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The Battle for America 2010: Labor Unions Looking to Rescue Feingold in
Wisconsin
Posted By _Gary Wickert_ On October 7, 2010 @ 12:00 am In _Elections
2010_, _Politics_, _US News_, _economy_ | _16 Comments
<http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-battle-for-america-2010-labor-unions-looking-to-rescue-feingold-in-wisconsin/?print=1#comments_controls>_
Russ Feingold is hastily circling the union wagons in order to salvage a
Senate campaign that is quickly taking on water. A new automated
Rasmussen poll
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/01/feingold-johnson-wisconsin-senate_n_746511.html>
^[1] released in Wisconsin last weekend shows incumbent and long-time
Senate fixture Russ Feingold now trailing Republican challenger and
political newcomer Ron Johnson by 12 points (54% to 42%). Two weeks ago,
the CNN//Time/ poll
<http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/103687184.html> ^[2] , the
only live interviewer survey conducted in the state since July, showed
Johnson leading by 6 points (51% to 45%). Feingold's efforts to
manufacture a pro-job, pro-business campaign message appear to be
falling on deaf ears, because the very unions supporting the lifetime
incumbent are the ones responsible for the destruction of Wisconsin's
small business and manufacturing landscape.
Over 90,000 Wisconsin households received a mailer last month that read:
"Ron Johnson's workers don't have a union, and that's the way he likes
it." The mailer
<http://dc.wispolitics.com/2010/09/afl-cio-calls-johnson-anti-union.html> ^[3]
, from the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, is funded by workers forced to pay union
dues or fees and accept mandatory union representation just to keep
their jobs. Wisconsin State AFL-CIO executive vice president Sara Rogers
<http://dc.wispolitics.com/2010/09/afl-cio-calls-johnson-anti-union.html> ^[3]
said the mailer is just the beginning. "We will do whatever we need to
do to get the message out that Ron Johnson is not for working families,"
she said. But working families need a place to work. And the last time I
looked, after decades of Democratic and union-friendly governing,
Wisconsin businesses were headed for the exits.
Back in 1953, Milwaukee County Stadium was built on a prayer, and the
Atlanta Braves answered that prayer when they moved to Milwaukee. The
American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial
Organizations were just beginning merger talks, and the manufacturing
industry was the backbone of Wisconsin's metropolitan areas. After
30,000 layoffs in the wake of Japan's surrender after World War II,
Milwaukee had successfully retooled for peacetime production.
Edward P. Allis & Company had grown to become one of the largest and
most diverse manufacturers in North America --- Allis-Chalmers --- and
had relocated to North Greenfield Avenue in the city that still bears
its founder's name (West Allis). Milwaukee became known as the city of
beer, and Schlitz, Pabst, Miller, and smaller local breweries employed a
steadily growing workforce. According to John Gurda's /The Making of
Milwaukee, /at least 56 percent of Milwaukee's workforce was engaged in
the manufacturing industry in 1953 --- one of the highest concentrations
in America. Workers' paychecks swelled from $47 in 1946 to over $93 in
1956, growing at over twice the rate of inflation. It's no wonder the
hit sitcom based on Milwaukee in the late 1950s was called /Happy Days. /
/ /
It did not take long for the winds of change to blow, however. Union
demands forced many local companies to move south to lower wage,
non-union environments. In 1953, 56.9 percent of workers made their
living in the manufacturing industry. In 1970, that number had fallen to
43%. Today, that number is less than 20%
<http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dwd/publications/dws/lmi/pdf/dwsi_15233_p.pdf>
^[4] , according to the most recent Wisconsin Department of Workforce
Development estimates. This impacts the community in more ways than
simply contributing to unemployment. The workers in the old
Allis-Chalmers plant making nearly twelve dollars an hour were replaced
by a shopping center, in which clerks made $5.23 an hour --- the minimum
wage at that time.
