Trump's Labor Day Message To Workers: Screw You!

It's no deep dark secret that Trump is not a friend of the American worker. He made that overly clear, as John Nichols points out at the Nation:

Because candidate Trump criticized noxious free-trade agreements that Democratic and Republican presidents have advanced, there were many workers who imagined he was on their side. Some still do.

But Trump will not deliver for working people on this or any other Labor Day. He has made that plain by assembling an administration that is packed with political grifters who have made it their business to defend sweatshops, depress wages and tip every balance toward multi-national corporations.

In many cases, Trump’s picks are worse than Trump—and that’s saying a lot.

Trump’s National Labor Relations Board picks—Marvin Kaplan and William Emanuel—have been greeted with scorn by advocates for a living wage and workplace fairness. As Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren explained to Emanuel during his confirmation hearing: “You have spent your career at one of the country’s most ruthless, union-busting law firms in the country. How can Americans trust you will protect workers rights when you’ve spent 40 years fighting against them?”

Trump’s Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta, has a miserable history of aligning with right-wing and corporate interests. After law school, Acosta clerked for US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Judge Samuel Alito. Alito is now the US Supreme Court’s aggressive foe of worker rights. Acosta, who served briefly as a George W. Bush appointee to the National Labor Relations Board, went on to face harsh criticism for the partisanship he displayed on voting rights cases while leading the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

As Labor Secretary, Acosta has remained on the wrong side. Just weeks ago, he appeared before the annual gathering of the militantly anti-labor American Legislative Exchange Council—along with anti-union zealot Betsy DeVos, Trump’s secretary of education.

Trump’s pick to serve as deputy secretary of labor, Patrick Pizzella, has an even more troubling record than Acosta. A former campaign staffer for Ronald Reagan who has served in Republican and Democratic administrations, Pizzella was once employed by the viscerally anti-union National Right to Work Committee and later joined the firm that scandal-plagued lobbyist Jack Abramoff was associated with before his 2006 conviction on federal charges that included attempted bribery.

As if that wasn't enough, there's more. There's always more.

Trump wanted to make sure that the American workers see him flipping them the bird and screaming, "F**k you!"

So he decided to put Ronnie Raygun in the Labor Hall of Fame:

Former President Ronald Reagan, a one-time Hollywood union leader who fired 11,000 air traffic controllers and crushed their union, will be inducted into the Labor Department’s Labor Hall of Honor.

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta made the announcement Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley, California.

The honor is for Americans who improved working conditions, wages and quality of life for families.

...

However, as U.S. president in 1981, Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers, banned them from government jobs for life and decertified their union. A new union was only formed years later.

When Candidate Trump said that the American Worker was getting crushed, I thought it was political rhetoric, not a warning.

WI Republicans Start The Fast Track To RTW Ruin

Image courtesy of Citizens Action of Wisconsin

The ongoing downward spiral for Wisconsin continues this week as Scott Walker and his Republican allies continue to ramrod through so-called "Right to Work" legislation in an extraordinary session of the state legislature.

On Monday, labor leaders, community leaders and business owners converged on the Capitol to speak with state senators but were denied access.

On Tuesday, thousands of Wisconsinites went to Madison, some driving five and a half hours, to attend the sham of a public hearing. Scores of Wisconsinites did not get to testify but the Republican clowns made sure that out of state special interests got to say their piece:

It's a rare citizen who would rush to testify that the higher wages, benefits, and training that unions bring are a bad idea. Fortunately, the Wisconsin GOP had the full support of the Koch-funded "think tanks" that are a critical part of the right-wing infrastructure.

James Sherk, an attorney for the D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, flew out to pile on. Sherk's innovative legal effort to devise a local right to work strategy and peddle it though the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was featured on the front page of the New York Times recently in an article entitled "Foes of Unions Try Their Luck at the County Level." The Heritage Foundation received $650,000 in 2012 from the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, which was one of the Koch Family Foundations before it closed in 2013. The Lambe Foundation contributed at least $4.8 million to the Heritage Foundation between 1998 and 2012. See our SourceWatch profile here.

Sherk waxed lyrical over the fact that right to work legislation would "drive down labor costs." Sen. Larson translated for the audience: "You say labor costs. You know, I would call that wages."

