"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!