Walker's walking all over us! The sky is darkening. (a letter)

This is a letter from Bryan Kennedy on Gov. Walker's recent proposal on the state budget.............
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Dear AFT-Wisconsin member,

It is a dark day for our state.

In a move that unravels over 50 years of labor peace in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker announced to legislators today that he intends to end collective bargaining in Wisconsin. Under his proposal:

• Public employee unions would be allowed to negotiate only on wages.
• Increases in wages for public employees would be capped at the consumer price index, and locals would have to go to referendum to exceed those limits.
• Public employee unions could no longer require dues, and employers could not collect them.
• State employees would be required to contribute 5 percent of their pay to their pension
• State employees would be required to pay 12 percent of their health care costs
• Faculty and academic staff in the UW System would lose their right to collectively bargain
  

This proposal is as shocking as it is outrageous. Although Scott Walker has been in office for only six weeks and has never engaged state workers or our unions in a conversation about concessions, he has determined that, as a system, collective bargaining in Wisconsin is broken.

In the collective bargaining agreements that Walker lobbied against in December, state employees agreed to over $100 million in concessions. Public employees have sent the message that we are reasonable and open to discussing shared sacrifice and improving our state’s economy; the response from this administration has been to eviscerate our most basic right as workers: our right to collectively bargain.

The challenges we face are grim, but now is not the time to panic: it is time to stand together as Wisconsin public employees and taxpayers, and fight back! That’s how the labor movement was built in this country, and it is the only way we can persevere.

Yours in the union,

Bryan Kennedy