Union Bonds in Wisconsin Begin to Fray
By A. G. SULZBERGER and MONICA DAVEY
Published: February 21, 2011
JANESVILLE, Wis. - Rich Hahan worked at the General Motors plant here until
it closed about two years ago. He moved to Detroit to take another G.M. job
while his wife and children stayed here, but then the automaker cut more
jobs. So Mr. Hahan, 50, found himself back in Janesville, collecting
unemployment for a time, and watching as the city's industrial base seemed
to crumble away.
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Narayan Mahon for The New York Times
Pat Welhitz says ending collective bargaining is "pretty drastic even for a
staunch Republican."
Room For Debate
Wisconsin's Blow to Union Power
Will the governor's war on public employees' collective bargaining rights
sweep the nation?
Related
a.. Wisconsin G.O.P. Plans to Work Without Democrats (February 22, 2011)
b.. Protesters in Wisconsin Say They Are Staying Put (February 21, 2011)
c.. Wisconsin Puts Obama Between Competing Desires (February 21, 2011)
d.. Wisconsin May Take an Ax to State Workers' Benefits and Their Unions
(February 12, 2011)
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MaryKay Horter, an occupational therapist, supports the governor's proposal:
"I don't get to bargain in my job, either."
Among the top five employers here are the county, the schools and the city.
And that was enough to make Mr. Hahan, a union man from a union town, a
supporter of Gov. Scott Walker's sweeping proposal to cut the benefits and
collective-bargaining rights of public workers in Wisconsin, a plan that has
set off a firestorm of debate and protests at the state Capitol. He says he
still believes in unions, but thinks those in the public sector lead to
wasteful spending because of what he sees as lavish benefits and endless
negotiations.
"Something needs to be done," he said, "and quickly."
Across Wisconsin, residents like Mr. Hahan have fumed in recent years as
tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs have vanished, and as some of the
state's best-known corporations have pressured workers to accept benefit
cuts.
Wisconsin's financial problems are not as dire as those of many other
states. But a simmering resentment over those lost jobs and lost benefits in
private industry - combined with the state's history of highly polarized
politics - may explain why Wisconsin, once a pioneer in supporting organized
labor, has set off a debate that is spreading to other states over public
workers, unions and budget woes.
There are deeply divided opinions and shifting allegiances over whether
unions are helping or hurting people who have been caught in the recent
economic squeeze. And workers themselves, being pitted against one another,
are finding it hard to feel sympathy or offer solidarity, with their own
jobs lost and their benefits and pensions cut back or cut off.
"Everyone else needs to pinch pennies and give more money to health
insurance companies and pay for their own retirement," said Cindy Kuehn as
she left Jim and Judy's Food Market in Palmyra. "It's about time the buck
stops."
In Madison, the capital, which has become the focus of protests, many state
workers and students at the University of Wisconsin predictably oppose the
proposed cuts.
But away from Madison, many people said that public workers needed to share
in the sacrifice that their own families have been forced to make.
The effort to weaken bargaining rights for public-sector unions has been
particularly divisive, with some people questioning the need to tackle such
a fundamental issue to solve the state's budget problems.
But more often the conversation has turned to the proposals to increase
public workers' contributions to their pensions and health care, and on
these issues people said they were less sympathetic, and often grew flushed
and emotional telling stories of their own pay cuts and financial worries.
Here in Janesville, a city of about 60,000 an hour southeast of Madison,
Crystal Watkins, a preschool teacher at a Lutheran church, said she was paid
less than public school teachers and got fewer benefits. "I don't have any
of that," she said. "But I'm there every day because I love the kids."
In Palmyra, a small village bounded by farmland and forests, MaryKay Horter
remembered how her husband's Chevy dealership had teetered on the brink of
closing after General Motors declared bankruptcy, for which she blamed
unions.
Ms. Horter said she was forced to work more hours as an occupational
therapist, but had not seen a raise or any retirement contributions from her
employer for the last two years. All told, her family's income has dropped
by about a third.
"I don't get to bargain in my job, either," she said.
And in nearby Whitewater, a scenic working-class city of 15,000 that is home
to a public university, Dave Bergman, the owner of a bar, was tending it
himself on Sunday. He has been forced to cut staff and work seven days a
week.
"There are a lot of people out of work right now that would take a job
without a union," Mr. Bergman said.
By some measures, Wisconsin, a state of 5.6 million people, has not suffered
as much as other Midwestern states in the recession, according to Abdur
Chowdhury, an economist at Marquette University.
Its unemployment rate, 7.5 percent in December, is lower than the nation's.
But a significant percentage of jobs lost in Wisconsin during the recession
were in manufacturing, and this is a state where the proportion of the work
force in manufacturing is among the nation's highest.
Room For Debate
Wisconsin's Blow to Union Power
Will the governor's war on public employees' collective bargaining rights
sweep the nation?
Related
a.. Wisconsin G.O.P. Plans to Work Without Democrats (February 22, 2011)
b.. Protesters in Wisconsin Say They Are Staying Put (February 21, 2011)
c.. Wisconsin Puts Obama Between Competing Desires (February 21, 2011)
d.. Wisconsin May Take an Ax to State Workers' Benefits and Their Unions
(February 12, 2011)
Meanwhile, some of the state's well-known companies - Harley-Davidson,
Kohler, Mercury Marine - have recently sought concessions from their
workers.
The battle over public workers has changed the tone in a state that prides
itself on Midwestern civility. A growing number of homemade bumper stickers
are popping up with messages like "Fire Them - Democrats Too."
Among the state's political leaders, the partisan gulf seems to have widened
further. Traditionally, the state is nearly evenly split between Republicans
and Democrats (along with a third group of independents) - making it a
perennial battleground in presidential elections, with margins of victory
that have sometimes come down to a matter of a few tenths of 1 percent.
Wisconsin is the state that gave birth to government unions in the 1950s,
but also to Joseph McCarthy, who railed against people he accused of being
Communists.
"The Republicans are really Republicans here, and the Democrats are really
Democrats, so the candidates who come out of primaries reflect that," said
Ken Goldstein, a political scientist from the University of Wisconsin.
Two years after the state elected President Obama by a wide margin, it
elected conservative Republicans - some of them supported by Tea Party
groups - to the state legislature, the Senate and the governor's office.
The flip has emboldened Mr. Walker, the new Republican governor who has
proposed the cuts to benefits and bargaining rights, arguing that he
desperately needs to bridge a deficit expected to reach $3.6 billion for the
coming two-year budget.
Union leaders have said they would accept the financial terms of Mr. Walker's
proposal. The more controversial provisions, though, would strip public
employees of collective-bargaining rights.
In Whitewater, Ben Penwell, a lawyer whose wife is a public employee, said
he saw no reason to strip away workers' bargaining rights if they had agreed
to benefit cuts.
"They're willing to do what's necessary fiscally without giving up rights in
the future," he said.
And Pat Wellnitz, working in his accounting office on Sunday, wondered why
such bargaining provisions were needed if the real problem was simply saving
money.
"That's pretty drastic even for a staunch Republican," he said.
But others suggested that unions had perhaps had outlived their usefulness.
Carrie Fox, who works at a billboard advertising company, said she hoped
that the battle would encourage other governors to rein in public- and
private-sector unions.
"I know there was a point for unions back in the day because people were
being abused," she said. "But now there's workers' rights; there's laws that
protect us." |
