Wisconsin Unions try to Battle Back

[Scuba]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/124142379.html

<snip>

In February, the night after the Super Bowl, Gov. Scott Walker famously told his cabinet: "This is our time to change the course of history." With plenty of experience fighting through labor issues as Milwaukee County executive, Walker decided it was time to seize the moment. He did just that, and labor has been on its heels since.

By last week, Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters Association of Wisconsin, was on the steps of the Capitol trying to fire up a crowd that was licking its wounds. "This is not a battle," said Mitchell, who has emerged as a prominent spokesman for organized labor. "This is a war, and we are under attack."

The question now is what comes next for labor. In interviews with union leaders, academics and others who have followed the months-long fight over Walker's budget, organized labor appears to be regrouping on two separate tracks. One is turning their still formidable war chest toward the recall of six Republican senators in Wisconsin in the hopes of turning the Senate back to the Democrats.

The other is a lawsuit that a consortium of labor unions filed last week in federal court, saying Walker's collective-bargaining legislation, in effect, created two classes of public-sector workers. The unions say that makes the collective-bargaining law, which is scheduled to go into effect June 29, unconstitutional.


<end snip>

[scribble]

1. Why haven't Wisconsin Unions ...

put a Proposition repealing Walker's efforts to end collective bargaining on the Wisconsin Ballot? A Proposition would stop Walker; his Assembly; and his State Supreme Court dead in their tracks.



I do NOT understand why Democrats and Unions don't use the Initiative and Proposition mechanisms more often. It's an excellent way to promote voter turnout and break Legislative deadlocks. Wisconsin INVENTED Propositions almost 100 years ago.

If Wisconsin Union Leaders were serious (or competent), they would have started this effort last January or February.

Yes, I know about the recall petitions. It's irrelevant. I WANT TO SEE A PROPOSITION.

sc

[Scuba]

2. I don't believe Wisconsin has any "ballot proposition" mechanism, per the Constitution.....

...I don't recall ever seeing one, but perhaps that's my failing memory.


Any other Cheesehead DU'ers know this?

[scribble]

5. That would explain it ..

I remember Statewide Ballot initiatives in Wisconsin, but you might be right. But given Wisconsin's Progressive history, I really have to wonder about this.

If Wisconsin doesn't have the Proposition mechanism, it should join the other two dozen States who already do -- including some very Conservative States, like Arizona and Utah. This is an excellent time for Unions to begin to lobby for the State to put a Proposition mechanism into their Constitution.

No State can call itself Progressive, that doesn't allow its citizens to put their own Propositions and Initiaves on their own Statewide Ballots, without permission from corrupt Legislatures, Governors and State Courts.

sc

[Jackpine Radical]

7. There are some real downsides to the Proposition mechanism.

Wisconsin does have a way of getting initiatives onto the ballot, but they are in effect only resolutions that express public sentiment without the force of law.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. Not all states have that mechanism

[Brickbat]

3. I'd like to see a third track that focuses on direct action.

[Imajika]

6. And what would that direct action be?

n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

8. You need to ask that

of someone with the username of "Brickbat?"

[Brickbat]

9. Heh!

:thumbsup:

[Brickbat]

10. Work to rule, sickouts, slowdowns and so on.

Madison was a good start. It needs to keep going.