Wisconsin State Journal: Walker budget bill would effectively kill unions

[highplainsdem]

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_00aaf0ec-460e-11e0-9a32-001cc4c03286.html

-snip-

Critics have seized on Walker's budget-repair bill because it would end nearly all collective bargaining with public worker unions. But national labor experts and union officials say lesser-known portions of the proposal are equally devastating.

The bill greatly narrows the focus of contract negotiations to cost-of-living pay increases. But some of the sleeper provisions include stopping unions from collecting dues with payroll deductions and from requiring members to pay dues.

The bill also would force unions to ask members to vote every year on their certification and win the support of 51 percent of all members - not just a simple majority of those voting - to keep going. Other measures take aim at arbitration and contract lengths.

"It would be virtually impossible to sustain unions under these conditions," said James Green, a University of Massachusetts-Boston professor of history and labor studies. "Two or three of those things would be pretty fatal by themselves."

-snip-

The story also has Walker's weaselly "explanations" that the provision to make union dues optional is meant to help offset the higher costs to union members of pension and health care benefits. And the yearly vote requiring that 51% of all union members vote on certification (not just the majority of voters) is supposedly meant to force unions "to show they are producing value."

[Botany]

1. Walker budget bill would effectively kill unions

It was never about the budget in Wisconsin or in Ohio.

[Bandit]

2. Make it illegal to charge dues....

War....This is truly a fucking WAR

[Bozita]

3. Walker's War on Workers is pure unadulterated class war and they've just gone nuclear