interesting that WI teachers only contributed .2 percent to their pension. In OH, I believe teachers contribute 10 percent with legislation on the table to bump that up to 13 percent. Big difference in take home pay.

Wisconsin teachers did themselves no favors by taking sick days so they could get paid to go protest in Madison, then enough teachers doing so that schools had to close.

Results: Schools closed, no kids educated, teachers still paid and complaining their benefits could be cut.

Wisconsin Democrats did themselves no favors by leaving the state either. Didn't everyone just hear two years ago that "Elections have consequence"? Especially for people whose unions contributed millions of dollars to the losing side?

(02-19-2011 06:46 PM)Racinejake Wrote:  interesting that WI teachers only contributed .2 percent to their pension. In OH, I believe teachers contribute 10 percent with legislation on the table to bump that up to 13 percent. Big difference in take home pay.

That is true, and the teachers agreed to pay more into the pension. They also agreed to take on more healthcare costs. I'm not saying they can't give more, but I don't see where they are being unreasonable.

Quote:Wisconsin's Blow to Union Power
Will the governor's fight against public employees' collective bargaining rights sweep the nation?

F.D.R. Warned Us

James Sherk is the Bradley fellow in labor policy at the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation.

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd.

Public sector unions insist on laws that serve their interests -- at the expense of the common good. .The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”

Government collective bargaining means voters do not have the final say on public policy. Instead their elected representatives must negotiate spending and policy decisions with unions. That is not exactly democratic – a fact that unions once recognized.

George Meany was not alone. Up through the 1950s, unions widely agreed that collective bargaining had no place in government. But starting with Wisconsin in 1959, states began to allow collective bargaining in government. The influx of dues and members quickly changed the union movement’s tune, and collective bargaining in government is now widespread. As a result unions can now insist on laws that serve their interests – at the expense of the common good.

Union contracts make it next to impossible to reward excellent teachers or fire failing ones. Union contracts give government employees gold-plated benefits – at the cost of higher taxes and less spending on other priorities. The alternative to Walker's budget was kicking 200,000 children off Medicaid.

Governor Walker’s plan reasserts voter control over government policy. Voters’ elected representatives should decide how the government spends their taxes. More states should heed the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Executive Council’s 1959 advice: “In terms of accepted collective bargaining procedures, government workers have no right beyond the authority to petition Congress — a right available to every citizen.”

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/201...tor-unions

I'll say this then leave the discussion as I'm sure I wil never see eye to eye with the majority here... You get what you pay for with employees. If we want bottom of the barrel teachers, policemen, and fire fighters, go ahead and push to break up their only bargaining power. Anybody with a half a brain will avoid those positions as they are generally thankless jobs. You think schools are bad now? Wait until you have the checkout purple from your local McDonalds teaching our kids.

lastly, bville insinuated that they are servants to the public therefore should take less.

Please pass that on to your representatives who make more, have better benefits, and have not been forced to give up any extra pay towards their retirementsduring this fiscal crisis.

(02-20-2011 11:30 AM)mlb Wrote:  I'll say this then leave the discussion as I'm sure I wil never see eye to eye with the majority here... You get what you pay for with employees. If we want bottom of the barrel teachers, policemen, and fire fighters, go ahead and push to break up their only bargaining power. Anybody with a half a brain will avoid those positions as they are generally thankless jobs. You think schools are bad now? Wait until you have the checkout purple from your local McDonalds teaching our kids.

lastly, bville insinuated that they are servants to the public therefore should take less.

Please pass that on to your representatives who make more, have better benefits, and have not been forced to give up any extra pay towards their retirementsduring this fiscal crisis.

Cops and Firemen are exempt from the proposed Wisconsin changes, I think?
I always though that being a cop, firemen or a teacher was a "calling".
They don't do it for the money anyway.

(02-20-2011 11:30 AM)mlb Wrote:  I'll say this then leave the discussion as I'm sure I wil never see eye to eye with the majority here... You get what you pay for with employees.

no. too often you don't get what you pay for, and too often there is nothing the public can do about it.

Quote:If we want bottom of the barrel teachers, policemen, and fire fighters, go ahead and push to break up their only bargaining power.

the system is already filled with the "bottom of the barrel" public servants. courtesy of concessions made to the unions, they linger like bad gas, but longer, since there is no way to get rid of them. witness the history of the cincy PD via mediation compelled by union contract, the agreement to which "management" bears equal blame.

