It may not be the worst media story ever, but today’s Associated Press story on the Wisconsin government’s attempt to moderately trim unionized state workers’ bloated benefits is certainly the most outrageous case of liberal media bias this year. (But as Groucho Marx said, “Well, it’s early yet.”) The non-stop labor union shilling begins with its headline, “Wis. GOP Poised to Cut Worker Rights in Budget Fix.” The Republicans are going to “Cut Worker Rights”? What do they plan to do? The lead sentence tells us, “Wisconsin is poised to strip collective bargaining rights from most of the state’s 175,000 public employees in the boldest step by a new Republican governor and Legislature [sic.] to solve budget problems by confronting organized labor.” (Emphases added.) The “reporter” insinuates to the reader the Republicans are taking unprecedented, radical steps to rob people of their rights and blame the budget on Big Labor. Virtually every sentence of the article advances this biased nonsense.
The AFL-CIOciated Press dutifully reports than 10,000 union drones plain ol’ ordinary citizens marched on the state capital of Madison to discuss the bill’s “impact on middle-class families.”
The story quotes a 29-year-old teacher who moans, “It’s hard to go into a classroom and teach people about a society that’s moving backwards.” A few paragraphs later, the story states that Wisconsin is the birthplace of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and this move is “a dramatic reversal of Wisconsin’s strong labor history.” See? Republicans are turning back the clock (perhaps to the days when common sense prevailed and budgets were balanced).
After noting unions tried to “sway key moderates” to no avail (Republicans are all extremists), it quotes a Democratic lawmakers’ claim that the GOP-dominated state government “pushed these employees off the cliff.” It calls Governor Scott Walker “an outspoken conservative.” (In AP-speak, that’s bad.)
In the 12th paragraph, we finally get the details of this radical, epoch-reversing plan. State employees would have to “pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care premiums.” Unions could not ask for a pay hike that exceeds inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (which may be no small increase). The AP adds, “Unions also could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized.” Police, state troopers, and firemen are exempt even from these restrictions. In exchange, the governor promised there would be zero state layoffs.
These reforms would save the state $300 million over two years and keep 6,000 state workers from being losing their jobs. For this, unions are marching, and the AP is screaming as though the governor has rescinded the Emancipation Proclamation.
Having briefly reported a few facts, AP goes back on the offensive. Although the governor says he is paring back an overly generous and ridiculously unsustainable program to save money during a recession, the AP adds that Democrats say “Walker’s real motive was to strike back at political opponents.”
Then, the agency treats us to more reporting of the protests, including anti-Walker quotations and a sob story about an aide set to lose “about a third of her $21,000-per-year salary.” It then lumps in some of Walker’s other bills to cut costs in an effort to smear all GOP initiatives with the same, anti-human brush before noting, “Democrats…have been powerless to stop to the juggernaut.”
The story ends by stating that similar measures are being considered in other states.
This is not reporting; this is a mugging.
Governor Walker’s reforms are pretty underwhelming. How many private employers have a dollar-for-dollar matching contribution to their retirement, see an employer pay almost 90 percent of their generous health insurance benefits, and are guaranteed a job? Most employees have seen their wages plummet, health care costs increase, pensions erode, and employment security continually called into question. If Big Labor wants to pretend to represent “the common people,” let its members suffer like the common people.
If anything, these measures do not go far enough. Public sector employees should be banned from unionizing or collective bargaining. Since they often style themselves “public servants,” they be compensated at a lower rate than their private sector counterparts, which would shrink bureaucracy by attrition and stop leeching dollars from the productive sector of the economy. They should also be accountable to the same market forces as other employees; namely, they should be able to be fired for rudeness, incompetence, or shiftlessness. Heaven knows how AP would headline a story about a governor who proposed such common sense measures as these.
As Republicans prepare to play the role of grown-ups saving state governments from parasitic union interests, they can expect a lot more biased reporting of this ilk. The question will be whether they have the courage to endure it and press forward with the reforms the American people want and need, or whether they will attempt to curry favor with the liberal media intent upon destroying them.
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These people have a bring down the United States Government menatality. This is what they want to do…Bring Down the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT and replace it with something that resembles Communism or Socialism. People it can happen. The unions bosses support it. I am beginning to wonder if THE AP is not supporting it either. Then if you think about it what about ABC, NBC, CBS, and especially MSNBC ? Where have the good people in this country gone? They are certainly not with the above listed. Wake up people….Wake up and scream at the top of Lungs that this is not the America that we know…..Then PLEASE above all else go to the Ballot Box and VOTE for people that support the American way. The TRUE AMERICAN WAY. GOD BLESS YOU ALL.
