When Public Employees Are the Enemy

The Republican governor of Wisconsin has declared war on his state’s public employees. Teachers, nurses, firemen, policemen. You know, those evil people.

When the governor reported a $137 million budget shortfall – that’s right, million with an “m” – he saw his chance to do what conservatives do best: go after middle class workers. Not only is he asking public employees to bite the bullet and kick in some money to help him balance the budget, he is trying to deny them the right for public employee labor unions to negotiate labor contracts.

This is akin to going after a mosquito with a baseball bat.

First, a $137 million budget shortfall is not a crisis. It is, if anything, a small inconvenience. Ask California, New York, or Texas about a budget crisis. I know budget crises, and Wisconsin's dear Mr. Governor, is no budget crisis.

Second, it would seem that the Wisconsin “budget crisis” has been engineered by the self-same Wisconsin governor. It was only last year that the governor decided to hand over $117 million in business tax breaks. Giving that kind of money to business and then asking public sector employees to foot the bill takes not just a little gall.

But probably the most infuriating thing that this governor has done is threaten peacefully assembling demonstrators in Madison with rough treatment: he has threatened to order out the state’s National Guard troops to take care of this matter.

If this isn’t retrogression at its worst, I don’t know what is.

I have signed a letter to the Wisconsin governor to knock this stuff off. You can too.

Did You Get One of These?

I empty my mailbox once a week whether I need to or not. And what should I find in my mailbox this past week but an 8.5 x 11 inch envelope with an admonition to the postal carrier that he or she shall not handle it with an uncaring mind.

What should lie within the confines of this envelope? None other than my once-in-a-lifetime invitation to the glorious Inauguration of Barack H. Obama and Joseph R. Biden as President and Vice-President of the United States, respectively. (Click to enlarge) Alas, but I will not be able to attend, but it’s nice to be invited.

Instead I will be attending a far more local and less pricey (at $35) Inaugural Ball in the backyard of Tom DeLayville: the Sugar Creek Country Club.

A million of us, donors to the campaign of Barack Obama, received this invitation. But that’s really the best part of this story.

As reported here, Precise Continental, a printing firm in Brooklyn, New York was about to effect a 4-day work week for its 65 employees. Said shop owner Jim Donnelly:

“I was cautioning them about January that business didn't look good.”

In the meantime, the Obama campaign was looking for a strong union shop that used recycled paper for its feedstock. It settled on Precise Continental for those reasons. And the fact is, it turned a dismal holiday season into a boom.

“’The average employee went home last Wednesday with two-and-a-half-weeks check because of all the overtime they put in,’ Donnelly said. ‘You can buy a lot of Christmas presents with that.’”

So really, it’s more than just to be a one-in-a-million recipient of this union-produced memento of an historic event. It’s the story behind it.

A story that gives me hope for the future of our country.

Nationalize the Auto Industry

I have been watching the to and fro arguments on why or why not to bail out the Big 3 auto industry: General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. The arguments are shrill on both sides.

Conservatives of both parties are arguing that these companies are “dinosaurs” and the only thing that has occurred that threatens their existence is fatal mismanagement by their own obscenely overpaid management. They don’t build what Americans want and have ignored market trends. Their workers, union workers mind you, are overpaid and lazy.

Sure, they argue, let them file Chapter 11 and let them reorganize. This has happened before and it is what makes our capitalist system the resilient system that it is.

Liberals, Democrats for the most part, argue that this is the premier manufacturing industry in America. To let it die on the vine would be tantamount to inviting a full depression with the 3 million jobs that the auto industry directly or indirectly supports.

Some argue that letting GM go under would be a blow to our national security because of the many defense industry products that it produces.

And that got me to scratch my head.

Defense industry? GM?

Well, yes, in the past. In years past GM had a military division that produced all manner of weapons and things that promoted the killing of our fellow man. GM Defense it was called. But to my recollection, that division was sold off to General Dynamics in 2003.

Another model decision from GM’s management, selling off a military war materiel manufacturing division right in the middle of two shooting wars.

But they still retain a corner in the market of military trucks. They still make and sell the LSSV (Light Service Support Vehicle) also known as a pick-up truck. There is also their
EMP (Enhanced Mobility Package) – God knows what that is. Maybe it’s an automobile.

I can see both sides points here. That is a fatal flaw in my character. Both sides make good points.

So here’s the thing. Are the three companies that dominate America’s largest industry being led by incompetent jerks who are now engaged in begging for corporate welfare? Absolutely. Do I trust them with $25 billion of public money? No way. Is this industry so important that the collapse of it will have a domino effect that will doom our country to an unrecoverable depression? Alas, that is also true.

So what is the answer? Are we going to fork over these sums to these incompetents anyway? No way.

The answer is clear, and I never thought I would hear myself saying this, but the answer is for the Feds to buy up the auto industry.

Nationalize it.

Think of it. If this is the premier industry of our nation, and its collapse will drive the rest of us into economic ruin, this industry is a threat to our national security.

Letting the private sector mismanage this uber-industry when it is so key to keeping us economically sound makes no sense at all. It makes as much sense as privatizing our military services. Letting GM management take over at the Pentagon.

So see? There are not two alternatives that may or may not work. There is a third alternative that eliminates all of the minuses of having a critical industry managed by idiots whose solution to the gas price crisis was not to engineer lower mileage autos, but to guarantee $1.99 gasoline to SUV customers.

And it eliminates the feeling of throwing good money into a garbage disposal. If we, the people make the investment in buying out the Big 3, we the people get to share in the profits. Right?

After all, we’re not Communists.

WalMart Says Don’t Vote For Democrats

In something that borders on criminal violation of federal election laws, WalMart executives are disseminating the company line on how their 1.4 million employees should vote this fall. In a word, WalMart is telling their massive employee base not to vote for Democrats this year.

Now it’s OK for WalMart to disseminate its opinion to its workers with regard to certain specific candidates or positions, but only to salaried employees, and never to its hourly waged worker bees that make up the bulk of its payroll.

But that’s not happening. Workers are being told what will happen if Democrats get elected this fall. WalMart, which is already renowned for its institutionalized employee intimidation practices, is telling its employees that if they vote for Democrats this fall, it could very well impact their jobs.

From the Wall Street Journal, who broke this story:

“The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,' said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. ‘I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote,’ she said.”

The bill in question is the Employee Free Choice Act, a Democratically sponsored bill that would make it much easier for unions to organize. WalMart, which is universally recognized as being anti-union, is telling their employees that if Democrats elect a president and increase its Senate strength, the EFCA will become the law of the land, and this, WalMart executive say, will be bad for workers.

“Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.”

Now, as a matter of course, I do not shop at WalMart. Not only because of their poor treatment of their employees, but also because they nearly single-handedly contribute to America’s trade imbalance with the People’s Republic of China, whose substandard goods fill their stores’ shelves.

But now I am moved to exhort my six readers, or anyone who lands here while looking for pornography or pictures of Krishna, to do their patriotic duty and avoid spending a single American red cent at WalMart and Sam’s Club. Not shopping there is a patriotic act just as important as not drinking English tea in 1770. Send a message to WalMart fat cats that Americans are fed up with these tactics of fear and oppression of the workers.

Say NO to WalMart’s products and services, and say YES to voting a straight Democratic ticket this November.