"Wins" for the Middle Class

Whether or not the Budget Repair Bill ultimately gets passed, the victory lies in the fact that no matter how "right" Governor Walker feels his ideas for Wisconsin are, he and those on his side are not above the law.

And in Indiana, the middle class was heard.

Said Indiana House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, whose Statehouse return Monday was greeted by cheering union workers, "We won a battle, but we recognize the war goes on."


The fight goes on across the country for those of us who are tired of "sharing" the sacrifice.


Richard Thayer said, "Rather than pointing fingers of blame at unions demanding that their quality of life be reduced to the level of non-union members, we should be pointing those fingers at corporations and demanding that some of those obscene profits they’re making be paid out to their hard-working employees, the ones whose productivity and creativity are making those profits possible."


(I urge you to read what Thayer had to say in its entirety.)


Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has introduced legislation imposing a surtax on households earning one million dollars or more and elimination of tax loopholes oil companies take advantage of.  Now that sounds more like "shared" to me!

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

Any 5th grader should be able to tell you what Separation of Powers means and why Checks and Balances are so important to this messy thing we call Democracy.


The race between Prosser and Kloppenburg has brought this topic to the forefront in Wisconsin. 
Here's a quote from the Oshkosh Northwestern from last week:


"If there is any doubt about the impending collapse of the "checks and balances" that three independent branches of government represent, consider this statement from Prosser's campaign manager. 'Our campaign efforts will include building an organization that will return Justice Prosser to the bench, protecting the conservative judicial majority and acting as a common sense complement to both the new (Republican) administration and legislature.'"


And from the Lakeland Times this week.  


"The citizens of Wisconsin expect and deserve that their Supreme Court justices be independent and render impartial and fair rulings. They expect their justices to exercise sound judgment, avoiding even the hint of impropriety. They deserve honorable justices who would recuse themselves if there is a conflict of interest."


But this is a nationwide epidemic- our justices seem to be taking political sides rather than remaining impartial and independent.


Like Justice Scalia and the Tea Party

And Clarence Thomas and the Koch brothers

It's scary stuff to think about these extremist conservative politicians wanting to run government like a business (see last post) and our checks and balances system run by extremist conservative justices.

Fight back America's middle class.  Let your voice be heard!  I'll see you at the polls April 5th!

The CEO of Wisconsin

Otherwise titled "The Privatization of Government"

Can Government really be run like a business?  

No, said James Beattie Morison this past February, because their goals are different.

"if only government adhered to business principles, the United States would be solvent, more efficient, and more prosperous." As with all trivializations in economics, this one resonates well with the public. But it is dangerously wrong, says this article.


And in a 2002 report by James E. Roper, the author makes a very strong case for why government should not be run like a business, including this quote:


"The conclusion that this country would no longer be a democracy if government decisions were made on the business model points to the most profound deficiency in the idea that government should function like a corporation: The individual rights and freedoms that are the foundation of our society would cease to exist. In their defense of taxes, The Cost of Rights, Holmes and Sunstein argue that all rights presuppose an elaborate and costly infrastructure of courts and law enforcement (1999). Without such institutional support, rights and related liberties cannot be sustained. Even if the "law" recognizes them, rights and liberties cease to function if they cannot be defended; and they cannot be preserved without an infrastructure dedicated to maintaining them (1999)."


Frederick E. Allen of Forbes has included additional links to people who have argued that government can not be run like business.


The business model is good for business- let's leave it there. 

Let My Voice Be Heard

I refuse to be a victim of those in power, either political power or financial power.  I will do everything I can to make my voice heard.  Here's a list of things I will be contacting people about.  You may want to have your voice heard as well.

