When he was asked by a Madison TV reporter yesterday about his votes in favor of Governor Scott Walker’s union-busting and public-service-slashing bills, Wisconsin State Senator Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) answered by saying that “Wisconsin had cancer.” He said that eliminating collective bargaining rights for public employees, slashing their take-home pay, cutting over a billion dollars from public education, and drastically reducing aid to local governments was “chemotherapy.”
Wisconsin was not broke when Scott Walker took office. Wisconsin did not have cancer. Wisconsin was recovering from a hangover, just like the rest of the nation that went on a binge with George W. Bush and his drinking buddies. Frat-boy Bush stole his Uncle Sam’s credit card and invited everyone he knew to join him on his international pub crawl. After two wars, a prescription drug plan that mostly benefited pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies, and a decade of tax cuts for people who least needed them – the nation and the Badger state had dry heaves and a massive headache.
Wisconsin didn’t like the rational advice of the doctors who said “It’s going to hurt a while. Stop drinking, start exercising and eat right,” so they went down a dark alley to Dr. Scott Walker’s office. It turns out “Doctor” Walker never finished medical school, but he did have an old, obselete "cure" in mind.
"Painless and free," he assured Wisconsin. "We’ll just attach these leeches all over your body, and they’ll suck out the bad blood." Dr. Walker even had names for the leeches – Kokie, Alec, and the Fitzie twins.
It didn’t work. It just made Wisconsin dizzier.
Stupid Luther Olsen. Police officers and firefighters are not cancer. Nursing assistants are not cancer. Teachers are not cancer. Disabled veterans are not cancer. Highway inspectors are not cancer. Students are not cancer. Farmers are not cancer.
People who earn less than 250,000 dollars a year are not cancer.
Not only are they not cancer, public service jobs and collective bargaining have been the life support for many of Wisconsin’s ailing cities and towns. My grandparents raised 10 children on a Wisconsin dairy farm, during the Depression, and farming was their only job. It’s nearly impossible to support a family farm now by simply farming. Usually one of the spouses has another job – often a public sector job – to get health insurance for the family. Highway department jobs, school cafeteria jobs, nursing or teaching jobs, even police officers – the jobs we rely on without thinking about them and, in many towns, the only jobs that pay a living wage and offer benefits. Collective bargaining helps family farms.
In the past twenty years, tens of thousands of Wisconsin manufacturing jobs have been shipped south or across the Pacific Ocean. Most of the non-union jobs that remain pay next to nothing and have no benefits, so families are relying on a public sector worker in the family to provide health insurance coverage, or they enroll in Badgercare, Wisconsin’s Medicaid program, or they just wait until they get so sick they have to be taken to an emergency room. The few union manufacturing jobs still in Wisconsin, for the most part, have at least some health benefits. It’s an uphill battle, but…Collective bargaining helps Wisconsin’s factory workers and their families.
When special education students are evaluated, they are provided an Individualized Education Plan – a blueprint for making sure they get the services and support they need so they can reach their potential. Those IEP’s are legally binding documents, and when public school districts try to pinch pennies by shortchanging their special education students, it’s the teachers, backed by their unions, who file grievances to force the districts to fulfill their obligations. The teachers don’t get anything material out of it. In most cases it means they will have to work even harder, but they are licensed professionals and they have a duty to protect and provide for their students. Collective bargaining helps Wisconsin’s public schools and the communities they serve.
There are many more examples. Police officers and firefighters bargain for better equipment and more staff to keep themselves – and us – safe. Highway workers bargain for reasonable working conditions and work schedules so they can plow streets and fix roads safely. Nurses in veteran’s homes bargain for lower patient/staff ratios so our veterans get the care they earned and deserve. Collective bargaining saves lives in Wisconsin.
So, soon-to-be-former Senator Luther Olsen, you are the cancer. Scott Walker is the cancer. The Fitzgeralds are the cancer. We were an otherwise healthy, vibrant state recovering from a hangover until you came along with your 19th-century snake-oil.
Collective bargaining made Wisconsin strong. Recalls, not union-busting, are the cure.
Help cure Wisconsin from cancer…
If you live in any of Wisconsin’s Senate recall districts, you must be a voter on election day. We will make history, and every vote counts.