Posted on 01/20/2013 6:12:56 AM PST by Kaslin
Those looking for excellent news in the midst of a clearly-souring global economy can find it in Wisconsin.
I am pleased to report Federal appeals court upholds Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s restrictions on public unions
A federal appeals court on Friday upheld Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s contentious law stripping most public workers of nearly all of their collective bargaining rights in a decision hailed by Republicans but not undoing a state court ruling keeping much of the law from being in effect.
The decision marks the latest twist in a two-year battle over the law that Walker proposed in February 2011 and passed a month later despite massive protests and Senate Democrats leaving for Illinois in a failed attempt to block a vote on the measure.
The law forced public union members to pay more for health insurance and pension benefits, which Walker said was needed to address a budget shortfall. It also took away nearly all their bargaining rights.
Walker and Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who fought for passage of the bill, called the ruling a win for Wisconsin taxpayers.
“As we’ve said all along, Act 10 is constitutional,” Walker said in a statement, referring to the law’s official designation.
While Friday’s 2-1 ruling by a panel of the 7th Circuit could influence the state appeals court and others hearing the cases, it’s not binding, said Paul Secunda, a Marquette University law professor. It certainly doesn’t signal the end of the legal fights, he said, and it could be appealed to the full federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The public unions will fight until every one of their arguments are considered in full,” Secunda predicted.
The law in question prohibits most public employees from collectively bargaining on anything except wages. It also requires public unions to hold an annual election to see whether members want the organization to continue to exist, and it bars unions from automatically withdrawing dues from members’ paychecks.
Walker specifically exempted public safety unions from the law’s effects, however. He said he didn’t want to risk police and firefighters going on strike in protest of the law’s provisions.
The appeals court upheld the law in its entirety Friday. The judges said the state was free to draw a line between public safety and other unions. The state had a rational basis to protect the public safety unions and the law didn’t explicitly discriminate against other public worker unions based on their political leanings, the court said.
“Distinguishing between public safety unions and general employee unions may have been a poor choice, but it is not unconstitutional,” the opinion said.Poor Choice Indeed
Let's review that last sentence above “Distinguishing between public safety unions and general employee unions may have been a poor choice, but it is not unconstitutional,” the opinion said.
I agree. It was a poor choice to exclude public workers.
The way to rectify that poor choice is to pass another law, including public safety workers as well.
I strongly endorse ending all collective bargaining "rights" of public unions.
No "Right" to Collective Bargaining
For starters there is no "right" to collective bargaining. I made the case at the height of the Wisconsin battle on March 21, 2011 in Collective Bargaining neither a Privilege nor a Right
The battle cry from Wisconsin is a union complaint that their "right" to collective bargaining has been taken away. Nothing could be further from the truth. You cannot take away something that does not exist and never did.
Please consider this simple sentence straight from the Declaration of Independence.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Public unions take away those "unalienable rights" via collective bargaining arrangements.
Five Ways Collective Bargaining Tramples Various Unalienable Rights
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.
The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees.
A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. The biggest socialist president in the history of the US even agrees there is no place for collective bargaining of public unions, and he states the case very well.
Anyone who reads that logical explanation by FDR and disagrees, is a member of a union, has a family member in a union, or simply has a non-functioning mind.
I call on governor Scott Walker to rectify the law as passed. Excluding public safety workers was a bad idea, and he knows it.
So why did he do it?
He barely won the first election (winning the recall by much more) and probably would not have won if he took on all the unions at once.
For more on public union slavery, coercion, bribery, and scapegoating please see ...
I wish they would stop calling collective bargaining a right.
So which is it?
contentious law stripping most public workers of nearly all of their collective bargaining rights in a decision hailed by Republicans
The 'AP style book' used to be concerned with capitalization, acronyms and other rules of usage/presentation.
The REAL AP style is a poorly-disguised flood of bile whenever the writer disapproves of a person, group, policy or outcome.
'Historic' - anything the writer agrees with i.e. statism
'Controversial or contentious' - anything the writer disagrees with
The AP writer here is really laying it on thick.
'Stripping' - yes the writer wants an image of a poor teechur in the stocks being disrobed by a mob
Note that collective bargaining, a purely economic and legal exercise, has been elevated to the status of a 'right' along with real rights like free speech and the right to bear arms.
The law forced public union members to pay more for health insurance and pension benefits
No, it didn't force anything. It merely stated that if they wanted it they had to pay for it. Not 'pay more,' pay PERIOD. A revolutionary concept in Gimme Gimme Land.
You are right. It should properly be referred to as the right of assembly.
If I'm in the workplace and someone tells me I am not allowed to gather with my fellow workers and to organize our collective concerns I'm going to ask them if we are in Communist China.
Maybe if you read the entire article you find out./sarcasm>
My AP Stylebook must be out of date...
Can anyone describe what effect if any, this ruling has on existing contracts? Are those contracts now nullified even though they have not yet expired?
Off to the Supreme Court, then. They’ll try, try, and try again, hoping that one of the conservative or swing votes will leave the Court and be replaced by a lefty. The thread of freedom is getting thin.
Off to the Supreme Court, then. They’ll try, try, and try again, hoping that one of the conservative or swing votes will leave the Court and be replaced by a lefty. The thread of freedom is getting thin.
The existing contract trumps the new law. When the contract expires, that’s the end of it.
Hmmm... that is exactly what the lefty unions in Wisconsin said. Some how those “rights” including forcing the taxpayers to pay 30 percent more for the union members health care than market prices -— to a union owned health insurance “company”. That represents hundreds of millions of dollars bilked from Wisconsin taxpayers and forwarded to Democrats to gain even more political and financial power.
What you call “rights” of association in our state were PROVEN to be abuses to the point of collusion and thievery. Perhaps Illinois will show the country what a state collapsing under assault by public employee rights looks like.
Know “your professor!”
http://law.marquette.edu/faculty-and-staff-directory/detail/5431766
Another liberal “lawya!”
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