Call In Day To Block Social Security Cuts

On March 28 and 29, join the Social Security coalition in a National Call-In to protect Social Security.  To reduce the federal deficit, some in Washington are proposing deep cuts to Social Security benefits.  We need to stop them.  Social Security belongs to the people who pay for it in every paycheck.  Don’t let Congress cut benefits, raise the retirement age, or reduce the COLA.  Senators Sanders (I-VT) and Reid (D-NV) have introduced the Social Security Protection amendment to block cuts to Social Security.  Call your U.S. Senators on March 29th and 30th, by dialing 1-866-251-4044.  Tell them: Hands off Social Security!  Vote YES on the Sanders-Reid Social Security Protection Amendment! Our Students’ Future At Stake —They Are Counting On Congress For Support! As Congress returns from their district work period, negotiations will continue on a long-term continuing resolution (CR) to fund programs through the end of the current fiscal year (September 30, 2011).  The current short-term CR will expire on April 8; Congress must act on a full-year CR prior to that date to avoid a government shutdown.  At stake is funding for critical education programs like Title I, IDEA special education, and Pell Grants – programs that are critical to ensuring every student the opportunity to succeed in the 21st century.  Compromise will be necessary to get any bill passed.  But, conservative Members will be pushing for deep cuts in education and other programs.  Your voice is critical to keep up the pressure for investments in education.  Take Action TODAY:  Tell Congress to craft a continuing resolution that invests in education for our nation’s future.  We Are One: Stand Up For Workers’ Rights On April 4 On April 4, 1968, 43 years ago in Memphis, a long struggle for human rights and human dignity ended in the tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but it brought economic justice and the respect that all people deserve to 1,300 city sanitation workers. On April 4 this year, the anniversary of Dr. King’s death, labor unions, civil rights organizations, and religious leaders will stand together across this country for the same human rights and human dignity for working men and women.  We will remember the courage and determination of Dr. King and those workers who endured assault and arrest as they walked a picket line for two months.  We have stood together as one with public workers across this country whose bargaining rights are under attack, with private workers who can’t get bargaining rights, and against those politicians and their allies who want to silence our political voice. On April 4, 2011, on the job, in our schools and in our communities, we will remind our elected officials that workers rights are human rights, and that those rights will not be destroyed. Learn more about We Are One Stand with those struggling to defend collective bargaining rights.  Sign theNEA National Petition for Workers' Rights.

Reliable Plating Works Update

Just wanted to share the email I sent Reliable tonight in response to the comments their president made in the JS Online article.

Dear Mr. Jaime Maliszewski:

I am a full time working mother, and I was deeply saddened by your comments in today's JS Online article about the Milwaukee Sick Pay Law.  I admit, I did not know too much about your company, so I did a little research.  I read about your grandfather starting the company that your father worked at, and which you and your brothers followed suit.  And I also read about the tough times RPW, along with so many other businesses, has had to go through in this recession.  I do not pretend to know your situation or the situation of your workers.  But I do know my situation and that of my family.  And when you made comments against the Sick Pay Law, I was angered.  You see, as a working member of the middle class, I too have suffered from the recession.  I have seen more and more of the benefits I received as a worker taken away or reduced.  I, like so many others, am paying more for health care.  My husband and I saw the money we had worked so hard for disappear from our retirement accounts when the market crashed.  And we have given up on our dreams of sending our kids to college.  Both my husband and I are facing layoffs from our jobs.  To me, giving workers paid sick time is a small concession a business can make for its employees.  It's disheartening to see in Milwaukee CEO's of companies like Harley-Davidson and Sensient Technologies making millions of dollars while my employer is talking of cutting my pay and eliminating my sick time.  I do not work in Milwaukee, but I would hope that instead of banning together to fight the Sick Pay Law, companies like yours would ban together with workers to try to improve Wisconsin worker's conditions across the state.  I will end this letter with a quote from your brother Jeff on your website:

"Superior quality doesn't just mean happier customers and higher profits.  It means the satisfaction of a job well done and a company that fulfills its promise of excellence."  How about being a leader in our state and fulfilling a promise of excellent treatment of workers- or at the very least supporting workers in their struggle to support their families by having paid sick time- a very small concession in my opinion for the hard work we do for our employers.  It is a matter of mutual respect.

Sincerely, 

Jane

A (Small) Victory for the Middle Class

Today marks a victory for Middle Class workers in Milwaukee as the Court of Appeals ruled to uphold the paid sick day law.

