Labor's last stand? Missouri a prototype for Walker's policies

What can you say when a reporter from Wisconsin decides to look at Missouri to see how bad things could get?  Don't miss the comparison chart: http://host.madison.com/app/interactive/union-series/wis_mo.jpg.

The Wisconsin State Journal
DAN SIMMONS | dsimmons@madison.com | 608-252-6136
Thursday, April 21, 2011

Steve McLuckie came to Wisconsin to help out his teacher's union colleagues during the protests against Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to strip most public workers of collective bargaining rights.
"I'd half-jokingly say to them, 'Gov. Walker's trying to make Wisconsin into Missouri,'" said McLuckie, a former Democratic lawmaker who's now organizing director for Missouri's National Education Association.
His Wisconsin union colleagues didn't find the comparison particularly funny, mostly because there may be some truth in the joke.
Missouri, perhaps more than any other Midwestern state, provides a long-term prototype of policies championed by Walker: a state government that's less lucrative for public workers but more friendly to businesses and tax-averse citizens. A look into Missouri's past could provide a glimpse into Wisconsin's future.
Some of the predictions being made by Walker's opponents haven't proved true in Missouri. For example, weaker public-employee unions has not led to Republican domination at the polls that some have predicted for Wisconsin.
But Missouri does lag Wisconsin in many quality-of-life indicators that unions and their Democratic allies claim is the trade-off for lower taxes and lower pay for public workers.
"Over time, it's inexorable that if you choose a low tax value you'll pay for that through a deteriorated education quality," said Chris Kelly, a Missouri Democratic state representative and former budget committee chair.
Walker said in an interview last week that lower taxes doesn't equate to lower quality public services. He said asking public workers to pay more for benefits — effectively cutting their pay — is a better alternative to layoffs, which would harm public services.
Rather than Missouri, Walker compared his union and budgeting approach to Indiana, where Gov. Mitch Daniels abolished state public unions by executive order in 2005. The move led to government consolidation, reorganization and privatization.
"Over time, their government got more efficient, they got more effective, they got more accountable to the public," Walker said. "The best employees, the good employees, ultimately got rewarded."
Pay gap
Wisconsin and Missouri are both Midwestern states with a population on either side of 6 million. They border Illinois from different sides and have a roughly 70-30 urban-rural mix. They have higher-education systems anchored by a behemoth land-grant research university.
But when it comes to public sector workers, the two states have followed widely divergent paths. While Wisconsin public workers won collective-bargaining rights with local governments under state law in 1959 and with the state government in 1967, their Missouri counterparts didn't win those rights until 2007, when Missouri's Supreme Court ordered that unions have a right to collective bargaining. However, implementation has been spotty and a state law that codifies it still doesn't exist.
Wisconsin public-sector workers make as much or more than the national average in most categories of public sector worker, with more experienced workers especially well compensated, according to an annual compensation survey by the American Federation of Teachers. In Missouri, public sector workers are among the lowest paid in the nation.
A public-school teacher in Wisconsin with more than two decades' experience earns an average of $49,630. In Missouri, that same teacher would take home just $39,320. A veteran prison worker here averages $48,198; there, it's $31,395.
Although cost of living is lower in Missouri than Wisconsin, public workers in Missouri also do significantly worse than their private sector counterparts. The public-private pay gap is highest in the nation, according to a recent report from the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
"Public employees generally enjoy better job security, protection, and benefits than their private sector counterparts," wrote Missouri Republican state Sen. Luann Ridgeway in a recent online essay titled, "Missouri is Not Wisconsin." "In return, taxpayers expect them to be faithful to the duties entrusted to their care."
Amid the tales of woe for Missouri public workers, there are bright spots. The 1,200 state troopers rank middle-of-the-road in compensation nationally, said Ken Sears, executive director of the Missouri State Troopers Association, after the Legislature agreed to pay bumps of 15 percent to 20 percent starting five years ago.
Sears acknowledged it's an easier sell to legislators for unions like his, which are widely visible to the public, than to more obscure state workers such as prison guards and mental-health nurses.
Open for business
Conservatives might look at Missouri and point to these benefits: an approach to government that produces balanced budgets and low taxes.
Walker has long argued that the Wisconsin economy is out of balance: overly friendly to public workers and not welcoming enough to businesses and taxpayers.
He might find a lot to love about Missouri. Missouri politicians have, in a bipartisan way, produced balanced budgets for decades, said Kelly, the Democratic state representative.
"We don't spend more than we have, and that's been true through every administration," Kelly said.
The state has the highest bond rating available, AAA, from the three rating agencies, one of just eight states with it. Wisconsin is just behind in all three agencies' rankings.
The state also appears to be more open for business, to borrow a familiar Walker line.
Missouri ranks 19th in small-business friendliness; Wisconsin lags behind in 33rd. Their corporations pay a flat 6.25 percent income tax; ours pay a flat 7.9 percent rate. Despite it, Missouri's unemployment rate, 9.1 percent, is higher than Wisconsin's 7.4 percent.
Missourians also pay lower income, sales and property taxes.
For example, the state taxes gasoline at 17.3 cents a gallon, while Wisconsin collects 32.9 cents a gallon.
At what cost?
Unions and their Democratic allies could use the low pay for public workers in Missouri — and comparatively low funding for education and other social programs — to point out a lower standard of living.
Missouri ranks behind Wisconsin in educational achievement and significantly ahead of it in rate of incarceration. It costs more to go to college there. Missourians live shorter lives than we do. They spend an extra $129 annually in car maintenance because their roads are worse than ours. Their bridges rank seventh-worst in the nation; ours rank 15th-best.
Labor leaders point out that all those indicators rely both on adequate funding and high-quality public workers: teachers, prison guards, nurses and civil engineers.
"If you invest in a good human infrastructure, you generally have better services for the citizens who pay the taxes," said Susan McMurray, a Wisconsin lobbyist for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
She said that people in Wisconsin, as in other Upper Midwestern states, have grown used to a high level of public services over generations and will not accept diminished quality.
The next decade may test that idea in Wisconsin. But if nothing else, the past six decades in Missouri have shown people there have consistently supported their government's approach.
"They're not comfortable with the level of services," McLuckie said, "but the disconnect comes when you try to raise income and taxes to get those services provided."
That's just capitalism at work, said Joseph Haslag, chief economist with the Show-Me Institute, a St. Louis-based advocate for open markets.
"If wages are low, it reflects what the society is valuing," he said.
It's up to each state, he said, to decide what value it attaches to public services and balance the costs associated with providing them.
- State Journal Assistant City Editor Mark Pitsch contributed to this report.

