The Heated Battle in Madison

It was a bitterly cold late February day when I first visited Madison, the capital of Wisconsin. A freezing wind was blowing around the lakeside State Capitol, and there was nary a soul in sight. This was in the 1980s.

But recently, Madison has been filled with energy and throngs of people. On Feb. 27, at the same time of year I had been there, at the same State Capitol, 70,000 people gathered. It was reported that they had split into two opposing groups and opened up a fierce exchange.

This standoff lies at the heart of American politics today. Big government and small government, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, the Obama administration and the tea party are all butting heads. On the surface, this is a clash between conservative Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the liberal public employee labor union. Beyond that, however, the debate is related to the future basis of the relationship between the government and the people.

What happens with the confrontation in Madison will cast large ripples in other states and the federal government, and will influence what happens elsewhere. Despite the gravity of the situation, however, the American media has been overwhelmed with the radical changes in the Middle East, so there has been scant coverage of the events in Madison. The Japanese media has ignored the story almost completely.

Until just recently, Wisconsin was a liberal stronghold. During the Vietnam War, the University of Wisconsin-Madison was the base for the most ardent anti-war activists in America. But as times change, so do politics. In last November’s midterm elections, every race in Wisconsin, from the governorship to both houses of the state Legislature, ended in a Republican victory. The political change is especially on display in the 43-year-old Walker’s conservative campaign pledge to reduce the state deficit, a pledge he made to gain the support of the anti-liberal tea party.

Gov. Walker has said that at the current rate, the state deficit will reach $3.6 billion by 2013. In order to reduce the deficit, he submitted a bill to diminish the power of the state employee union as part of his measures to cut personnel expenses. The union’s collective bargaining rights would basically be limited to wages; other issues such as raises and cost of living increases would be put to a statewide vote. Their right to strike would be limited, and union members would be released from the obligation to pay union dues. Union members’ health insurance and pension would also be excluded from collective bargaining, which means personal costs would increase. Union members who work in hospitals and schools would lose their collective bargaining rights and their ability to strike. That’s the bill in a nutshell.

The bill passed in the state Assembly, but it still needed to go to a vote in the state Senate. The Senate’s 14 minority Democrats refused to deliberate and fled Madison in mid-February. From neighboring Illinois, the 14 senators have heaped condemnation on Gov. Walker, claiming that he has infringed on workers’ basic rights. In response to this, on March 3, the Wisconsin state Senate Republicans adopted a resolution to arrest the rogue senators for contempt.

The reality behind all of this is that the public employee union as a voting bloc has consistently supported Democratic candidates in every election. There is also the fact that unions in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwestern Rust Belt are very powerful and have upheld laws requiring workers to join unions and pay union dues.

The Right to Unionize Law,* which recognizes the freedom of workers to join [or refrain from joining] labor unions, has been adopted in 22 states. Those states have higher production and more efficient investment than the rest of the country.

In 1981, roughly 20 percent of American workers were affiliated with unions, but by last year, that figure tumbled to just 11 percent. Public employees, however, maintained a rate of 36 percent union affiliation. For private sector employees, the number is only 7 percent. That is why small-government conservatives, who emphasize the role of the private sector over the public, are firmly opposed to the government granting extensive rights to the public employee union, with government finances being what they are.

Republican governors in Ohio and Indiana are moving towards imposing similar limits on public employee unions. That is why the standoff in Wisconsin is being watched so closely.

*Editor’s note: There is not one law governing employees’ freedom of association with unions. Rather, there are right to work laws, which are statutes permitted under the Taft-Hartley Act. These laws prohibit agreements between unions and employers that require employees to join or pay dues to unions as conditions of employment.