Greg Mourad from the National Right to Work Committee, which received $1 million from the Koch brothers' secret bank Freedom Partners in 2012, was not keen to discuss where his paycheck comes from.

"Have you never asked yourself why some of the richest people in the country are spending so much money on your group -- people pushing an extreme anti-worker and anti-environment agenda?" Sen. Larson asked Mourad. He had not. The National Right to Work Committee has been a national leader in the effort to destroy public and private sector unions by pushing anti-union legislation at the state and federal level and by bringing lawsuits, such as the 2014 Harris v. Quinn case in the U.S. Supreme Court attacking unions in Illinois. The three groups associated with the Committee reported over $25 million in revenue in 2012. CMD's Sourcewatch profile of the group can be found here.

F. Vincent Vernuccio flew in all the way from Michigan, where workers were "freed" to make lower wages in 2013. Vernuccio works for Michigan's Mackinac Center, one of the largest state-based think tanks in the nation, and part of the $84 million dollar State Policy Network, a sister organization to ALEC. The Mackinac Center received $1,494,000 from the Koch conduits DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund between 2010 and 2012. See CMD's ;SourceWatch profile here.

Last year, Vernuccio masterminded a coordinated campaign attacking teachers in Michigan. Together with the Koch-founded group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and the National Right to Work Committee, Mackinac released targeted Facebook and Google ads, built webpages, published op-eds in local and state newspapers, and flooded Michiganders with mass mailings and robo-calls -- all with the aim of destroying the teachers' union by creating a mass exodus of members.

There was one Wisconsinite ready to testify. Scott Manley, representing Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), bemoaned the fact that Wisconsin is lagging in new job creation compared to right to work states (the Bureau of Labor Statistics ranks Wisconsin 32 out of 50 states in new job creation). But just a few months ago, during Walker's campaign for reelection, WMC aired TV ad after TV adpraising Governor Walker for the state's blockbuster economic performance.

It should be noted that Manley was also forced to admit that only 7% of the companies he is supposed to be representing actually support this. The vast majority of companies in Wisconsin resent this intrusion into how they conduct their business.

The Republicans and their corporate bosses weren't done making a mockery of democacy.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a quick story saying that the unions were planning a protest for the end of the hearing. State Senator Steve Nass, who was the day's ring master, conflated that to a threat to their safety and called an end to the meeting more than a half hour before it was scheduled to end.

Even though this Nass-clown supposedly felt in fear for his life, he did make sure to take the time to take a roll call vote, passing this piece of ALEC written legislation for Wednesday's session. It should be noted that it passed on a 3-1 vote. The other Democrat, Senator Chris Larson, was not given the opportunity to vote.

And as far as that threat goes, there was none, unless one considers dissent to be a threat:

During the meeting, the source for the Journal Sentinel report, Bruce Colburn of the Service Employees International Union state council, stood up in the middle of the committee hearing and told Nass that there was no threat or need for concern. Colburn and AFSCME Council 48 Executive Director Boyd McCamish later told the Journal Sentinel that the newspaper's report was accurate but that they disagreed with Nass' contention that their plans constituted a "threat," calling that argument a "sham."

"There was no threat," Colburn said. "We wanted to ensure that people had a right to speak."

"They used it as a straw man to get out of a very uncomfortable position," McCamish added. "It's an act of political cowardice."

Union supporters reacted with disbelief and anger to the sudden vote, shouting, "Shame! Shame! Shame!" as police escorted Republican lawmakers from the hearing room. A spokesman for the Walker administration and Capitol Police said there was one arrest before the Capitol closed.

It is expected that Wednesday will present with a continuation of this farce as the corporate-controlled Republicans do their masters' bidding in ramming this through. It can also be expected that the Republicans will squelch the speech of the Democrats as much as possible.

The Republicans really, really don't want the people to know what they are about to do to them.

Call to Action! Rallies To Stop The Wage Theft Bill

There are currently three events scheduled to protest the wage theft bill that Scott Walker and company wants to ram down our throats.

The first one is in Milwaukee on Monday, February 23 at Zeidler Union Square at 5 pm.