Executive Paywatch

The AFL-CIO has a new web page up called Executive Paywatch.  Check out the Facebook app, where you can compare a CEO's pay to a job similar to yours.  Check it out.

How much did your pay go up in 2010? How about your friends and family? Working people in America are hurting—that’s for sure. They’re lucky to have jobs at all—and if they have jobs, odds are their pay is pretty much flat, or worse.

Now, consider this: In 2010, the average pay of a CEO at a major American company went up by 23 percent—to $11.4 million.

Despite the collapse of the financial markets at the hands of many of these same executives less than three years ago, the disparity between CEO and workers’ pay has continued to grow to levels that are simply stunning.

Take a look at 2011 Executive PayWatch, released this morning, to find out just how outrageous things have gotten - http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/.

Instead of investing to create good middle-class jobs and grow the economy, corporate CEOs are hoarding $2 trillion in cash.

Except, of course, when it comes to their own paychecks.

Endorsed Candidates Win

The Labor Club endorsed two candidates for the Columbia School Board in yesterday's election.  Check out how they did.   Just proves that candidates who respect workers and believe they should be included in workplace decisions can win elections.  Nice.

SCHOOL BOARD DIRECTOR COLUMBIA SCHOOL DISTRICT
          (VOTE FOR )  3
              (WITH 46 OF 46 PRECINCTS COUNTED)
           HELEN WADE .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     8,287   26.81
           JONATHAN SESSIONS.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     8,053   26.05
           DAVE RAITHEL  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,381    4.47
           LIZ PETERSON  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     3,021    9.77
           TOM ROSE.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     7,133   23.08
           SARA R. DICKSON  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     3,033    9.81

UCM rally backs workers' rights, education funding

April 4th was a national day of "We Are One" rallies sponsored by the AFL-CIO and civil rights groups.  The mid-MO rally was in Warrensburg with speakers from the UAW, AFT and MNEA as well as student leaders.  Seems like it's time for Columbia to make some noise?

