Protests in Madison continue over the budget repair bill, which is designed to help the state make up its $3.6 billion shortfall.  Wisconsin, unlike the federal government, does not have the option of raising its debt ceiling.  The primary protest has nothing to do with the monetary concessions required by the bill—the unions have already agreed to those.  Instead, the fight is over the major reductions in collective bargaining rights for public employees.

   First, the facts.  Employees will be required to pay 50% of their annual pension payment, which works out to an average of 5.8% of the total salary.  The bill requires them to pay 12.6% of the average cost of health insurance premiums, though it is important to note that this is still roughly half of the national average for public employees.  The collective bargaining rights of most employees are limited to wages, and those are capped by the consumer price index, barring a referendum.  Contracts would be limited to one year, and annual votes would be required to maintain the union.  Law enforcement officers, firefighters, and state troopers are exempted from these changes to collective bargaining.  Various other procedural changes are also included.  Numbers provided by the governor state that these measures will address the shortfall for the current fiscal year, which is $1.36 million.  He has also stated that the bill would save 1,500 public jobs.

   We are in difficult economic times.  The unions realize this.  Their fight is over collective bargaining and only collective bargaining.  The unions’ rights are currently governed by a pair of forty year old laws.  The governor and the legislature do have the power to change these laws, so what they are doing is not unconstitutional.  The bill would make negotiating contracts considerably faster and easier by reducing the amount of debate.  Digging the state out of its fiscal hole will require decisive action—something that is made difficult by drawn out negotiations, as former governor Jim Doyle proved when he failed to get the contracts for state employees approved prior to the end of the fiscal year in which they were relevant.

   It is also unlikely that working conditions will degrade to conditions common in the late 1800’s.  Not only are standards far different now, but as these are public employees, they have recourse against their employer if need be.

   One final point: for those arguing that the governor is trying to ram this bill through very quickly, he is; however, no one seemed to complain when the Democrats did the same thing with their budget repair bill in 2009.