The other two are both in Madison on Tuesday, February 24 and Wednesday, February 25, at noon on the State Street side of the Capitol.

There is also this:

The Senate Committee on Labor and Government Reform will be holding a hearing Tuesday, February 24.  Please join us at 9:00 a.m. to testify in opposition of Right to Work.

You can also CONTACT your legislators in opposition of Right to Work. The legislative hotline is:  1-800-362-9472

Sign the petition to stop Right to Work in Wisconsin.

Now is not the time to give up. Other states have beaten back this attack because they never surrendered and never gave up.

Yes, we have been beaten down a helluva lot in the past four years and we will probably get beaten down several more times.

But it doesn't matter how many times we get beaten down. The only thing - the only thing - that matters is how many times we get back up.

And then there is this:

At a gathering Sunday of influential Wisconsin workers and political activists, a unanimous decision was made regarding how to respond to news that the Republican majority in the state legislature plans to ram through so-called “right to work” legislation this week.

Wisconsin’s union and non-union workers have apparently had enough and today every person at the gathering voted in favor of calling for a general strike if the legislation is passed.

The attack on families by the legislature comes just a couple weeks after the release of the Wisconsin governor’s proposed biennial budget, which contains cuts of historic proportions to education, health care, state parks - even an attack on the University of Wisconsin where the governor proposed eliminating  “the search for truth” from the University’s mission statement.

The AFL-CIO (which was not represented at the gathering) is sponsoring a rally at the state Capitol on Tuesday. Groups who were represented at today’s gathering plan to use that opportunity to call for the strike, which they are confident will be honored by a wide cross-section of private-sector and public-sector employees, union and non-union workers, and students.

Are you ready to make a stand for your rights?

Labor Unrest At MPS

On Tuesday, the Finance Committee of the Milwaukee Public School Board was to meet.

The Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association were present to speak for the need for raises for the Education Assistance, who barely make a living wage and haven't had a raise in years.

However, Committee Chair Jeff Spence led the committee out of the room before the MTEA members were allowed to speak for a "closed door session" that was scheduled for the end of the meeting.  They did not come out of the closed door session until after the MTEA members left, unheard by the committee.

On Thursday, the school board met but would not allow public comment, so MTEA and supporters from the community took a direct action by doing a mic check.

What is telling is that School Board President Michael Bonds was more concerned about having these citizens removed from the room than hearing what they had to say.

Afterwards, Bonds called the citizens "rude and disruptive."

I'm sorry, but what is rude and disruptive is school officials refusing to listen to their employees and even worse, to the general public.  They were elected to represent the public who voted for them.  They were not elected to dictate to the people who voted for them.

This is the result of Act 10, which is nothing more than an effort to silence an entire section of the population and allowing petty tyrants to just go ahead and do what they want without rhyme or reason other than just because they can.

However, history shows again and again that the people won't remain silenced and will have their voices heard one way or another.  The sooner that elected officials like the Milwaukee Public School Board learns this, the better things will be for everyone.

And if they choose to still not listen, they can be replaced by people who will.

Abele To Workers: No Due Process For You!

Earlier this year, I exclusively reported about the depths that Chris "Boss" Abele had sunk in his efforts to attack workers.  It had gotten to the point where he used county money and county resources to sue other parts of the county:

Before Act 10, Milwaukee County had three ways of dealing with grievances and disciplinary issues.

If the worker was represented by the union, they could grieve verbal or written reprimands or suspensions of 10 days or less before an arbitrator.  If the discipline was more than 10 days or was termination, their grievance would be heard before the Personnel Review Board (PRB), a panel of five people appointed by the county executive.  Non-represented workers had everything go before the PRB.

With the passage of Act 10, that all changed.  The arbitration system was ended.

But Abele never put another system in its place to deal with these issues, as required by Act 10.

Without going into the details or the merits of the case, a union worker was given a three day suspension that they thought to be unfair.  Without an arbitrator to grieve the matter to, a grievance was filed with the PRB.

Abele was outraged at this and sent his corp counsel to argue that the PRB could not hear the matter.  The PRB found that under Act 10 and other state laws and county ordinances, the worker had the right to be heard and since Abele had not set up a system to do so, they were going to.

