Wisconsin's fight over unions' right to exist

I'm a Wisconsin native, and my circles there include a lot of political diversity--and quite a few schoolteachers. So my Facebook wall has been lively ever since the state budget protests began last week. I've been particularly agitated, however, since I woke up yesterday to the sound of a radio reporter observing that Wisconsinites want Gov. Scott Walker and the public-employee unions to reach a compromise.

Reach a compromise? The unions have been all but screaming that they'd love to reach a compromise, but the governor's not budging. Some facts about the situation in Wisconsin:

• While it's true that state workers pay a lower share of their health premiums than most private-sector employees, it's also true that they've made wage sacrifices already in the form of, among other things, furlough days.

• The governor claims his budget bill eliminates only the state workers' right to collectively bargain for benefits, not the right to bargain for base pay. But the bill also prevents their wages from rising faster than inflation--that is, from rising at all in terms of real value. (Allowing workers to bargain while making it impossible for them to get anywhere is like allowing citizens to vote when there's only one candidate.)

• State workers already make far less than their private-sector counterparts--even if you crunch the numbers using both wages and benefits together.

• It's hard to take Gov. Walker's tough budget talk seriously when just weeks ago he pushed tax cuts through that, while not affecting the current fiscal year, will exacerbate shortfalls in the next two years. Assuming Walker keeps his campaign promises--and he's shown no sign of backing off--there are more tax cuts to come.

• The Koch brothers, big-time funders of the allegedly grassroots Tea Party movement, were Walker's second-largest campaign contributor.

• If Walker succeeds in gutting collective bargaining, the city of Madison could lose $7 million in federal transit money--one-sixth of its transit budget. Low-income residents would bear the brunt of the resulting service cuts.

Most importantly, the unions have made it clear that they're willing to take the proposed hit to their members' benefits. What they're not willing to do is give up the right to negotiate in the future--the right to be a functioning union. Walker, however, isn't interested in compromise.