State planning, WI-style; more depressed wages, divide-and-conquer
Walker's war on fair wages rolls right along.
He started it in 2011 with his punitive, sneaky and partisan Act 10 divide-and-conquer attack on public employees - - "dropped the bomb," was his uncharacteristically honest description - - then continued his offensive in 2015 by signing wage-depressing 'right-to-work' legislation in which he'd earlier feigned disinterest, and will expand again in a week, perhaps two, when he signs the final two-year spending plan approved by the budget-writing committee along party-lines Tuesday evening which slashes family-supporting blue-collar wages paid at the so-called "prevailing rate" on state road-building projects.
Prevailing wage standards help sustain working families and ensure high-quality work on public projects, not out-sourcing such projects to fly-by-night contractors hiring lesser-trained workers.
After all, we're talking about high-speed roads and bridges.
But the GOP budget-writing committee shelved prevailing wages ostensibly to take only a small step towards balancing a debt-ridden, overly-commuted major highway building binge which Walker has been pushing since 2003; shrinking construction workers' take home pay for ideological, union-weakening reasons just as he drained public employees' earnings and damaged their unions and bargaining positions through Act 10 six years ago.
Bruce Murphy at Urban Milwaukee has catalogued a longer list of anti-worker, wage-depressing measures Walker has championed and signed; organized labor calls Walker the worst governor for working people.
Ever.
While legislators in our low-wage-state-by-design have raised their own pay by boosting tax-free, honor-system expense account 'reimbursements'.
As Walker might put it, working people in Wisconsin can go suck lemons.
He started it in 2011 with his punitive, sneaky and partisan Act 10 divide-and-conquer attack on public employees - - "dropped the bomb," was his uncharacteristically honest description - - then continued his offensive in 2015 by signing wage-depressing 'right-to-work' legislation in which he'd earlier feigned disinterest, and will expand again in a week, perhaps two, when he signs the final two-year spending plan approved by the budget-writing committee along party-lines Tuesday evening which slashes family-supporting blue-collar wages paid at the so-called "prevailing rate" on state road-building projects.
Prevailing wage standards help sustain working families and ensure high-quality work on public projects, not out-sourcing such projects to fly-by-night contractors hiring lesser-trained workers.
After all, we're talking about high-speed roads and bridges.
But the GOP budget-writing committee shelved prevailing wages ostensibly to take only a small step towards balancing a debt-ridden, overly-commuted major highway building binge which Walker has been pushing since 2003; shrinking construction workers' take home pay for ideological, union-weakening reasons just as he drained public employees' earnings and damaged their unions and bargaining positions through Act 10 six years ago.
Bruce Murphy at Urban Milwaukee has catalogued a longer list of anti-worker, wage-depressing measures Walker has championed and signed; organized labor calls Walker the worst governor for working people.
Ever.
While legislators in our low-wage-state-by-design have raised their own pay by boosting tax-free, honor-system expense account 'reimbursements'.
As Walker might put it, working people in Wisconsin can go suck lemons.
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