Dana Schultz, Lead Organizer of 9 to 5, the National Organization of Working Women, said:
"Milwaukeeans have made their decision on paid sick days, and now the courts have upheld their vote. The State Legislature should not be trying to rob voters in Milwaukee and cities across the state of their basic right to local decision-making on sick days or any other laws…It’s time for the State Legislature to stop its attacks on hard-working families and get to work on policies that will help create jobs and grow our economy."

Not everyone was pleased with results, including the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and Milwaukee's Mayor, Tom Barrett.  They feel businesses will leave Milwaukee and move to other parts of the state to avoid the law.

Sadly, this may be true, which once again reaffirms our nation's lack of respect and support for the middle class, working families of our country.  Rather than trying to overturn the Milwaukee law, wouldn't it be better to try to get the law passed across the state?

Reliable Plating Works president said no one was happy with the court's decision, not even the workers.  Really?  I plan to contact Reliable to share with them my feelings about the law.  You should as well.  It's time we start telling businesses that we are tired of them taking advantage of the working people of Wisconsin.  Rather than seeing how low can you go, how about for once a business showing you can take care of your workers and still earn a profit!!

Here's how to contact Reliable:

Reliable Plating Works, Inc. 

5230 South 13th Street 

PO Box 210500 

Milwaukee WI 53221 

Phone: (414) 282-4RPW(4779)  

Email: info@rpwinc.net

And by the way, Prosser voted to affirm the Milwaukee County Circuit Judge's decision to halt the ordinance.  I can't wait to send him a message about how I feel in the April 5th election!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

When I entered my career as a public school educator, little did I know the lack of respect there would be for what I did every day.  Never, in my wildest dreams would I have imagined being called lazy, a bottom feeder, a leech, a thug, and other, much worse names.

It's clear to me that Scott Walker does not respect the effort and education it takes to be a teacher. A teacher needs to have education in child development, teaching methodology, and child psychology.  A bachelor's degree does not mean someone can teach.  But what's really come as a slap in the face is Walker's provision that teachers with revoked licenses can come back to teach in charter schools.

Really, this goes back to the general lack of respect for us "lower class citizens"- the working and middle class.  And to Walker's seemingly lack of ethics and common decency.  Really, now, is someone who is willing to put an individual with a criminal record in front of our children showing us the respect we as humans deserve?

See what William Cronon has to say... I couldn't agree with him more.

Hey- That's Private!

It's no secret that Governor Walker of Wisconsin and the rest of his Republican counterparts are out to privatize public services, including education.

But can privatization really do the same work for less money?  It seems all those Governors don't really have any concrete numbers on this.  Why not?  According to Professor of Law, Ellen Dannin's 3/14/11 article:

"Some people take it on faith that the private sector always does a better job for less money than government. But the most of us deciding how to provide public service is not a matter of ideology, not a team sport. We just want to solve our federal, state, and local budget problems and provide good quality services. So, for most of us, it will come as a surprise that in many cases no effort is made to show whether a private company can do government work as well as public employees." 

Professor Dannin also wrote a paper on privatization that talks about 7 commonly held beliefs (I call them myths) about privatization and the evidence that dispels those myths.  Boy that professor Dannin is smart!  Read her paper and you'll know how to debate this with your Republican friends and family!

In her paper she lists the terrible impacts of privatization from the Cornell University Hebdon Report.

Here's the conclusion of that report:

"In conclusion, we found privatization to be, at best, a disruptive, socially destabilizing, and ultimately harmful method of cost saving. At its worst, privatization can actually increase costs, lower the quality of services, reduce public accountability, and marginalize citizen involvement in the democratic process. ... The rational solution is to seek creative alternatives to the way services are currently provided by improving the utilization of the existing workforce. The practical answer, we believe, can be found in fundamental reform of pubic sector work process through dialogue, discussion, and negotiations. This is the challenge for politicians, management officials in the public sector, public employee unions, and employees."

