The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Takes Up Writing Creative Fiction

When Patrick McIlheran completed the ultimate hypocrisy of leaving the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to become a part of the big government bureaucracy he spent years raling against, I thought that might be the end of the paper's venture into producing creative fiction.

Wow! I could never have been any more wrong!

Their county reporter, Steve Schultze, teams up with some county officials and does quite the admirable job of picking up where PaddyMac left off. His article is such a convoluted mess of opinion, unexplained facts, half-truths and unchallenged lies, it boggles the mind and makes one wonder where to even start addressing such a miasma of misinformation. It's enough to make C. S. Lewis jealous.

Schultze starts out with saying that Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele (pronounced: Walker Lite) hasn't ruled out pay cuts or lay offs to balance a $51 million deficit.  But nowhere does he say when this deficit was discovered, if it's actual or merely projected, or what caused this alleged deficit. Considering this is the first time it's being mentioned, a little background would be nice. Journalistic even.

Then Schultze forgets he's a reporter and gives us an op-ed paragraph:

The new state law, which took effect Wednesday, paves the way for changes that in the past would have been difficult if not impossible to achieve. The county's largest union, District Council 48 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, made an unsuccessful 11th-hour push to get a new contract before the legal cloud blocking implementation of the bargaining measure was lifted.

Schultze forgets to mention a few things with that opinion. Things such as:

• The unions have a federal lawsuit that is still very much in play.
• There's already been a federal ruling in favor of collective bargaining rights, whether they be public or private unions.
• There is growing evidence that Walker's "tools" aren't all Walker tried to pretend they were.

Schultze then delves into the various things that Walker's bill will allow the county to do to protect the special interests, with a surprising accuracy, but then mentions the furloughs.  What he doesn't mention about the furloughs is that they have been found to be illegal and that the county needed to cease and desist immediately and reimburse the employees with back pay for the disallowed forced time off without pay.  Nor does he mention that this finding was sustained when the County went back to WERC to appeal the ruling.

Schultze then brings Supervisor Joe Sanfelippo into this land of make-believe and quotes him as saying:

Supervisor Joe Sanfelippo, the chairman of the County Board's Personnel Committee, said he didn't expect the state law to usher in drastic changes for workers, though he acknowledged workers view the pension and health care payments as significant.

A twenty percent cut in pay is not significant? Would someone let Sanfelippo know that we don't all own taxi cab companies for which we can vote an increase in taxi funding for every time things get a little tight.

Schultze then starts talking about the possibility of privatization. He specifically mentions the security guards being privatized. Brilliant move there by Abele and company. After all, it worked so well last time they tried it, with the less than zero savings and the convicts the private agency hired.

What Schultze doesn't mention is that Abele and company are also looking at privatizing the entire Child Support Enforcement program. This won't help much, considering that child support enforcement actually brings in more money for the county tax payers than it uses, giving the county to support other programs or help pay off some of the debt. Now that extra money will be going to some CEO or board as profit instead of giving the tax payers some relief.

To round off this fiction comes Chairman Lee Holloway with this line:

County Board Chairman Lee Holloway sought to reassure employees they'll be treated fairly without union contracts. He said he wants to appoint a special committee that includes workers to review county work rules to see what changes might be needed. Holloway also wants the rules to apply to all workers. Under the previous system, unions sometimes had different rules than nonunion employees.

"I won't let anybody beat up on union people," Holloway said.

Do I really have to point out that Holloway has not voted in the unions favor in years and with the aid of his new pal, Sanfelippo, chose to screw over not only the unions but also the tax payers just a couple of weeks ago?

Having Holloway say that he's going to take care of the workers is probably about as comforting as when he says he's going to take care of his rental properties.

About the only truthful thing in the article comes from Kurt Zunker, president of Local 882, who pointed out that people aren't feeling very safe right now (emphasis mine):

The prospect has demoralized many of those workers, and several hurriedly retired last week, said Kurt Zunker, president of the AFSCME local that represents the guards, as well as parks and highway workers.

"They're panicking," he said. "You get jerked around so many ways, what do you believe anymore?" Many of the guards fear losing their jobs next year, as well as benefits this year, Zunker said.

Indeed, the route Abele is taking will lead him to greater problems than trying to balancing a spreadsheet. Then again, it may be what he wants, considering that he is part of a group that is trying to "blow up" Milwaukee County, or at least put it under state receivership, like they're doing in Michigan.

I think the only group that might be happy with the course of events lately are the trial lawyers as people's rights continue to get trampled on and as people start suffering real harm from the faulty policies the county is taking on.