"From the film "Welcome Home" This is a story of a kid, in search for a new apartment rental, who comes across a place that has actually chosen him. When a place speaks to you, you have no other choice but to play along with the tune :)"
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Why Wisconsin?
Sometime after Valentine’s Day, Republican Governor Scott Walker, with the backing of Republican-ruled State Assembly, passed a bill which will deeply affect all State Union workers.
Like the majority of the 50 states in North America, Wisconsin is suffering major budget deficits. However, unlike the 50 states, Governor Walker feels cuts must be made with Unions in order to alleviate Wisconsin’s situation. According to Walker, by July, Wisconsin’s debt will reach $137 million and if not taken care of, he estimates it will reach $3.6 billion by 2013.
When the Bill, soon to be Union Law, was passed this March, it will force members to pay for a part of their Health Care and retirement plans, cut 8 percent of their pay, and strip away their ‘collective bargaining’ rights.
When doing research about the Wisconsin incident, the term ‘collective bargaining’ kept popping up. I asked myself, why is this so important to union members? Well, according to our good friend wikipedia.org it says that ‘collective bargaining’ allows the leaders of unions to come up with compromises every year with the government in order for members to have better benefits like health care and retirement.
A lot of drama has been surrounding this bill. For starters, in order for any bill to be passed, a quorum, a certain amount of senators to conduct an assembly, must be held and 14 Democratic senators fled, or “took a vacation” to neighboring state, Illinois, so the quorum wouldn’t happen.
Then Walker, threatened them by saying if one of 14 did not show up he would issue 1,500 layoff notices to union members., but those senators still held their ground. THEN what those sneaky Republican senators did was change the original bill regarding all measures that dealt with spending money so that they could vote on it without Democrats present.
So as of March 27, 2011 Wisconsin has already passed the bill which will become law once it is printed.
BUT WAIT PEOPLE. There is another side to this story which I found interesting when I read an article published by Times magazine. It says:
The cost of state employees' benefits has skyrocketed in tandem with the rising power of public employees' unions. It has become a perverse and semicorrupt arrangement: the unions raise millions from dues, which are then used to elect labor-friendly politicians who cave at the contract-negotiating table, especially on long-term employment deals, whose cost really begins to crush the state or city budget in the years after the agreeable politician has left office.
Few Americans understand how the public-employee-union money machine works. Many unionized state and local public workers have their dues automatically deducted from their paychecks. On average, a teacher in Wisconsin pays more than $1,000 per year to the union (from an average salary of $51,264). A decent chunk of this money is used to fund political activities. That doesn't mean just making contributions. It also means running lavish independent ad campaigns in support of their chosen candidates and against their opponents.
Still, I believe, this doesn’t outweigh the fact that every time our government needs to make cuts, it is we, the middle and lower-class, blue-collar workers, who are affected.
BUT WHY SHOULD WE CARE?!?!? I mean Wisconsin is in the middle of the U.S. and whatever they do in their state won’t affect us, right? Well, yea, but remember Wisconsin is considered a swing state, meaning its not considered a Democratic or Republican state, but can be either when presidential elections come up. Other swing states, like Ohio, can follow in Wisconsin’s footsteps and then a dominoe affect can occur where state workers from those states can also suffer.
Why do I care? Well, to make it short, after reading Howard Zinn’s book, “A People’s History,” in which he informs us about North America’s history from the perspective of the oppressed like the Native American’s from 1492, I have learned that this country, America, has been found on revolutions, strikes against the oppressors, and countless fights with the government. However, somewhere along the way WE as Americans have lost that drive to come together and fight for our rights.
When doing research about Wisconsin, I’ve read about so many stories of the peaceful protests outside of the Capitol. Retired teachers would show up, people would come during their lunch breaks to show their support, and people would use their vacation time to fight!!
Like I said earlier, the bill will soon become law, but has all the protesting been in vain? "No," says Kenneth Mayer, who teaches political science at the University of Wisconsin. "It was pretty clear that the protests, as massive as they got, weren't going to change the governor's mind. Even though they didn't succeed in getting what they wanted, they mobilized a lot of people and made this a salient issue. A protest doesn't have to succeed in its immediate goal to have a long-term impact."
