze
Updated Below: (1), (2), (3) (4)
The Labor and Protest actions continue in full force in Wisconsin. On Friday the 18th, a reported 40,000 people crammed themselves in and around the capitol in Madison to oppose Governor Scott Walker's efforts not only to roll back the wages and benefits of public workers but to deny them collective bargaining rights. Unionists, teachers, students, allies, and even professors from the University of Wisconsin have converged on the capitol to demand that the Republicans back down from their plans.
Walker claims that he is being forced to cut worker pay and benefits due to budget deficits this year and anticipated over the next several years. But as with other budget deficits it is debatable how much union contracts have actually contributed to the actual deficit. Walker and the Republicans had no problem in passing new corporate tax breaks in a special session--breaks that will increase the deficit by millions over the next several years. Union leaders (and Wisconsin Democrats) have made it clear that they are willing to sit down with the Governor to negotiate cutbacks in the interest of the state's overall heal. No, the real issue here is the attack on collective bargaining. Walker and Wisconsin's Republicans are using their control of both the executive and legislative branches to destroy the ability of Wisconsin's public workers to negotiate on their own behalf.
If Wisconsin is in the news--in part because of the opposition it has generated--it is not alone. Walker is only one of a series of new breed Republican governors who are deploying their political power to use the Great Recession as an opportunity to destroy public sector unions. Governors in New Jersey, Ohio, and elsewhere have made attacks on unions--especially public sector unions--their main political tactic and strategy. Jeb Bush and New Gingrich are actively campaigning to change the rules for state bankruptcy explicitly to destroy worker pensions and benefits. The decades long Republican campaign (with the assistance of the DLC wing of the Democratic Party) to destroy unions may be reaching its climax.
In part, the Republicans see their opportunity because of the long-term decline in private sector unionization, the decline in real wages and earnings for most Americans, and the extreme distress brought on in the Great Recession. The labor movement as it exists today has its greatest strength in the public sector. If the Republicans are able to leverage popular resentment toward public sector workers into a successful destruction of their collective bargaining rights, what little resistance to the power of corporations and the growth of inequality in the country will disappear.
If the developments in Wisconsin seem far afield from higher education in California they are not. Had Meg Whitman been elected last fall we would be witnessing a similar effort (and we may yet through the initiative). But more broadly the attack on collective bargaining rights for public workers is an attack on the public sector, indeed on the idea of shared public good itself. As these fights are fought in Wisconsin they will shape our future as well; if they are lost they will simply embolden the opponents of the public sector elsewhere--including in California.
But the efforts to defend worker's rights in Wisconsin should not be overlooked. The Republican efforts have provoked a popular and wide reaction. What is striking is that the opposition has not been limited to the workers affected by Walker's attacks. Instead, activists have brought together an alliance of people who are seeing beyond their normal sectoral interests in defending a larger vision of the public good and basic equity in society. They suggest one possible path for articulating a rejuvenated public that might push back against the efforts to remake society into a series of gated communities surrounded by a mass of disposable laborers.
As we move ahead we need to try to think of ways to learn from that.
There is a petition circulating for Scholars in support of Collective Bargaining in Wisconsin. You can find it here.
Update: Bob Samuels has posted a first-person account from a UC-AFT member at Changing Universities.
Update 2: Eric Foner has offered a historical commentary on the situation in Wisconsin in the LRB Blog.
Update 3: A View from the University of Wisconsin.
Update 4: Walker's Latest Move.
Today's Election May Be Close
8 hours ago
16 comments:
Thanks posting about this important development.
I completely agree that we should be watching Wisconsin and other states closely. The size of the protests is really something new in public reaction to the Great Recession. It will be interesting to see how/whether the scale of these protests will happen in other states like Ohio. If so, we're into something new.
In terms of lessons for faculty: our colleagues in Madison are providing a good model of how we should be standing side by side with other public workers to defend public services and the human rights of public sector unions. Faculty cannot address the university budget crisis in a bubble. Our fate is completely tied to that of other public workers and the services they provide (at the university and beyond).
30,000 demonstrators occupy the seat of Wisconsin government. The Koch Brothers financed Republican Party nationwide plans to end government, end our society as we know it. American demonstrators, set-up a parallel state government and develop a program to fully fund the needs of the People of Wisconsin.
For example, that brilliant, magnanimous politician Newt Gingrich recommended state bankruptcies to balance budgets. So we begin now with immediate suspension of debt service for the duration of the economic crisis caused by Wall Street speculation.