And past research has shown that privatization can actually hurt women workers.  Check out this 2001 research paper by Annette Bernhardt, Ph.D. and Laura Dresser, Ph.D. from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

"From a policy standpoint, there is good reason to be concerned about the continuing call for contracting out public services to the private sector. On average, public sector jobs pay better and are more likely to include pension and health benefits. When government services are privatized, womenespecially women of color and women who do not have a college educationwill likely experience significant declines in how much they earn and in their health and pension coverage. Even though, the public sector is far from a perfectly fair employer — glass ceilings and the gender gap in pay and benefits persist as in the private sector — this analysis finds that privatization, and the de-unionization that frequently accompanies it, is likely to prove detrimental to the economic welfare of women workers. "

And, by the way, as I write this Ed Shultz is also talking about privatization on his show.  Wow- great minds think alike I guess- Ed and I both had this topic on our minds today...

"Tools"

Scott Walker says he's giving local governments the "tools."  And if you watched my links to the Ed show from my previous post, you learned that he may have gotten that word from his meeting with Republican message man Frank Luntz.  Walker has implied that having teachers pay 12.6% for insurance and 5.8% for pensions will be sufficient enough so as to avoid layoffs.  If this was truly the case, then there wouldn't be a need for stripping workers of their collective bargaining rights.  But the real number crunching shows this won't be enough.

So really, what are the "tools" and why does Walker need to end collective bargaining to get them?

Eliminating programs (like music, art, and athletics)
Employee layoffs
Increased workload (higher class lists, no prep time)
Drastic reductions in employee salaries
*End of seniority in order to replace long time employees with young, cheap employees*
Higher employee contributions to health insurance plans (more than the 12.6%) or high deductible plans
No sick time

*Plus, no union means no union attorney which means when employees are wrongfully terminated, they will have to hire their own attorney to try to fight for their job.  Of course, because of the reduced salary, they won't even be able to afford an attorney.

And let's not pretend that this won't happen, even though Walker denied that this was a possibility and said that civil service laws will protect us, we all know someone aged 50 or so in the private sector who lost their job because of "downsizing."  It does happen- and it will!

Says Howard Schweber, associate professor of political science, “One reason to get rid of collective bargaining, aside from the desire to break the political power of public unions, is to open the door to the abolition of tenure for school teachers.” Without tenure, he points out, “districts could lay off the most senior, most experienced, best trained—in other words, the most expensive—teachers first.”

Did I miss some?  Feel free to add to my list...

Want another perspective?  Here's a great post from the blog "Bang the Buckets."  Check it out!

Our Friend Ed

With all these anti-worker politicians and media out there, it's good to know workers have friends, like Ed Shultz, who is telling what's really happening to America's middle class.

Do you still doubt that Walker's attack isn't being planned and orchestrated by the Koch brothers?
Check out what Ed showed here.

Guess who else is a friend to America's workers?  Why our own Vice President, Joe Biden.
Here's what Vice President Biden said.

Stay strong America's Middle Class!  There are people who are standing up for us!

Supporting Business that Support Us

Along with my family's boycott of certain businesses who support Walker's attack on the middle class, we are also informing the businesses that we do support that their money is coming from middle class workers.  Today, for example, I sent Target this email:

"I am a public worker in Wisconsin.  Because of the support they have given Governor Walker in his plan to ruin the middle class. and because of their poor treatment of their workers, my family has decided to boycott Wal-mart, which is the closest store to out home.  Instead, we have decided to take our hard earned money to Target.  I know the Target corporation has gotten into trouble in the past for its support of a candidate who opposed gay marriage, but it rectified that by giving money to the opposition.  As a consumer, I expect the places I shop to remain politically neutral.  I am tired of Corporate America buying out our politicians.  I also do not want the money I am spending at your store to go to the CEO.  I want my money to go to the employees of Target, to improve their salaries and their lives.  As long as Target continues to try to remain politically neural and continues to improve the lives of their workers. then my family will continue to spend our money at Target rather than its competitors.  Thank you."