Angered that the PRB had found that workers still have rights and that the PRB - his own appointees - were going to enforce those rights, Abele went off the deep end.

Abele has had his corp counsel file a lawsuit against the PRB in order to stop them from following Act 10 and allowing a worker to grieve an unfair discipline.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Abele is having one of his appointees sue five other of his appointees to stop them from enforcing Act 10.  And this will be both prosecuted and defended using tax payer dollars.

All because he doesn't want workers to have even the few rights still allowed to them under Act 10.

The case of Abele vs. Abele was heard in circuit court and the judge ruled with Abele that the Personnel Review Board could only review cases where the punishment is very severe.

What this also means is that Abele is out of compliance with both Act 10 and the Status Quo Ordinance. Both of these laws require that there is a grievance procedure in place so that the workers still have a voice in the workplace.

In other words, Abele is going out of his way and squandering county resources in an effort to silence workers' voices and deny them due process and other rights.

The reason for Abele's stunt is the same reason he bought off state legislators and schmoozed Scott Walker into passing Act 14, the law which hamstrung the county board and consolidated power in Abele's hands.  It is nothing more than a selfish power grab so that he and his plutocratic pals in the Greater Milwaukee Committee can plunder county assets, such as the parks, the buildings and the pension fund.

Unfortunately for Abele, he again underestimated the unions and overestimated his own intelligence.
The unions have alerted county workers to this latest attack from Abele and has vowed to do what unions are meant to do - protect workers from people like Abele and his managers who have been known to repeatedly abuse the power of their office for personal vendettas and agendas.

It is expected that Abele will increase his attacks on the workers when he presents his proposed 2015  Milwaukee County Budget.

There are three important points that need to be made from this latest attack by Abele.

One, no worker can go through this alone.  Most people would not be able to individually handle the legal fees and other costs stemming from Abele's malfeasance.  Furthermore, the impact of the victories over Abele's malfeasance is stronger when it is shared among all workers.

Secondly, the Milwaukee County Board needs to step up once again and do what Boss Abele won't, which is protect the county, the workers and the taxpayers by putting in an effective and efficient grievance procedure, which is required by law and which will be much less expensive than the long line of court cases and WERC complaints that Abele is advocating for.

Thirdly, one has to question the leadership of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County.  Even though Abele has repeatedly attacked workers' rights, living wage laws, their own party members and have repeatedly donated to the most rabid of Teapublicans, Democratic leaders continue to say and do nothing.

When Walker would do the same things, they were denouncing it at every turn.  But now that it's Abele doing it, there is nothing from the Democrats.

This would mean that they are either OK with Abele's drastic shift from their platform, they are too scared to say anything or that Abele has bought off their silence.  No matter how one cuts it, it makes me question their judgment and other decisions that they have made.

I got news for them, but it's wrong no matter who does it.  Supporting workers' rights, providing quality services for those who need it, and responsible governing is not a sometimes thing.

Supreme Sophistry

The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued their decisions on three major cases on Thursday morning.  The cases were about the same sex registry, voter ID and Act 10.  The results weren't anything that we didn't expect, but it did show just how much of a joke that the Supreme Court has become with four of the "justices" being nothing more than sock puppets held up by the dark money special interests.

The small victory that humanity won was that the Supreme Court upheld the same sex registry.  While it was nice to see one decision go according to the Constitution, it's small potatoes considering that the same sex marriage ban was found to be unconstitutional, not only in Wisconsin but in state after state across the country.  I look forward to the day when people realize that bigotry in general isn't a constitutional right.

The Supreme Court also chose to uphold the Voter ID law, even though it has been found to be

unconstitutional in federal court.  The rationale they offered was that it would help prevent the voter fraud that doesn't exist.  Justice Pat Roggensack even rolled out the old rigmarole about needing a picture ID to go traveling, at the bank, etc.  What she failed to understand is that none of the activities she cited are constitutional rights like voting is.  As Justice Shirley Abrahamson correctly pointed out, this is the modern day version of Jim Crow.

Fortunately, because of the federal case, which is under appeal, there is a stay on the law for now.  That said, soon to be former Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has declared that he will use the Supreme Court ruling to try to get that stay lifted in time for November's election.  They must be really afraid that Mary Burke will bring a high turn out, which was supported in the most recent Marquette University poll numbers.