Please fellow Americans, begin a list here and elsewhere of practical and effective government and economic solutions, so that we the People can self-govern in the fashion of the American Democracy Jefferson, Madison, and their colleagues intended and established and expected to last for centuries.
The alternative is not just slavery under Republican Party autocracy, but violent extermination by starvation and lack of medical care. We fight a deadly internal enemy for our very physical survival, for our children and grandchildren, and future Americans, even our civilization.
Free Market profiteers and tax cheats caused this fiscal crisis. They plan and speak of horrible death of millions from starvation, disease and illness--the FINAL SOLUTION to the world depression. Fiscal discipline.
Are we, like Jefferson, Madison, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and so many others in 1776, not prepared to defeat the autocracy that threatens us, and self-govern.
Begin now my fellow Americans in Madison to end Republican Party tyranny. You are the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, the Boston and Concord and Lexington Patriots.
We are all democrats, not slaves, not plutocrats. Begin self-government, by citizen councils, town hall meetings in every Wisconsin city, town, neighborhood, every school, hospital, business, government. Etc. Reach out to all unions and blue collar and white collar employees, police, National Guard, etc. Unify with students and parents. Unite all Americans for our common interests in defending our lives, our Democracy and our Constitution from internal traitors and tyrants. Keep a narrow interest protest only, you will lose. Now and forever.
Occupy Madison, but organize state wide.
And set-up correspondence committees, including with other states' and federal demonstrators.
This was the organizing method of Sam Adams, the leader of the Tea Party, and the Revolution of 1775!
Courage, confidence. We are the future, by knowing our past, our glorious past 236 years ago.
People are getting a true look at what conservative governing means in real time. Support from around the world has been pouring in, showing that others care about this fight. Finally, don't forget that Wisconsin has the right of recall. There is no way Scott Walker can avoid this in January, especially if this goes on any longer.
Thanks for the support. As a former UC Librarian now at UW, I think we are all closer to this eventuality than we know. Firefighters, police, and private unions are standing with us because this is such an important fight. It's incredibly sad that such hardworking people are being pushed out of the (vanishing) middle class.
Thank you Michael for making clear the importance of solidarity in protecting the interests of working and middle class Americans. It is also important to understand that the WI unions have made the financial concessions, 8% pay cuts, but that they won't budge on having collective bargaining undermined.
The problem is not workers' rights. The problem is that unions are pitted against tuition and program closures, which is a useless, no-win fight for public universities.
Gerry--
I literally don't follow the point you are making. Are you saying that the issue in Wisconsin is not that the Republicans are trying to destroy the rights of public workers to bargain collectively? In Wisconsin it is a problem of workers' rights to defend their interest. It is not only about universities.
Michael--
Whatever one's feelings for unions, the fact of the fight in Wisconsin--not the positions--is a disaster for public higher ed. Taking sides in the fight has little to do with the matter for public universities.
If the unions "win" then UWisc will have what it needs to demand independence to set its own tuition--meaning, to screw students rather than address other matters, such as administrative bloat or losing money on research--or, what they really should be doing--re-engaging the public in support for public universities. The travesty is that it is the university administrations demanding the right to raise tuition. It's like they have a deal with the state governments to do this.
There is no winning position as it's laid out in the present fight in Wisconsin. "Solidarity" with the "workers" means double down and "screw the students". Solidarity with conservatives attacking the unions is no better. Solidarity on either position in Wisconsin does not mean anything self-evidently good for public universities, whatever other value one attaches to it. Maybe you can make the case for how it matters.
Gerry--
It actually seems pretty straight forward to me. Wisconsin was not in any great budget difficulties until Walker came in, cut taxes on various corporations and cut certain deals with supporters which not only reduced revenue this year but intensified the budget problems for the future. He then demanded not only givebacks by public workers (which the unions have agreed to) but also demanded that public workers lose the right to collectively bargain. That seems like an attack on public workers and an attack on any hope that anyone can sustain collective bargaining since it is designed to weaken the ability of workers to influence politics and public policy.
Now we can accept the framing of the issue as the Republicans want and just accept that it means accepting that either workers or students but not corporations have to suffer cutbacks or we can point out that this is simply the latest move in a decades long strategy to reduce the power and living standards of people who work. Not to mention that this is also part of a wider strategy (which admittedly seems to be working) to make it seem as if public workers are nothing but parasites on the community. Not only do I think that we should show solidarity with other public workers but I think that we should recognize that this attack is not an isolated incident but will likely affect all of us.