Quote:Anybody with a half a brain will avoid those positions as they are generally thankless jobs. You think schools are bad now? Wait until you have the checkout purple from your local McDonalds teaching our kids.

kinda begs the question of "why are they there now?" and whatever "checkout purple" is, kids coming out of the cincy public schools are probably unqualified.

Quote:lastly, bville insinuated that they are servants to the public therefore should take less.

Please pass that on to your representatives who make more, have better benefits, and have not been forced to give up any extra pay towards their retirementsduring this fiscal crisis.

DC reps are the worst basis for comparison. but i haven't seen the outcry about state public employees not contributing at all to their retirement and health costs.

(02-20-2011 11:30 AM)mlb Wrote:  lastly, bville insinuated that they are servants to the public therefore should take less.

Please pass that on to your representatives who make more, have better benefits, and have not been forced to give up any extra pay towards their retirementsduring this fiscal crisis.

#1. The numbers of representatives to people who affect local budgets like fire/police, etc, far outweight local politicians. Not to mention, many of those public employee union members pay money to some of those reps to keep them with their 'poor' salary numbers.

Quote:Cops and Firemen are exempt from the proposed Wisconsin changes, I think?
I always though that being a cop, firemen or a teacher was a "calling".
They don't do it for the money anyway.

Not for long. Walker had the support of fire/police unions in the elections. Needless to say, they aren't much of a supporter for him anyway. Walker is a smart fellow. Divide and conquer.

But somehow the NEA and school districts seem to have sufficient hours and funds to ensure that kids are taught about the virtues of abortion on demand, two daddys and two mommys, how great homosexual sex is and how to do it, how peaceful and good Islam is and how wonderful it is to learn about it in public educational settings, , how important it is to exclude Christianity from any and all aspects of public life (especially in educational settings), and I could go on and on about all of the far left liberal stances that are actively taught in public schools. You would think that if teachers are so overworked that maybe they would not be if they stuck to reading, writing, and arithmetic, science....

(02-20-2011 09:40 PM)bvillecat Wrote:  Not for long. Walker had the support of fire/police unions in the elections. Needless to say, they aren't much of a supporter for him anyway. Walker is a smart fellow. Divide and conquer.

As a republican, I think it would have been much more sensible to go after the benefits, which do seem excessive in Wisconsin, not the unions. In Ohio the state retirement cost for the system, at least what I could find, is only 3.5% higher then social security's employer contribution. Throw in some 401k matching and that would not be out of scale from the private sector.

The interesting thing is how this will play out next year. I've seen speculation that this is a ploy to reduce the unions as a source of democratic campaign funding. Anybody want to speculate what the Democratic turnout in Wisconsin is going to be in 2012? Ohio? Even more important is going to be which way the moderate voters are going to swing.

(02-22-2011 08:40 PM)grubs Wrote:  As a republican, I think it would have been much more sensible to go after the benefits, which do seem excessive in Wisconsin, not the unions. In Ohio the state retirement cost for the system, at least what I could find, is only 3.5% higher then social security's employer contribution. Throw in some 401k matching and that would not be out of scale from the private sector.

The interesting thing is how this will play out next year. I've seen speculation that this is a ploy to reduce the unions as a source of democratic campaign funding. Anybody want to speculate what the Democratic turnout in Wisconsin is going to be in 2012? Ohio? Even more important is going to be which way the moderate voters are going to swing.

I agree. I think there is likely to be another huge turnover in congress in 2012 thanks to the "sweeping" changes being made right now.

I think that if Wisconsin and Ohio really wanted to make a dent in their budget deficits, they would being attempting to overhaul medicaid and welfare rather than going after people who are actually working and paying taxes. I understand that they are funded by the tax payers, but so is medicaid and welfare, with zero return.

Something I find interesting...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/22/wi...n-website/

Quote:The Democratic Party of Wisconsin spoke out forcefully Tuesday after it was discovered that the state Capitol had blocked a website that was attempting to organize those protesting Republican Gov. Scott Walker's plan to strip unions of their rights.

Anyone trying to use the state Capitol's Wi-Fi connection to access http://www.defendwisconsin.org Monday and early Tuesday received an error message.

Now there could be legitimate reasons to block it, but why wasn't it explained by the capital's IT people? Wifi connections to that site could have been overloading the system, but it doesn't look good if you just cut it off without any explanation.

Wisconsin Teachers Earned Average $75,587 in Total Compensation in 2010
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
By Matt Cover

(CNSNews.com) – Public school teachers in Wisconsin earned a combined $75,587 in total average compensation – wages and benefits – in 2010, according to figures from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). http://dpi.state.wi.us/lbstat/newasr.html

The average compensation of Wisconsin public school teachers is up 9 percent from $69,321 in 1998, the earliest figures available from the DPI, adjusted for inflation.