Want to contact Target?  Here's how:
 http://www.target.com/gp/help/display-contact-us-form.html?displayLink=tsq

What else can you do?  Whenever you go out to eat and pay the bill, write "I am a public worker" or  I will support businesses that support workers."  Let businesses know where their profits are coming from.

Feeding at the Tax Payers' Trough

This past Tuesday, JS-Online posted this article:  Sensient CEO paid $8.4 million in 2010.  This is double what he was paid in 2009.  Doubled!  How many of us Middle Class Workers have doubled our salary in a year?  This is just another example of the few rich people owning most of the wealth in our country.


Peter W commented on this article- I couldn't say it any better than he did:
"Every time one of these corporate CEO's outrageoous compensation amounts is posted, an investigation should be conducted to see how much taxpayer support that business receives (loan guarantees, forgivable loans, TIF district, tax breaks, investment credits, etc.)and how much the individual and the corporation pays in taxes. Businesses don't hesitate to feed at the taxpayer trough, but they are extremely reluctant to give any thing back through personal or corporate taxes OR THROUGH GOOD WAGES AND BENEFITS FOR THEIR WORKERS. Corporate profits and CEO compensation packages are through the roof while middle class wages have stagnated (and are even starting to regress!) since the 80s! Wake up middle class and take back your country!"


Want to share your feelings about this as I did?  Here's how:

Sensient Technologies Corporation World Headquarters
777 East Wisconsin Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53202-5304
USA

Phone: 800-558-9892
Email: corporate.communications@sensient-tech.com

So who else is feeding from the tax payers' trough?  
Wal-mart


What is particularly sickening about Wal-mart is that they cater to poor people by offering low prices, yet they pay their workers poverty wages to ensure those people stay in poverty and keep shopping at the only place they can afford- Wal-mart.  


Not only that, but Wal-mart has gotten out of paying taxes, which means they're giving nothing to our communities but low paying jobs with no health care, perpetuating the problem of the rich getting richer and the rest of us getting poorer.


My family is boycotting Wal-mart as our way of saying "You can't take away any more of our hard earned money."  We wrote to Wal-mart to tell them so.  Want to do the same?


http://www.walmart.com/   Go to the website, scroll down to the bottom and click on "feedback"


Want to link up with the other boycotts?  Click on this link:  Scott Walker Watch

Need more info?  One Wisconsin Now

Show Me the Money

It came out this week that the CEO of Harley-Davidson, Keith Wendell,  made $6.4 million in 2010.  And that's only after working for Harley-Davidson for less than 2 years.  Not only that, this fall, Harley-Davidson workers had to take huge concessions because of the company's threats to move elsewhere.  On average, Harley-Davidson employees make $16 an hour.  Just one of many examples of the rich getting richer and the rest of us living barely above the poverty level.

I contacted Harley-Davidson to tell them how I felt about their choice of rewarding their CEO more money than anyone needs instead of rewarding their employees. You can do the same:


National H.O.G. Office,
P.O. Box 453,
Milwaukee, WI 53201

H-DIdeaSubmissionsSuggestion@harley-davidson.com

Today my husband emailed Quick Trip, a company our family is boycotting based on their support of Governor Walker over Wisconsin workers.   He told them this, "I refuse to let you spend my money that I have given your company on a Governor who does not support me.  I will take my money elsewhere."  You can do the same:

http://quiktrip.com/QTCustomerFeedback/QTCustomerFeedbackForm.aspx

It's time we stand up to Corporate America and the politicians that are being bought out by them.

What it's all about

As both my husband and I face the real possibility of losing our jobs due to drastic cuts in our fields, or at the very least, a significant cut in pay, we are each dealing with it in our own ways.  For me, the feelings of helplessness and depression have been replaced by anger and resentment.  To cope, I am speaking up in my own way- by sharing the attacks on Middle Class America.  I can not stand idly by without a fight.  I am worth it.  My children are worth it.  And Middle Class America is worth it.

And so to start it off, here are some statistics:
The Shrinking Middle Class
8 Facts
The Attack on the Middle Class
Money Money Who's Got the Money?

It's no lie- the rich are getting richer and the rest of us are getting increasingly poorer.