Last, but not least, the conservative faction of the Supreme Court followed their benefactors directions in supporting Act 10, even if they had to ignore entire sections of the case and the Constitution in order to do so.

As Justice Ann Walsh Bradley points out, Act 10 is a textbook case of unconstitutionality:

Bradley writes in the dissent that the majority ignores the plaintiffs’ claim that Act 10 infringes on the constitutional right to organize into a collective bargaining unit, and erroneously focuses on the right to bargain as a collective bargaining unit, and then determines no such right exists.

[...]

A constitutional right to organize as a collective bargaining unit is a well-established premise, the “sacredness” of which was stressed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court as early as 1902 and which the U.S. Supreme Court has declared a fundamental right, Bradley writes.

The First Amendment protects not just against prohibition of the right of association, but also from discouraging union membership or association, Bradley writes.

Act 10 discourages organizing by increasing its cost through the added expenses involved in preparing for annual elections and paying a certification fee, Bradley writes. In addition, revenues are reduced by the elimination of fair share agreements requiring members to pay a proportionate share of union costs, and by prohibiting municipalities from taking union dues out of workers’ pay checks, she adds.

“There is no doubt that these provisions act to discourage membership,” Bradley concludes.

Act 10 also creates unconstitutional conditions by barring workers organized under a collective bargaining agreement from negotiating anything other than an increase in base wages up to the amount of inflation, Bradley writes.

“This is the textbook definition of an unconstitutional condition,” she concludes. “By permitting such a statute to stand, the majority greatly dilutes the First Amendment on the right to freedom of association.”

The right wing has been making a big deal out of this, saying that taking billions of dollars out of the economy, losing thousands of experienced workers and a decrease in services is somehow a good thing.

They are also saying that this is the death knell for the unions, which is as fallacious as the the rationale for the Supreme Court's decision.  If I may remind the gentle reader, Wisconsin saw the seventh highest gain in union membership in the nation in 2013.

So while the rulings might be disappointing, they are not surprising.  Now is the time to roll up our sleeves and get back to work in fighting to restore our state to the greatness it once had and to return to the progressive standards that we have been known for.

The Dysfunctionality Of Chris Abele's Milwaukee County

When Scott Walker was Milwaukee County Executive, things were pretty screwed up, but Chris Abele makes that time look like the good old days.

The following are three examples of life in Chris Abele's Milwaukee County and just how dysfunctional things have gotten, ranging from the trivial to the alarming to the almost incomprehensible.

Seeing Red

Abele, or as he prefers to be called, Dear Leader, appears to finally figuring out that not many people - especially county workers - like him very much.

In order to endear himself to the little people, he issued a decree declaring Friday to be Wisconsin Badgers Day and is "allowing" people to wear their Badger gear.

This must be one of his most pointless acts for a couple or reasons.

One, it's casual Friday. Workers could have worn their gear without a decree.  Two, it would have been nice if he had made this gesture when the UW-Milwaukee Panthers - y'know, the local school - had been in the playoffs.

But that's small potatoes compared to the other examples.

Email Down

On Thursday, I reported how Abele and friends had illegally sent political emails to county workers and elected officials at their government email addresses.

The same day, the same email system suddenly stopped working.  Scrubbing servers, maybe?

Abele Sues To Violate Act 10

Before Act 10, Milwaukee County had three ways of dealing with grievances and disciplinary issues.

If the worker was represented by the union, they could grieve verbal or written reprimands or suspensions of 10 days or less before an arbitrator.  If the discipline was more than 10 days or was termination, their grievance would be heard before the Personnel Review Board (PRB), a panel of five people appointed by the county executive.  Non-represented workers had everything go before the PRB.

With the passage of Act 10, that all changed.  The arbitration system was ended.

But Abele never put another system in its place to deal with these issues, as required by Act 10.

Without going into the details or the merits of the case, a union worker was given a three day suspension that they thought to be unfair.  Without an arbitrator to grieve the matter to, a grievance was filed with the PRB.

