labor unions

Republican-based democracy: America is a club you can't afford

October 15, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

As the nutball legislation dispensed by the Republican caucus in Madison continues apace, it's good to take the 10,000-foot view and consider what the overall GOP asgenda means for average state residents. When you look over the list, one theme emerges: It's all about money.

If you don't have any money or an insufficient amount of it, you simply are not going to be able to afford the new GOP flavor of democracy. America is rapidly being transformed into an exclusive club, whose members are wealthy and whose dues are paid by the rest of us.

Here's a brief but not totally inclusive rundown exemplifying this bold new GOP world:

Injured by a corporation? Too bad, because you no longer will be able to afford the cost of suing.

Buying a product or service? Risky! You won't be able to complain if something goes wrong, unless you first sign the seller's "compulsory arbitration clause" signing away your remaining rights to sue in court. 

Get sick? You won't be guaranteed paid days off.

"Why I left the Republican cult": The ultimate self-interest of a working man in peril from the GOP

September 4, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and "shareholder value," the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.

If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.

-- MIKE LOFGREN, who retired on June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees.

GOP bludgeons labor unions once again in Wausau Labor Day parade dispute

August 31, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

Making you work harderThe Marthon County Labor Council has blinked, saying it will now permit Republicans to particpate in Wausau's Labor Day parade.

According to the Wausau Herald, Labor Council President Randy Radtke sent an email late Tuesday saying everyone will be permitted to march in the parade, which is organized by the council. Radtke added, however:

Wausau makes it official: Wisconsin Republicans are parasites and scavengers.

August 29, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

Bloody Pullman StrikeDoes that headline sound overly harsh? Well, it needs to sound that way.

In recent years Republicans around the country have almost made a fetish out of appropriating progressive heroes, martyrs and symbols, using them for their own snively purposes. Newt Gingrich insisted that FDR was really espousing Republican ideals. Later, some Republicans quite baldly insisted that Martin Luther King Jr. was functionally one of their own (he was, actually, pro-labor union). GOP partisans even have claimed John F. Kennedy as kindred, because he once cut taxes (as if Democrats up to and including Obama have never done that before or since).