April 04, 2011

By Dennis Rich

The Sedalia Democrat

 

WARRENSBURG — More than 50 students, union workers and members of the public turned out in support of workers’ rights and public education during a midday rally Monday on the campus of the University of Central Missouri.

The event was part of a national day of action sponsored by union organizers to commemorate the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was killed April 4, 1968, in Memphis while lending his support to striking sanitation workers. The national event was organized in response to debates over federal and state budget cuts to social and education programs and the recent fight over collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin and other states.

Steve Ciafullo, one of the event’s organizers and an assistant professor of academic enrichment at UCM, cited King’s “I’ve been to the mountain top” speech during remarks and called efforts to roll back collective bargaining rights “a hostile corporate takeover of our democracy.”

“Forty-three years ago today, Dr. King was assassinated while standing with sanitation workers in Memphis who were striking for collective bargaining rights,” Ciafullo said. “Today the struggle for these rights is still going on.”

Ciafullo said the issues are being pushed because of state and federal budget deficits, but “what we really have is a priority deficit.”

The UCM “Reclaiming the Dream” rally also featured students and union representatives, including Scott Ciafullo, president of American Federation of Teachers-Missouri, which represents about 4,500 teachers and staff statewide, and Jeff Manning, president of the United Auto Workers Local 31, which represents about 3,500 workers at the Fairfax General Motors plant.

Scott Ciafullo and Manning called recent battles in Wisconsin and Ohio to roll back collective bargaining rights for public workers an example of a Republican-led “war on the middle class.”

“We will never have the money the Republican Party has to push their issues, but we have the manpower and the people,” Manning said. “We can’t let the richest 3 percent of the people take away the rights organized labor has been building for 100 years.”

Manning cited a range of legislative issues in Missouri, including a stalled right-to-work bill, attempts to roll back voter-approved minimum wage increases, and attempts to weaken child labor laws as the most extreme examples of policies that “do real harm to working people and their families.”

Derek Wiseman, president of the UCM Student Government Association, told the crowd that college campuses were “ground zero” in the fight for higher education funding and singled out Republican 4th District Rep. Vicky Harztler; state Sen. Dave Pearce, R-Warrensburg; and state Rep. Denny Hoskins, R-Warrensburg, for promoting cuts to the federal Pell Grant program and reduced funding for Access Missouri — a need-based tuition support program for in-state students.

“More than 40 percent of UCM students rely on Pell Grants to help pay for school,” Wiseman said. “The cuts they have proposed are being made under the guise of a budget crisis, but they are making these cuts on the backs of the poor, students and the middle class.”

Wiseman said the “reason we are in a crisis is because our elected representatives keep cutting programs so they can give more to the wealthiest people.”

“They talk about shared sacrifice, but we shouldn’t have to sacrifice for a situation they created,” Wiseman said.

Student organizer Ryan Todd told the group, “I was raised in a union family and I know what a difference unions have made.”

“We have to use today as the first step. You should go out and tell your friends about the issues and have conversations and get people talking about what is going on. The issues are too important for us to just stand by and let this happen,” Todd said.

Walker’s Attacks on Workers Creates Surge of Interest in Unions

Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!  I'm starting to like this guy Walker.

AFL-CIP Now Blog
by James Parks, Mar 31, 2011

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s assault on workers’ freedom to bargain has spurred more workers to consider joining a union.  In response to a surge of interest on the part of non-union sheet metal workers across Wisconsin, the Sheet Metal Workers’ (SMWIA) launched a new campaign this week to make Wisconsin Open for Workers again.

This renewed interest among private sector workers in joining a union comes in the wake of mass protests against Republican governors like Walker who want to blame and punish public employees for state budget shortfalls caused by Wall Street speculation.  

An advertisement in today’s Wisconsin State Journal is the first in a series of opportunities SMWIA is providing for workers seeking to address their concerns at work.  In addition, a new radio spot with information for interested workers is on the air across the Madison area.  Both urge readers and listeners to call1- 866-210-4534 and/or visit www.wisconsinopenforworkers.org to take the first step towards forming a union.

Marc Norberg, a Wisconsin native and assistant to SMWIA President Michael Sullivan, says:

We are throwing a lifeline to working families in Wisconsin.  Workers across Wisconsin, fed up with being scapegoated for the failures of their elected leaders and Wall Street, are taking matters into their own hands and are seeking union representation.  People want dignity and respect at work, fair treatment, and the ability to provide for their family’s futures.