By 1980, the industrial climate in Milwaukee looked much different than
it had thirty years earlier, and Allis-Chalmers' workforce was half of
what it had been fifteen years prior. As David Scott, chairman of
Allis-Chalmers put it, "You can't make a loaf of bread for a dollar and
sell it for eighty cents." In 1982 A.O. Smith held a job fair and the
turnout for the few available jobs was so great that they had to rent
out State Fair Park in order to accommodate all the unemployed looking
to turn in their applications. Soon thereafter, Allis-Chalmers, Kearney
& Trecker, Siemens, and A.O. Smith had all moved on.
As recently as last month, Harley-Davidson itself was on the union
chopping block. The Milwaukee Harley plant was at its breaking point
after more than a century, with high Feingold-supporting union labor and
production costs threatening to end 107 years of tradition. Hanging in
the balance were 1,630 Wisconsin jobs. Harley sounded the warning alarm
last April when it told deaf union leaders that it desperately needed to
cut production costs if it was to survive. In an economic recession
worsened in large part by the financial naivete of a young pro-union,
redistributionist president with whom Russ Feingold votes in lock-step,
union leaders should have been eager to make concessions and save jobs.
With only seconds left on the clock, Harley's three Wisconsin unions
agreed to a new contract --- saving Harley, for now.
Organized labor, like its second cousin big government, ignores the
realities of life here in Wisconsin. With unemployment
<http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dwd/newsreleases/ui_state_default.pdf> ^[5] at
nearly 8%, Wisconsin is in the middle of its own recession and its older
industrialized regions --- the heart of America's "Rust Belt" --- may
well be in a depression.
As evidence that Wisconsin union leaders are living in another
dimension, last month, the United Auto Workers local representing 2,750
employees at Wisconsin's Oshkosh Corporation voted unanimously to reject
a one-year contract extension proposed by management. What were they
being offered? Terms that included a 3.5% increase in wages, a $750
signing bonus, no increase in health care costs to the workers, and
generous increases in pensions and fringe benefits. Not only did they
reject the offer, they did so angrily. Even Harley-Davidson's reluctant
and last-minute "concessions" --- a wage freeze, layoff of 325 workers,
and union employees accepting the same pension plan as salaried workers
in exchange --- seem like a no-brainer in today's economic climate.
Union leaders in America today must open their eyes and realize that any
American working at a job with benefits can be considered extremely
lucky. The inexplicable rejection of management's proposals by the UAW
at Oshkosh Corporation is only the latest example of the fantasy world
where the law of supply and demand has been demoted to a debatable
theory. "Fight greed" is the mantra of the UAW, yet it is union greed
that hurts the majority of hard-working Americans who do not belong to a
union.
Russ Feingold may believe he is fighting for "working families," but it
appears to be Ron Johnson who sees that 85%
<http://www.bls.gov/ro5/unionwi.pdf> ^[6] of non-union employees in
Wisconsin who are struggling. Enter the selfish teachers' unions.
Modeled after antiquated and destructive labor contracts suited for
factory workers, the typical teachers' union contract is loaded with
provisions that not only do nothing to promote education, they harm
education. Harmful and selfish education union provisions drive away
good teachers, protect bad teachers, raise costs, and tie principals'
hands. As national attention turns to education solutions such as
charter schools and merit pay, teachers' unions will be there throwing
grenades every step of the way.
Ron Johnson recognizes that the dramatic rise in influence enjoyed by
the teachers' unions has coincided with stagnant and unacceptable levels
of student performance. A new documentary on the teachers' unions'
responsibility for the abysmal state of American education entitled
/Waiting for Superman
<http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/24/3052921/documentary-films-ratchet-up-pressure.html>
^[7] / is now out in the theaters. I doubt Russ Feingold will see it.
Despite paying lip service to education reform, you could hear only
crickets chirping from the Feingold camp when the Obama administration
<http://www.usnews.com/sections/news/obama/index.html> ^[8] --- in an
effort to avoid angering the unions and endangering their political
contributions --- took a hatchet to the very successful D.C. school
voucher program
<http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2009/04/22/obama-wrong-on-dc-school-vouchers-and-hypocritical-just-like-congress>
^[9] , despite a United States Department of Education
<http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20094050/pdf/20094050.pdf> ^[10] report
that showed students had made statistically significant gains in reading
achievement.