This situation is a reminder to me as to why fighting for rights is important AND in America we as a people have that privilege to speak our voice. It also reminds me that only as a group do we have power over our government and if we look back at history it is WE the people who have changed this country so we all have Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Like the majority of the 50 states in North America, Wisconsin is suffering major budget deficits. However, unlike the 50 states, Governor Walker feels cuts must be made with Unions in order to alleviate Wisconsin’s situation. According to Walker, by July, Wisconsin’s debt will reach $137 million and if not taken care of, he estimates it will reach $3.6 billion by 2013.
When the Bill, soon to be Union Law, was passed this March, it will force members to pay for a part of their Health Care and retirement plans, cut 8 percent of their pay, and strip away their ‘collective bargaining’ rights.
When doing research about the Wisconsin incident, the term ‘collective bargaining’ kept popping up. I asked myself, why is this so important to union members? Well, according to our good friend wikipedia.org it says that ‘collective bargaining’ allows the leaders of unions to come up with compromises every year with the government in order for members to have better benefits like health care and retirement.
A lot of drama has been surrounding this bill. For starters, in order for any bill to be passed, a quorum, a certain amount of senators to conduct an assembly, must be held and 14 Democratic senators fled, or “took a vacation” to neighboring state, Illinois, so the quorum wouldn’t happen.
Then Walker, threatened them by saying if one of 14 did not show up he would issue 1,500 layoff notices to union members., but those senators still held their ground. THEN what those sneaky Republican senators did was change the original bill regarding all measures that dealt with spending money so that they could vote on it without Democrats present.
So as of March 27, 2011 Wisconsin has already passed the bill which will become law once it is printed.
BUT WAIT PEOPLE. There is another side to this story which I found interesting when I read an article published by Times magazine. It says:
The cost of state employees' benefits has skyrocketed in tandem with the rising power of public employees' unions. It has become a perverse and semicorrupt arrangement: the unions raise millions from dues, which are then used to elect labor-friendly politicians who cave at the contract-negotiating table, especially on long-term employment deals, whose cost really begins to crush the state or city budget in the years after the agreeable politician has left office.
Few Americans understand how the public-employee-union money machine works. Many unionized state and local public workers have their dues automatically deducted from their paychecks. On average, a teacher in Wisconsin pays more than $1,000 per year to the union (from an average salary of $51,264). A decent chunk of this money is used to fund political activities. That doesn't mean just making contributions. It also means running lavish independent ad campaigns in support of their chosen candidates and against their opponents.
Still, I believe, this doesn’t outweigh the fact that every time our government needs to make cuts, it is we, the middle and lower-class, blue-collar workers, who are affected.
BUT WHY SHOULD WE CARE?!?!? I mean Wisconsin is in the middle of the U.S. and whatever they do in their state won’t affect us, right? Well, yea, but remember Wisconsin is considered a swing state, meaning its not considered a Democratic or Republican state, but can be either when presidential elections come up. Other swing states, like Ohio, can follow in Wisconsin’s footsteps and then a dominoe affect can occur where state workers from those states can also suffer.
Why do I care? Well, to make it short, after reading Howard Zinn’s book, “A People’s History,” in which he informs us about North America’s history from the perspective of the oppressed like the Native American’s from 1492, I have learned that this country, America, has been found on revolutions, strikes against the oppressors, and countless fights with the government. However, somewhere along the way WE as Americans have lost that drive to come together and fight for our rights.
When doing research about Wisconsin, I’ve read about so many stories of the peaceful protests outside of the Capitol. Retired teachers would show up, people would come during their lunch breaks to show their support, and people would use their vacation time to fight!!
Like I said earlier, the bill will soon become law, but has all the protesting been in vain? "No," says Kenneth Mayer, who teaches political science at the University of Wisconsin. "It was pretty clear that the protests, as massive as they got, weren't going to change the governor's mind. Even though they didn't succeed in getting what they wanted, they mobilized a lot of people and made this a salient issue. A protest doesn't have to succeed in its immediate goal to have a long-term impact."
This situation is a reminder to me as to why fighting for rights is important AND in America we as a people have that privilege to speak our voice. It also reminds me that only as a group do we have power over our government and if we look back at history it is WE the people who have changed this country so we all have Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)