The Republican Rush to Kill the Unions

By TRB

To understand the attack against unions by Republicans in Wisconsin yesterday, one must first understand the Republican vision of Americans' future. In that future, corporations make the final call on all work-related conditions, regarding wages, time worked, safety, etc In short, the corporation will make all the decisions regarding workers who will no longer play a part in collective bargaining. U.S. citizens who do not hold union jobs or perhaps believe union jobs work against workers rights will soon discover just how wrong they were.

If this end-around decision financed by the billionaire Koch brothers, to kill collective bargaining for union workers holds up, soon non-union workers will discover that the unions were carrying their water for them. Namely that the non-union worker can thank the unions for most of the benefits the non-union worker received, Their employers had to keep them happy with these extra benefits so they wouldn't join the union. With weaker or no unions to join, there will no longer be any incentive for the corporation to give the non-union workers special treatment. So, whether he or she knows it our not, the non-union worker lost just as badly in Wisconsin yesterday.

Unions have to go if the ultimate plan of the Republican Party is to be realized,i.e., to take rights from the people and to make the people insignificant in the power structure that is the corporate U.S. In the Republican's vision every public meeting that would allow any power to the people that might negatively impact what a corporation wants to do will be abolished by the Republicans

Ironically the unions in Wisconsin have argued that the collective bargaining right should not be in the state budget because it rarely has an impact on that budget, while the Republicans have insisted on it. Then Republicans found a way to separate it out where they wouldn't need the quorum provided by the Democrats who had left the state, and the Republicans voted 18 - 1 to destroy collective bargaining.

Like most journalists yesterday, I thought the Wisconsin Republicans would have to negotiate with the public unions before this issue came to a close - and they still might have to. On the other hand I did not expect the Republicans to separate the union bill from the budget so they wouldn't need a quorum to vote it though. Apparently they might have broken some laws in doing this. But time will tell.

The Republican hidden agenda is to privatize America, turn it over to corporations - including your hometown. You will lose most of your rights under the Republicans, which is okay if you don't want them, and, when the first Republican corporate city comes to life you can be assured of at least one thing: You will never have to vote.

Sooner or later we will have to address as a people whether it should be legal for billionaires to pay politicians to rid the nation of our institutions. Should a single U.S. citizen be able to pay to defund the Environment Protection Agency, the Department of Education, the Labor Department?

When elected-by-the-public officials from Wisconsin receive major amounts of money from a private family to kill the unions, the U. S. loses a bit more of what used to be called American exceptionalism. How exceptional is the U.S. when its institutions can be snuffed out by two billionaire brothers who help to finance the election of a Republican governor? Is this governor a citizen of the U.S.? If he is, why would he shame the nation so? And where is the Federal investigation into how this has occurred?

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has already refused to turn over a series of emails that are believed to be between he and the Koch Brother and Democrats who didn't want the bill passed. At this moment Scott Walker is probably the most disliked politician in America. But he doesn't seem to care.

My question: Who is paying him not to care?

So the Supreme Court will probably hear this case before it is over. And the entire nation is once again learning that militancy sometimes works. And there are other things to think of that should put a lot of Republicans out on the street next year,

For example, how much is it going to cost state tax payers in legal fees to fight the union over this collective bargaining decision? It could be many millions. And 16 Republican governors have plans to do it. These will be long, drawn out court cases because they involve constitutional rights. Freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, that is what unions do. That is constitutional. The Supreme Court ruled just last year that money is speech. Will they rule that speech is speech?

You see, a union is not all that dissimilar to a political party, a group of like-minded people pushing an agenda. Perfectly constitutional and protected by that document.

Now Wisconsin has its feet in a bowl of piranha. What about freedom of association, freedom of assembly, free speech? What about it Wisconsin Republicans? You think the Koch brothers can pay you enough to go after those rights?