I watched Wisconsin’s Unions against Gov Scott Walker and the state level Republicans from afar in southeastern PA. I followed news reading about it on Drudge, cnsnews.com, Online Wisconsin columns, listening online to Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s 620 WTMJ weekend talks show host, the urban conservative, James T. Harris and reading his news links on his Facebook Page. I was hoping for the Republicans to retain Senate control. They did, but still suffered loss. Two Republicans were successfully recalled from supposedly safe districts. The Democrats and public sector unions spent millions for their minor victory. They lost out on the major victory of getting control of the Senate so that they could recall Gov. Walker. Read all about it here.
If you talk to other members in my family circle, you will get the opposite reaction from mine. They see what happen in Wisconsin as bad, especially one from my family who feels doing anything that hurts collective bargaining is comparable to doing away with a basic human right. As I have stated in a previous post, in working in a child care classroom for a well-known Church organization, there was no union and collective bargaining. If non exempt employees did not like a policy, a policy change, or the small 1 or 2 percent raise and/or no raise at all some years, their only option was to quit and go work someplace else.
I turned to MSNBC, but did not stay with it. Now that the Wisconsin Republicans retained their Republican majority, I wish I had stayed on the channel. I turned to it in the 10:00 P. M. hour. Lawrence O’Donnell was hosting while Ed Schultz was reporting in Wisconsin. At that time, they both had such a leftist biased air of certainty that all the Republican state senators would be recalled, but that did not happen.
It is rather clear that the GOP still has the upper hand in Wisconsin. In the public sector union led fight against them a few months back, the GOP celebrated a victory with the reelection of Republican State Supreme Court Judge, Justice David Prosser, which was a blow to the efforts to reinstate collective bargaining. There is another recall for 2 Democrats next week. Even if the 2 Democrats withstand the recall, the Republicans will still have their majority, but weakened by the loss of 2 of their own. The Wisconsin Democrats are not giving up. The plan to pursue the recall of Gov. Walker.
I hear the cries from union folks and Democratic Party workers urging the everyday working person to fight the GOP (and TEA Partiers) in what they see as the right’s efforts to take employment benefits back to early 1900s. Public sector union demands for their workers seem to ignore today’s harrowing economic conditions around them. They push for benefits that cannot be truly financed by the state through the taxpayer. They apparently do not care that their states are in deficits partly due to meeting their demands in the past.
To me, Republican leaders like Gov. Walker, Gov. Christie and Gov. Kasich are being the adults in the room to the childish public sector workers who feel their benefit and collective bargaining demands are the same as basic rights. Though a little beat up, these Republican leaders are emerging on top in their states. Contentions remains very strong. It will be interesting to see the losses and/or gains for the public sector unions and Democrats under the Republicans Governors , Walker, Christie and Kasich