To me a pox on both your houses seems like a very unproductive and unhelpful strategy. The way it matters is to try to support those people in Wisconsin and elsewhere who are challenging the framing "as it is laid out in the present fight in Wisconsin."
Will UC Regents try to follow this model? Would they be able to?:
University Of Wisconsin Releases Details On Likely System Split
also see: Wisconsin in California?
Gerry says if the unions "win" the UW will split off and jack up tuition. From what I can tell, the UW admin wants to do that regardless of the outcome. I could be wrong. Certainly if Walker wins, that opens the way for splitting up the system since he appears to favor that. It's Walker who wants to pit good wages/benefits against tuition/programs. Remember, he pushed through a big tax cut for the wealthy, creating a fake fiscal crisis to be solved by whacking the unions.
For me this is an issue that goes beyond defending the universities per se. The goal of Walker and his allies is to defund the public sector generally. We need to oppose this not simply as university faculty or even simply as public employees. We need to defend this because crushing the public sector will seriously weaken what's left of our civil society and democracy.
As I said, I don't much care about the Wisconsin situation politically. But Walker did not ask state unionized workers to give up collective bargaining rights. He accepts collective bargaining for wages, and for anything else a union wants he has that go to a public vote. I don't see how a public vote denies workers their right to collective bargaining with the state. They work for the state. The people pay their wages. Perhaps it's a good thing that the public votes on their non-wage collective demands. I am interested to see if it works out. It might be a good thing for unions to make their case to someone other than a professional negotiator for the state.
In the State of Washington, a Democrat controlled legislature, with a Democrat governor, is now proposing as much as 30% more cuts to the University of Washington budget. Folks really need to grapple with this. What is happening is not a Republican-only thing. It feels good, perhaps, in places to dislike the other party, demonize it, blame it for all the badness happening. Folks will side with whomever they will, but there's no way that the standard party politics and solidarity with anyone committed to it for that reason is going to get at what is hitting public universities.
"Supporting" the union workers in Wisconsin appears to mean, in the framing of the fight there, supporting exactly what UC and UW administrators are proposing--higher tuition for students, closing programs, and forcing more students out of state (perhaps to California and Washington--helping the UC and UW administrations in their efforts to get more out of state students and teach fewer in-state students).
Pox on both houses means: without some effort to get at what is really going on, which may not be at all pretty, public universities are at the mercy of whatever distracting crisis happens to bait a party platform fight. I understand the desire to pick a party and kick some opposition ass, but I don't see at all how that means anything good for UC or UW. I say, it's a losing rhetoric for public universities. It's not the only losing rhetoric, but there it is. My expectation is, we are addicted to privilege, are in denial changes to what we have become and the condition of the present economy, and more so, we have lost the public trust, if not also the public imagination, and are not doing anything to win that back. Certainly solidarity with any political party position is not going to do it, however important that solidarity may be to anyone involved in this discussion.
I am not trying to rile folks on this point. I thought about it for some days before making the comment I did. I felt it was better to have the point on the table, though perhaps disagreeable, and see whether it goes anywhere, rather than to pretend that everything was all one way, when I don't see it that one way.
an immediate concern -- they break off UW Madison and Walker appoints the Koch brothers as regents... just a thought.
collective bargaining reform-- then along with it regent appointment reform
-- all over the msm (CNN's anchors Malveaux and Harlow esp) kept saying "are unions even necessary? we have many workplace protections on the books" but they never followed up on talking about whether or not US workers feel that govt agencies are responsive to workers (Labor dept, EEOC, OSHA etc.) -- you would think they would do get data on that if they are going to suggest or question that there is no need for unions anymore. Instead they sounded like bought and paid for corporate media. Exploitation of workers is alive and well. Separately, can't help but think of an LA firefighter who died this week fighting a house blaze in Hollywood- he was 61!--61 and fighting fires! First responders don't receive exemption from the fight -Gov Christie tried to pit volunteer firefighters against unionized firefighters-- next they will say they should have union benefits for only commercial property firefighting etc.
Gerry--
Come on now. The bill strips workers of the right to collective bargain on anything but base pay. In this day and age where so much of worker's compensation is in other areas how are you actually going to do that? The notion that you can divide that up is really a smokescreen.
