Posts tagged Gov. Scott Walker
Opinion: Imagine there’s no public employee unions
February 21, 2023 // But try as President Joe Biden has, it just hasn’t been enough. Automation (including not only factory machinery but also the gig economy), trade, high-profile union corruption cases, failing pension funds, and a string of adverse court rulings are among the many factors rendering private sector unions irrelevant to workers in most modern fields. This has led the unions to desperate measures, such as organizing esoteric, low-income professions, including graduate student teachers and video game testers. Yet the story is quite different for unions in the public sector. The unionization rate of public employees remains robust, at more than 33% of all government workers nationwide. Local government workers are the most likely to be unionized, at a rate of nearly 39%, and public sector union members are concentrated in states that mandate collective bargaining. The states with higher rates of unionization seem to correlate with the nation's least functional state governments: California (54.5%), Illinois (48.7%), New York (66.7%), and New Jersey (59.3%) among them. As their private sector cousins starve, public employee unions are fat and happy — a strange development, given that there was no public sector collective bargaining at all 70 years ago, when unions were at their apex.
Wisconsin board: UW Health not required to recognize union
November 28, 2022 // A Wisconsin labor relations commission has ruled that the UW Health hospital system will not be required to recognize a nurses union or engage in collective bargaining negotiations. The Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission in its Friday ruling found that UW Health was exempted from collective bargaining laws because the nurses are public employees under Act 10 — a 2011 law passed under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Both UW Health and the nurse’s group described the ruling as an initial step in the nurse’s effort to regain union recognition,
Opinion: Connecticut Hits Its Taxpayers With a Huge Payoff to Unions
April 6, 2022 // If Hartford lawmakers consent, state employees will pocket $2,500 bonuses, back pay averaging nearly $2,000, and raises of 2.5% to 4.5%. Another $1,000 bonus and more raises await in July, around the time their unions will decide whether to offer Mr. Lamont’s re-election bid the same intense backing they delivered in 2018.
Act 10 Savings Tops $15 Billion Since 2011
March 27, 2022 // Before the unions convince you that contributing 12.6% towards health insurance is an unfair and undue burden, think about this. A state employee in Wisconsin pays $2,952 a year for the regular family plan with dental. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average annual worker premium contribution is $6,015 a year. State employees pay roughly half of what the average taxpayer pays for health insurance and the state employee is receiving platinum coverage for that reasonable amount.
Why Pennsylvania Needs Wisconsin-Style Government Union Reform
February 24, 2022 // Government union executives use this power to trap government employees in unions, deny them alternative representation, and lobby against fiscal and educational reforms needed to make Pennsylvania more prosperous.