Tag: Retirement

Unions in Wisconsin sue to reverse collective bargaining restrictions on teachers, others

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Seven unions representing teachers and other public workers in Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Thursday attempting to end the state’s near-total ban on collective bargaining for most public employees.

Unions in Wisconsin sue to reverse collective bargaining restrictions on teachers, others

Related:

Wisconsin’s Act 10 Is in Jeopardy (WSJ)

The law, signed by former Gov. Scott Walker, has saved the Badger State from turning into Illinois or New York, where public unions essentially run the state government for their own benefit. According to the MacIver Institute, Act 10 has saved Wisconsin taxpayers $16.8 billion since it was passed in 2011, making public finances more manageable at every level of government.

Progressive mayors who publicly rail against the law know that repealing it would wreak havoc on municipal budgets. According to Wisconsin Right Now, Milwaukee’s budget says it has saved about $345.4 million in health insurance since 2012 because of Act 10’s requirement that public employees contribute to their health plans.

The lawsuit by teachers and other public unions focuses on a narrow part of the law that exempts public-safety employees. The unions say this creates a “favored” class of workers and imposes “severe burdens on employees in the disfavored group.” Act 10’s “anti-democratic regime,” the unions continue, subjects “general” employees “to a panoply of burdens and deprives them of important rights,” while exempting police officers and firefighters from “all its injurious provisions.”

Attacks on Public-Sector Unions Harm States: How Act 10 Has Affected Education in Wisconsin

A Decade After Act 10, It’s A Different World For Wisconsin Unions

WSJ quotes MacIver Institute, from the Atlas Network via State Policy Network, Bradley Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity (Kochtopus). Former WI Governor Scott Walker, another Atlas/Koch tool, does not rule out intervening.

Unexpected: Studies Suggest That Rather Than Killing Jobs, AI Could Revive The Middle Class + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

We’ve certainly been talking a lot about the “AI Doomers” who insist that AI is all too likely to destroy humanity. However, even people who aren’t fully on board with the existential threat of AI do often say that, at the very least, it’s going to destroy jobs for most people, potentially creating huge problems. For years now, people have been arguing for universal basic income, in large part, because they think that automation and AI will take away everyone’s jobs. I mean, it was a core plank of Andrew Yang’s silly run for President.

Studies Suggest That Rather Than Killing Jobs, AI Could Revive The Middle Class

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[2017] “Another kick in the teeth”: a top economist on how trade with China helped elect Trump

David Autor believes both these things to be true: one, that Donald Trump’s diagnosis of trade with China as the source of woe for countless American workers was both accurate and a crucial part of his appeal on his march to the White House. And two, that Trump’s plan to help those workers by cracking down on trade is likely to backfire.

How much did Trump-era tariffs on China cost Americans? New US findings confirm ‘self-inflicted harm’

Feinstein

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Feinstein

Lot of credit here goes to Katie Porter for breaking the barrier where no real leading California politician would dare challenge her. When it was clear to Feinstein’s backers, since I doubt she even really understands the situation at this point, that she was going to have to run in a real primary next year, they naturally backed away.

Also, Dianne Feinstein has been a terrible senator from Day 1. Literally any Democrat from California will be better.

While Fighting Workers, Railroads Made Over $10 Billion in Stock Buybacks

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

“Our research shows just how far railroad executives will go to funnel record profits to their shareholders—even if that means stagnant wages, inhumane attendance policies, and throwing our supply chain into further turmoil,” said one Groundwork Collaborative analyst.

While Fighting Workers, Railroads Made Over $10 Billion in Stock Buybacks

H/T: Unorthodox Truth

Biden’s approval dips to lowest of presidency: AP-NORC poll

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

President Joe Biden’s approval rating dipped to the lowest point of his presidency in May, a new poll shows, with deepening pessimism emerging among members of his own Democratic Party.

Only 39% of U.S. adults approve of Biden’s performance as president, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research, dipping from already negative ratings a month earlier.

Overall, only about 2 in 10 adults say the U.S. is heading in the right direction or the economy is good, both down from about 3 in 10 a month earlier. Those drops were concentrated among Democrats, with just 33% within the president’s party saying the country is headed in the right direction, down from 49% in April.

Biden’s approval dips to lowest of presidency: AP-NORC poll

America Is Headed for Class Warfare + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Nothing has revealed the class divide in the U.S. quite like runaway inflation and skyrocketing gas prices. But in addition to the economic impact the staggering incompetence of the Biden administration is having on the working class, there is a political one; it’s undeniably driving working class voters even further from the Democrats and toward the GOP.

America Is Headed for Class Warfare

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“Workers aren’t getting bailed out like the billionaires”: Detroit workers livid over surging gas prices

“It’s just really hard to live”: Chicago workers describe impact of surging food and gas prices