Union Labor News Archives, 2000-2011

Union Labor News: February 2011

• Gimmicks, Dumb Ideas Top State’s Political Agenda
  By Jim Cavanaugh, SCFL PresidentDuring his campaign for Governor, Scott Walker promised to bring 250,000 jobs to Wisconsin, but was rather coy about how he would accomplish that feat.Many of us suspected, and his first two weeks in office have confirmed, that he’d merely trot out the old Reagan-Bush trickle down initiatives – that is, lavish business and the wealth... [More]
• Walker’s Plan to Privatize Department of Commerce: A Problematic Solution to a Nonexistent Problem
  One of Governor-elect Walker’s first initiatives was to abolish Wisconsin’s Department of Commerce and turn the state’s economic development functions over to a new “public-private partnership.” Under the plan, Walker and a panel of business leaders of his choosing would make the decisions on state investments....decisions that then would be carried out by a nonu... [More]
• AFL-CIO President Trumka Hopes for Obama Call to Action
  The conventional wisdom in Washington and in statehouses around the nation is that we cannot afford to be the country we want to be. That could not be more wrong. We can and should be building up the American middle class – not tearing it down. We should be honoring the heroes of 9-11, not turning them into scapegoats for a partisan political messaging operation. We should act... [More]
• Citizen Action Getting Good People Together
  By Carmen Clark When the going gets tough, the tough get down to business. Part of getting down to business for the labor movement is building and maintaining friendships and alliances with other organizations and people who can mobilize and cooperate around common goals and issues. This becomes critical when a new governor may be launching an all-out attack on labor and progressive... [More]
• Plan for ‘Market-Based’ University of Wisconsin Bad for Students, Taxpayers and the Working Class
  By Peter Rickman The powers-that-be in the state are talking up a new plan for the University of Wisconsin-Madison -a plan that would mean higher tuition, erosion of union and worker rights, compromised access to affordable and quality public education, more corporatization of education, and less democratic accountability to the public. Last fall, University of Wisconsin Chancellor C... [More]
• Vote to Privatize Overture Center a Loss to the Community
  By Doug Milks In September 2004, when Jerry Frautschi walked the corridors of the new Overture Center for the Arts with Wisconsin State Journal reporter Tom Alesia, it wasn’t the grand architecture, the craftsmanship or his own legacy that was on his mind. Frautschi and his wife had donated a jaw-dropping $200 million to build Overture, with no strings attached. He onl... [More]
• Labor Troubadour Anne Feeney On Road to Recovery, More Hell Raising
  As many ULN readers know, labor folk singer, union organizer and hell raiser Anne Feeney was diagnosed with lung cancer last year. Treatment was complicated and, as an itinerant folk singer, the illness has been a financial disaster. Anne knows she is not out of the woods just yet. But we received the following good news from Anne on January 7. –ed. Happy New Year!!... [More]
• Special Interests and Secret Sources Spent $19 Million to Influence Last State Election
  Special interest and “smear groups” spent about $19 million on mostly negative broadcast advertising and mailings to influence the 2010 races for statewide office and the legislature, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. And there’s no indication things will get better before the next election. Independent expenditure groups, which must file fundraising and... [More]
• Not Just 250,000 Jobs But 250,000 Union Jobs
  By Ron Blascoe It’s said that a good chess player plans two moves ahead. A better chess player anticipates his opponent’s next two moves. Today working people are engaged in a high stakes chess game of sorts with right-wing politicians and their corporate sponsors. And it’s a game with serious consequences: the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of working c... [More]
• Getting Some Facts Straight about Public Employee Pensions
  By Michael Powell There is a fiscal crisis and it is real. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, total state revenue dropped 30.8 percent between 2008 and 2009, leaving states with massive budget deficits and growing demand for services like healthcare, unemployment insurance and housing assistance... [More]