In August, Russ Feingold released an ad called "On Our Side
<http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/23/whos-on-feingolds-side/feed>
^[11] ," featuring what are supposed to be ordinary Wisconsinites
praising Feingold for siding with them. Unfortunately, two of the
"ordinary Wisconsinites
<http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/23/whos-on-feingolds-side> ^[12] "
praising Feingold in the ad include high-powered AFL-CIO lobbyist Joanne
Ricca and a woman from the office of the AFL-CIO president.
For his role as union accomplice in dismantling Wisconsin's private and
small business communities, Feingold has received the highest possible
(100% or "A") ratings
<http://heartlandmurmurs.com/2010/07/23/the-case-against-russ-feingold.aspx>
^[13] by the SEIU, AFSCME, NEA, and the AFL-CIO. That's really all I
need to know on November 2nd. Between more than $1 million in campaign
checks, the repeated use of AFL-CIO higher-ups in his ads, and his
consistent support of "card check" and other pro-union bills in
Washington, Feingold is in lockstep with the unions, and that puts him
out of phase with the 85% <http://www.bls.gov/ro5/unionwi.pdf> ^[6] of
Wisconsin employees who are non-union.
Wisconsin and Russ Feingold have to rethink their approach to labor. Our
global economy has provided struggling industries with a new source of
labor --- foreign workers willing to work for a lot less than the
prevailing wage here. Rather than sitting in lawn chairs with union-made
picket signs in front of U.S. companies where the doors are locked and
the grass is no longer cut, unions must recognize their new environment
and adapt. The American economy can no longer afford "cradle-to-grave"
employee care, retirement at 55, and lavish pensions worth more than the
annual salaries of many private employees provided to union workers by
their employers.
As we look at another Labor Day --- the official workers' holiday --- in
the rear-view mirror, we need to honor the American worker as well as
the role that unions have played in building this country. But we also
need to recognize that a new day has dawned for American labor. At a
recent AFL-CIO rally in Washington to stump for card check legislation
--- the equivalent of potassium chloride to Wisconsin's small businesses
--- the unions handed out hundreds of hardhats to their members to wear
while posing during their march.
Inside the hats it said, "Made in China
<http://www.politico.com/blogs/anneschroeder/0609/AFLCIO_Hard_Hats.html>
^[14] ."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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URL to article:
*http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-battle-for-america-2010-labor-unions-looking-to-rescue-feingold-in-wisconsin/*
URLs in this post:
[1] Rasmussen poll:
*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/01/feingold-johnson-wisconsin-senate_n_746511.html*
[2] CNN//Time/ poll:
*http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/103687184.html*
[3] mailer:
*http://dc.wispolitics.com/2010/09/afl-cio-calls-johnson-anti-union.html*
[4] 20%:
*http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dwd/publications/dws/lmi/pdf/dwsi_15233_p.pdf*
[5] unemployment:
*http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dwd/newsreleases/ui_state_default.pdf*
[6] 85%: *http://www.bls.gov/ro5/unionwi.pdf*
[7] Waiting for Superman:
*http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/24/3052921/documentary-films-ratchet-up-pressure.html*
[8] Obama administration:
*http://www.usnews.com/sections/news/obama/index.html*
[9] school voucher program:
*http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2009/04/22/obama-wrong-on-dc-school-vouchers-and-hypocritical-just-like-congress*
[10] United States Department of Education:
*http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20094050/pdf/20094050.pdf*
[11] On Our Side:
*http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/23/whos-on-feingolds-side/feed*
[12] ordinary Wisconsinites:
*http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/23/whos-on-feingolds-side*
[13] ratings:
*http://heartlandmurmurs.com/2010/07/23/the-case-against-russ-feingold.aspx*
[14] Made in China:
*http://www.politico.com/blogs/anneschroeder/0609/AFLCIO_Hard_Hats.html*
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