Sigh.
Scott Walker and his Rethuglican pals have successfully stripped state workers in Wisconsin of their unions. While the legislation they passed says they "can" have unions, but only if they jump through a series of incredibly high flaming hoops.
The largest of those unions including AFSCME and AFT said "No Way". They're not even trying for recertification.
Marty Beil, executive director of the 23,000-member Wisconsin State Employees Union representing largely blue-collar workers, said none of the units in his group will seek recertification.
"We looked at the law and we find the law at best an exercise in wasted resources," Beil said. "We've chosen to use our resources to organize our members and advocate for our members."
In a nutshell, here are the most major of those mile high flaming hoops:
The unions have to recertify themselves (i.e. hold a union vote to recertify themselves as a union) every year. That would be the very same vote that needs to be organized and held to certify a brand new union for employees. And they have to do it every single year.
To win recertification, 51% of the members of the union need to vote to recertify it. according to the new law And that's not just a majority of the people who show up to vote, it's a majority of all the members! It would be tantamount to saying that no elected official can win an election unless 51% of all eligible voters actually vote for them. It's a bar so high we'd have no elected officials at all.
State employee unions would be able to bargain for one thing: wages. And those wage demands cannot exceed the rate of inflation unless more is specifically allowed by a majority vote in a state referendum (like that would ever happen).
Payroll deduction of union dues ends. This means that unions will need to manually collect dues from each individual member.
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State unions have to file a petition seeking a recertification election and pay a fee to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission by 4:30 p.m. Thursday or they will be decertified, agency chairman James Scott said.
Scott said so far three state unions have filed with the commission seeking a recertification election: the Wisconsin State Building Trades; the Association of State Prosecutors; and the State Attorneys Association.
So, at the close of business today tens of thousands of state employees will lose their official union representation.
Other public employee unions are also facing the same choices, but their cerification deadline is later. Those who have contracts in place (or worked with their city or county to extend them) have postponed the effect of union stripping. They will face it at the end of their contract.
Some school and local government employees have outstanding contracts and won't have to vote to recertify until these current contracts run out.
Unions for teachers and other school district employees without contracts have until Sept. 30 to file for a recertification election. Municipal employees without contracts have until Jan. 30.
Of course, State Senator Glenn (slob) Grothman has opened his pie hole:
Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), a vocal critic of unions, hailed the news. "It means that in the future decisions will be made in the best interest of the public and the best state employees, but the radical employees or the underperforming employees will have much less say," he said.
It's a sad day here.
1:02 PM PT: Just a quickie update. I need to leave for a bit to run a couple of errands. I'll be back to enjoy and reply to comments in about 2 hours.
3:45 PM PT: I have returned.