Patrick McIlheran points out at RealClearPolitics that Roosevelt openly opposed bargaining rights for government unions:
“The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service,” Roosevelt wrote in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees. Yes, public workers may demand fair treatment, wrote Roosevelt. But, he wrote, “I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place” in the public sector. “A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government.”
~~~ Roosevelt wasn’t alone. It was orthodoxy among Democrats through the ’50s that unions didn’t belong in government work. Things began changing when, in 1959, Wisconsin’s then-Gov. Gaylord Nelson signed collective bargaining into law for state workers. Other states followed, and gradually, municipal workers and teachers were unionized, too.
Even as that happened, the future was visible. Frank Zeidler, Milwaukee’s mayor in the 1950s and the last card-carrying Socialist to head a major U.S. city, supported labor. But in 1969, the progressive icon wrote that rise of unions in government work put a competing power in charge of public business next to elected officials. Government unions “can mean considerable loss of control over the budget, and hence over tax rates,” he warned.
There was “a revolutionary principle rather quietly at work in American government,” he wrote.
The principle was working at about 100 decibels in Wisconsin’s Capitol last week, once the union drum-beaters got going. What worked them up was the money they’d concede, they said, but even more that Walker would make their unions surrender the control they’d gained over every government budget.
Walker, like other Republicans, was long accused of hating government. For eight years as chief executive of heavily Democrat Milwaukee County, he would not raise taxes, which opponents said showed his contempt for government.
Yet all this past week, he praised public employees and he said the work government does is so necessary, taxpayers should get as much of it for their money as possible. Meanwhile, thousands of schoolteachers on the Capitol lawn manifested their intent to obstruct Government and their belief that the tots back at Roosevelt Elementary could darn well spend a day or three watching Nickelodeon at home.
What Scott Walker is attempting to do is to roll back a bill that Democrats passed in 2009 when they controlled the legislature:
The governor’s move is in reaction to a 2009 law implemented by the then-Democratic legislature that expanded public unions’ collective-bargaining rights and lifted existing limits on teacher raises.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
Maybe Obie needs to take a lesson from FDR. After all, isn’t he always comparing himself to FDR?
lets see. obie! has compared “his self” to Lincoln, FRD, JFK, “the gipper”, Mandella, Ghandi..well the list goes on. The address that FDR is quoted in tha above article is much longer and is critical of federal abuse.. But of late, obie had compared his self to Regan, and we all knon what the “gipper” did to the air controlers..Smile errors in spelling and punctuation are for a reason.. the essence of a dialoge rests in foundation, character, and the merit of the subjects discussed.. Plato: The Republie
Dem Rep to unions: Time to get ‘bloody’
http://nhjournal.com/2011/02/23/dem-rep-to-unions-time-to-get-%E2%80%98bloody%E2%80%99/
Oh Really now? I would advise this Clown that there are a few Folks that would take Him up on His offer and I do hope that His Emergency Care Coverage is in the 6 figure range. “Get a Little Bloody” ????
What is He thinking?
The two best countries, elementary and secondary education-wise, are South Korea and Finland, where teachers have to have graduated in the top third of their classes and where they get paid more (relative to other occupations) than they do, here in the USA.
What I wish that Walker would do would be to stick to his guns, regarding unionization and pensions, but actually make at least a token concession on wages. Sure, if he wants to, he can just stick it to them and break their backs and give them nothing, but, long term, this isn’t the way to get the sort of education reform which is sorely needed. He can’t just fire all the teachers and replace them, the way that Reagan did to the air traffic controllers. If he gives them something, anything at all (and I think that the wage concession would be the best thing), he’s actually got a chance to turn them into partners, as opposed to blood enemies.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim: You said:
Gov. Walker cannot fire any of the teachers. They are employees of school districts, not of the state. In all honesty, maybe they wouldn’t be abusing the system the way they are if he could. (fake sick notes, taking children to the rally, etc…)