The war against unions in Wisconsin

Nothing is inevitable. Only very rarely do we not have choices. When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker claims he has no choice in his efforts to overcome the state budget shortfall other than to eliminate state workers rights to collective bargaining he is lying. As Rick Ungar writes in Forbes:

The bill introduced in the Wisconsin state legislature that would strip state employee unions of their collective bargaining rights, require members to vote to organize every year, allow members to avoid paying dues and put pay raises to a public vote, represents the opening salvo of the final battle in the war against unions in America (continued below)

If you still have any doubts about what's happening in Wisconsin, in another piece Ungar writes (2/18/11):

This afternoon, Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin Public Workers Union, sent a message to the Governor’s office agreeing to the cuts to pension & welfare benefits sought by Walker in his bill. The governor’s response was “nothing doing.” He wants the whole kit and kaboodle – the end of the collective bargaining rights of the public unions.

Of course, this is nothing new. The corporate oligarchy in the U.S. has used its bought & paid for politicians to try to smash unions virtually from their inception as guilds. This came to fruition for the oligarchy with the passage in 1947 of the Taft-Hartley Act. Ungar shows clearly how the nefarious Koch brothers are directly behind the anti-union developments in Wisconsin. And as we well know, where there's Koch there's fire.