I realize that in Washington Democratic legislators have been proposing cuts--but in Wisconsin it is the Republicans which is why I said Republicans. I don't have a lot of truck with the DLC Democrats but I think that as an empirical situation the Republican party has been more hostile to labor, more interested in pushing the burden downward onto the poorer elements of society etc. Sure there are exceptions--and when they occur then you say so. But for instance, there are faculty in the UC who would be happy with higher tuition. Does that mean we shouldn't point out that the regents and UCOP have been pushing it for years? By the logic of your use of Washington that would seem to be the conclusion to draw.
What I would agree with--and have pointed out even in this post--that both parties have been complicit in the long-term defunding of the public sector and the closing off of opportunity through education. But I see no reason why when the Koch brothers and their allies make a conscious effort to undermine unions to give themselves more room for maneuver to control even more of the terrain that we shouldn't say so.
The transformation of our society over the last few decades are not effects of nature. They are the result of strategies and decisions and the control of politics among other things. I don't see how analyzing what those choices are, who is making them, to what end, and with what effects is "picking a party." I thought it was the point of criticism.
Reading the Wisc law is difficult because it is mostly changes to other statutes that are not directly recited. It appears though that anything other than base pay above cost of living in a collective bargaining agreement with a state or municipal agency goes to a public vote (police and fire also get to bargain fringe benefits).
U Wisc general employees may be excluded from collective bargaining. It matters for higher education if any such exclusion results in worse instruction, research, and public service. That would be something to elaborate on.
The Democrats in Washington State continue to gut wholesale the universities and community colleges, apparently to save other programs they value more. They do not view university education or research as a vanguard of societal development. The Kochs have not conspired to make Democrats in WA think this way. The Democrats have done it all on their own.
Putting this in the context of a union fight in WI is fine for the union fight, but not for higher education. In WA the Democrats saved the union fight and still have massively defunded higher education. It is not that unions and education are at odds, any more than unions are making a push for higher tuition where they can't get higher taxes. It does not appear to be even that sophisticated. At least in WI, the governor promises no layoffs or furloughs in exchange for the law. Nothing of the sort in WA.
Union or non-union, public higher education is primed to go down, or change into something dull and blighted, a second-tier shadow of private universities, but saddled with state regulations and tampering.
The university is no more the poppet of conservatives as it is of liberals. I am not persuaded that if liberals suddenly gained control of the Wisconsin legislature, they would do anything good for public education. They haven't in WA. Let's see how Jerry Brown does in CA for UC. I'm expecting just what has been proposed: a lot of on-line "learning", out of state students, increased class sizes, and much higher tuition, with attendant inconsequential grumbling and regrets, poorer attainment, business as usual in research with continuing losses and oversold claims about outcomes, and administrators hauling in their bloated salaries in positions propagating like gerbils.
One can have one's politics and call for solidarity with union folks in Wisconsin. But I see that as hoping union folks keep their upgraded state rooms on a sinking ship. The fight that matters for higher education is a different fight. It isn't one of labor vs. management, or liberals vs. conservatives, or Democrats vs. Republicans. I am inclined to say that it is to reestablish faculty as university and community leaders, accountable, engaged, committed, and at least in the "new humanities" --business, law, engineering, medicine, and science--generally non-partisan in their university professional lives.
What I wish is that the "old humanities" would detach from their tired but apparently addictive fights, and rediscover their chops at doing things for community before they are all reorganized in a money-saving move into the College of Uselessly Recurring Partisan Discord.
GB-- agree with large parts of what you've written above. Only want to point out that when you write "The Kochs have not conspired to make Democrats in WA think this way. The Democrats have done it all on their own."-- it is not just the Dems- or even the Dems that have done that-- it is also related to Our Ignorance Is Vast and Koch money exploiting the people in that 1 in 5 group that Sullivan is writing about. A responsibility to make sure we don't come off as elitest when we point it out- bet some in that group are sitting in lecture halls at UC, and it pains us to say it. We don't advance any of the reforms we would like to see if we just allow those groups to continue to fall prey to that exploitation. It is about getting the word out, being clear that we agree reforms need to happen, and clearly spelling out the list of those reforms. Making clear why workers still need the protection of collective bargaining, citing real life examples etc. Randy Weingarten was on this morning saying the same things but she could not list off the reforms she would agree need to take place- why is that?
PACs, Koch money etc. know that the game is about exploiting 20% of the population and that the rest of the country sits on the 40 yard lines. But we are also living in the age of the Citizens United ruling. And we've never had that kind of "pox" before...
GB-Once again, agree/understand/sympathize with much you've written above.
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