Also, teacher compensation has steadily increased since that year, according to DPI figures, which are collected from each of the state’s 427 school districts.

Total compensation covers hourly wages and benefits, which include health insurance, life insurance, retirement pensions, and other benefits such as homeowners insurance, auto insurance, and tuition reimbursement, according to the DPI. Not every district offers teachers the full range of benefits allowed by the state.

Those benefit packages, at the center of a state budget fight among teachers’ and public employee unions and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ® have also been getting steadily more lucrative, according to calculations by CNSNews.com.

In 1998, Wisconsin teachers received an average of $18,120 in inflation-adjusted benefits, according to the DPI -- a figure that rose to $26,005 in 2010.

Benefits have made up an ever-increasing share of teachers’ compensation in Wisconsin since 1998, rising from 26 percent of total compensation in 1998 to 34 percent in 2010.

In real terms, these benefit increases have represented large compensation increases for Wisconsin teachers. For instance, in 1998, benefits, if viewed in terms of dollar value, increased total compensation by 35 percent, meaning that teachers’ total compensation was 35 percent higher than it would have been without the benefits.

By 2010, benefits increased total compensation by 52 percent from an average of $49,580 in cash wages to $75,587 in benefits, on top of the cash wages -- $49,580 in wages plus $26,005 worth of benefits.

Total average compensation (wages and benefits) for Wisconsin teachers from 1998 to 2010, adjusted for inflation, are listed below.

1998: $69,321.61

1999: $70,102.56

2000: $68,692.28

2001: $68,916.99

2002: $69,516.53

2003: $70,167.36

2004: $71,315.41

2005: $71,642.95

2006: $71,605.25

2007: $73,018.93

2008: $71,726.44

2009: $75,216.44

2010: $75,587.79

All figures have been adjusted for inflation. http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/wisc...age-75-587

Quote:Groups officially begin recall process for seven lawmakers
By Daniel Bice of the Journal Sentinel
Feb. 24, 2011

The clock is now running for groups trying to collect enough signatures to trigger recall elections against seven Democratic senators, state officials said today.

Reid Magney, spokesman for the Government Accountability Board, said local groups have officially registered recall committees with his agency to try to recall Sen. Bob Wirch of Kenosha and Jim Holperin of Eagle River.

In addition, a Utah group, American Recall Coalition, has registered electronically to set up recall committees against Wirch and five other Senate Democrats - Lena Taylor of Milwaukee, Mark Miller of Monona, Julie Lassa of Stevens Point, Fred Risser of Madison and Dave Hansen of Green Bay.

Magney said his office is still waiting to receive paper registrations from American Recall Coalition but that the out-of-state group may begin collecting signatures for the recall elections in those districts.

"We thought we were going to have a quiet time after the election," Magney said. "Apparently not."


The only Democratic senator who is not currently the subject of a recall bid is Spencer Coggs of Milwaukee.

The groups need about 16,000 signatures to force a recall election for a senator, Magney said. The exact number will vary from 11,000 to 21,000 signatures, he said, depending on how many votes were cast in the 2010 governor's race in the targeted district.

All 14 Senate Democrats fled to Illinois last week to prevent their Republican colleagues from being able to push through Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill. That measure would curb collectiv-bargaining rights for state workers and require them to pay toward their retirement and health care costs.

Democrats and labor unions are also weighing whether to recall up to six Senate Republicans for supporting Walker's plan. Among those being targeted is Sen. Alberta Darling of River Hills.

In addition, Magney said a group has formed a political action fund to collect donations to support a recall election for Walker. But an official recall effort could not start until Walker, who took office last month, has served in the Capitol for at least a year.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/116853618.html

This is so-o-o much better than reading about 401k's.

(02-25-2011 01:48 PM)ctipton Wrote:  This is so-o-o much better than reading about 401k's.

i was thinking about Q's question in another thread about is there nothing the citizens can do when the state legislators run and hide.

this is one answer. another is amend their constitutions.

I don't have any sympathy for these people.

I've watched my parents and friends of my parents have their retirement packages, investments, etc. take a huge hit. Home prices have nosedived, also hurting them. Alot of older people are continuing to work because they're afraid to retire........concerned that what they have left won't be enough.

Alot of people out there think they are immune to all of this economic downfall. It's time for everyone to join the party. Nobody gets out alive.