Thursday, February 17, 2011

Wisconsin Dem Senators Have Left the State to Delay the Vote on Union Bargaining, and They Are In Rockford Clock Tower Resort in Illinois

It looks like Wisconsin is indeed resembling Egypt, except in a bad way - members of the ruling class running away to a resort....

Part of the ruling class of the state - Democratic State Senators - have fled the state in order to avoid the capture so that they cannot vote on the bill that would restrict the collective bargaining power of the public unions. Apparently, they got on a bus and crossed the state line, and they are in Rockford, Illinois at the Best Western Clock Tower Resort.

Rockfort Clock Tower Resort boasts many amenities, I've learned, including Tilted Kilt Pub and Eatery, pictured below:



What a joke. And the cynical MSM in the US paints it like it is a popular uprising against a despot.

From an even more cynical (well, who isn't, these days?) Zero Hedge, quoting AP:

The farce over the Wisconsin anti-union vote has just passed into the surreal. According to the AP, democrat lawmakers, who are firmly opposed to voting on the bill which is said to already have majority support, and who have been boycotting the vote by being absent from the state capitol, have now escalated and patriotically left the state. The reason is that while the vote can not take place without at least one Democrat being present, the police had been sent out earlier, with orders to sequester the democrats. The democrat response: run away. As the AP reports: "Senate Republicans can't vote on the bill unless at least one Democrat is present. Police could be dispatched to retrieve them, but it was unclear if they would have the authority to cross state lines." So to all who were expecting the latest iteration of members of the executive class to run away (with or without gold) to come from Africa or the Middle East, will be disappointed: it was in America's very own back yard.

From the AP:

A Wisconsin state senator says the 14 Democratic lawmakers who are boycotting a vote on a controversial anti-union bill have left the state.

Sen. Jon Erpenbach says the group wants to force negotiations over the Republican-backed bill, which would strip most public employees of their collective-bargaining rights.

Erpenbach told The Associated Press that he and his colleagues had left Wisconsin, but he would not say where.

He said the plan is to slow down the bill because it's "tearing the state apart."

We don't get what the big deal is here: just call Von Bernankestein's hot line and get him to deliver $10 billion, or trillion, it's all the same these days. These are the Chairman's favorite kinds of inbound calls. After all, the dollar needs all the help it can get to get to zero way ahead of everyone else. It is everyone's patriotic duty to go bankrupt and to demand bail outs from our money printing syndicate. Lastly, not doing so is racist.

So what are these Dem Senators, public union workers in Wisconsin, and the Prez of the USSA upset about this bill? According to another AP article, under the bill:

state employees' share of pension and health care costs would go up by an average of 8 percent.

Unions still could represent workers, but could not seek pay increases above those pegged to the Consumer Price Index unless approved by a public referendum. Unions also could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized.

In exchange for bearing more costs and losing bargaining leverage, public employees were promised no furloughs or layoffs.

See that last sentence? No furloughs or layoffs!

In this day and age of semi-permanent unemployment and underemployment in the private sector, there would be no furloughs or layoffs for these public union workers in Wisconsin.

So, what are they complaining about, again?

I think public unions feel their very existence is being threatened, and therefore they are mobilizing the members to protest. Read the middle paragraph of the above quote; the bill would restrict their ability to force members to pay union dues and force them to hold annual votes to stay organized.

(Union officials must be envious of those Dem Senators spending time in Tilted Kilt Pub...)

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