Because damn it, this makes me hopeful that we’re not going to hand our country over to these bastards!
This union-busting strategy was planned by the Republican Governors Association, of which the corporate media seems oddly unaware:
MADISON, Wis. — Thousands of public employees and supporters converged at a hearing at the capitol here that ran into the wee hours of Wednesday morning to voice their objection to a proposal to cut their benefits and remove most of their unions’ ability to bargain.
RelatedWisconsin May Take an Ax to State Workers’ Benefits and Their Unions (February 12, 2011)
The show of anger was powerful. Madison schools were closed on Wednesday after scores of teachers called in sick and appeared headed to lobby exhausted-looking lawmakers, who had heard more than 17 hours of comments in a public hearing that began on Tuesday morning. More buses of public workers from other parts of the state were still pulling up near dawn on Wednesday.The target of their fury was a proposal by Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican elected in November, to press through a “repair bill” that would help solve the state’s $137 million budget shortfall by requiring government workers to contribute significantly more to their pensions and health care, while limiting collective bargaining for most state and local government employees to the issue of wages, excluding an array of issues like health coverage and vacations.