Labor unions are a Marxist invention. If one finds that statement hard to believe, then why was it necessary for Walter Reuther to attend Gorki University in Moscow for three years beginning in 1933 to study the ways and means to establish and run a labor union, the UAW in particular?
I read a story in Andrew Carnegies Bio where the union went on strike at a plant in New York , perhaps Schenectady ( Sp ? ) . Andrew was in Scotland , his birthplace , and as the Trans-Atlantic cable had been laid , he wired his Super to " handle it " . I read this 40 years ago but , in essence , on a weekend the strikers went home , the super hired a bunch of scabs , dismantled the plant , and moved it to Albany on a train . On Monday , when the strikers came back………….I suppose I could google it , but having READ it , if YOU like , you can google it . Oh , I laughed my ass off . Of course , without Government intervention protecting the Unions and refusing to investigate when they kill people and passing a law that ONLY the UAW can rep. auto workers , we wouldn't have the problem . " The World of Andrew Carnegie " is the book . GHT
Teachers, leave those kids alone!!!
Sounds like a good story. I googled for it but the only one I came across that said anything about Carnegie being in Scotland was when there was a big strike at his Homestead steel plant in western Pennsylvania. There was a lot of violence… nothing about the plant being dismantled and moved to Albany.
lol! You googled it? LOL. Quite arelaiable source.
Are you saying google, the search engine, is not reliable? If not, then which one do you think is?
You should be careful goggling these days, The man is watch you, I hear.
I've heard that also. I don't have anything to hide. So, which search engine is the best?
“It’s hard to go into a classroom and teach people about a society that’s moving backwards.”
I thought these people had their "Chosen One" sitting in the Oval Office. Moan, moan, moan…
I pay your wages as a taxpayer, Ms. Teacher. So go back to work and stop taking sick leave to protest or you are FIRED!
We threw God out of everything. We are getting what that deserves – judgment. And that begins with the idiot in the White House, the chief usurper. America is less than 10 years to falling.
Union membership has drop during Barry's two years and is at a all time low. But Government worker unions are at a all time high. But the total is still dropping and the union funds for a certain political party is in the red. Now were do they get those funds? DUES. And what happen when the big union bosses need money were do they go? Earmarks. This is a endless useless cycle and the dues back when unions began were to be saves so that when a union worker needed some help or for the members retirement, the funds were to be keep in a "LOCK BOX" for them. Now they have to get bail outs and payouts from the same party the leaders of their union tell them to vote for. Interesting. I sure do see a lot out big union bosses not having any problem making ends meet. No money in the box and you pay in your whole life. Sounds kinda like a ponsi scram and real close to the money the government took out of my check for years and years and years for Social Security. Hey Maydolf make some room at prison we need to move some more in.
This Story Must Have Been For Azz-Paper AP Comics Section, Yikeess, This Is Called Chi-Town Mafia Politics Spinning And The Manchurian Muslim President Obama Calling The Shots From The White House, Sending Bus Loads Of Union Goons And Telling The Demos A Bus Will Pick You Up Soon, Yikeess, Then Close The Schools And Bring Your Students To Picket. If This Is How The Manchurian Muslim Pres Obama Is Going To Run In 2012 Yikeess. God Bless America And Lt Col Terry Lakin.
Oh really now!!! Return to SLAVERY???? For the elimination of collective bargaining??? Get into reality people!!!!! If you don't like the wages and the basket of benefits, live the American dream and GO ELSEWHERE!!! Unions were needed when there was abuse and unsafe conditions for American industrial and other workers… I have YET to see where teachers are abused OR in unsafe conditions (excluding some inner city schools). Certainly the union members themselves certainly do not want to pay the rates of UNION organized plumbers and painters, etc who come to do work on THEIR homes.
You lost ANY part of sympathy I ever would have felt when teachers walked and took their students with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe you ought to go back and study what slavery actually was…. and the "return" to it, if it exists is the amount of entitlement that everyone thinks they should have and the feeding at the "government should run everything" trough.
Let the "free market" determine the wages and benefit structure for the jobs in the "public service" sector!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!