Abele was outraged at this and sent his corp counsel to argue that the PRB could not hear the matter.  The PRB found that under Act 10 and other state laws and county ordinances, the worker had the right to be heard and since Abele had not set up a system to do so, they were going to.

Angered that the PRB had found that workers still have rights and that the PRB - his own appointees - were going to enforce those rights, Abele went off the deep end.

Abele has had his corp counsel file a lawsuit against the PRB in order to stop them from following Act 10 and allowing a worker to grieve an unfair discipline.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Abele is having one of his appointees sue five other of his appointees to stop them from enforcing Act 10.  And this will be both prosecuted and defended using tax payer dollars.

All because he doesn't want workers to have even the few rights still allowed to them under Act 10.

Now don't you feel better about the fact that Abele has unprecedented and unchecked power over the county?

The Power Of Unions

It is no deep dark secret that the plutocrats, oligarchs and corporationists have been attacking unions for decades.  It started with a slow and gradual chipping away of workers' rights, but in recent years has become a full frontal assault with the ramming through of the misleadingly named "right to work" laws, and more locally,  laws like Scott Walker's Act 10 and Chris Abele's Crosswalk scheme.

It is not coincidental that as they have tried to hamstring the unions, we have also seen an increase in attacks on many of the other issues that unions have traditionally fought for, such as women's rights, voter's rights, minimum wage laws, immigration reform and social justice.

The reason that the plutocrats, oligarchs and corporationists are pushing for all of this suppression of people's rights is simply that it is a power grab.  They want to stack the deck against anyone and everyone who might stand in their way.

And the reason they are doing the power grab is so that they can have legislatures that will pass the laws that will benefit them and increase their already overflowing coffers.  In Wisconsin, this is obvious by the way they are ramming through bills written by the education profiteers, the iron mining companies, the frack mining companies and any other special interest that wants to clean us out of our natural resources, including our workforce.

Don't believe me? Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post clearly lays out the difference in what happened to workers as the unions' power was eroded away:

In recent decades, they’ve reaped precious little. Between 1947 and 1973 — roughly the one period of union strength in U.S. history — productivity increased by 97 percent and workers’ compensation (that’s wages plus benefits) by 95 percent. Since 1973, however, as unions have weakened, productivity has increased by 80 percent and compensation by just 11 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

If no longer to workers, where have those gains from productivity gone? According to economists Robert Gordon and Ian Dew-Becker, they have gone entirely to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans — increasingly in the form of capital gains and dividends. Wages today account for the lowest share of the nation’s economy, and profits the highest, since World War II.

The tired and worn out standard of the Big Money special interests say that if they paid workers more money, such as by raising the minimum wage or passing living wage laws, it would kills jobs.  However, as reported at Bloomberg.com, the State of Washington is living proof that their fear mongering is nothing but empty threats in an effort to maintain the status quo:

When Washington residents voted in 1998 to raise the state’s minimum wage and link it to the cost of living, opponents warned the measure would be a job-killer. The prediction hasn’t been borne out.

In the 15 years that followed, the state’s minimum wage climbed to $9.32 -- the highest in the country. Meanwhile job growth continued at an average 0.8 percent annual pace, 0.3 percentage point above the national rate. Payrolls at Washington’s restaurants and bars, portrayed as particularly vulnerable to higher wage costs, expanded by 21 percent. Poverty has trailed the U.S. level for at least seven years.

It would be extremely difficult to overestimate how much the wealthy want to hold on to and increase their wealth.

The laws that I mentioned above - the ones attacking workers, the working poor and the poor - have, for the most part, been done on a state or a federal level.  Many of these laws - ranging from right to work to the privatization of schools and prisons - come straight from the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC).

But due to a series of setbacks, the money behind those that support ALEC is starting to dwindle.  Companies are bailing out due to the backlash from such laws like "Stand Your Ground" and the "Castle Doctrine."   They were also suffering from a series of setbacks brought on by grassroots groups and unions at the local level.

To overcome these issues, ALEC is rolling out a smaller brother version which they call American City County Exchange (ACCE).  The purpose of this group is to buy influence at the local levels, much as they have done in the state legislatures.  They want to take over county boards, municipal common councils and school boards in order to tighten their grips on all of us and suppress any level of resistance.

From the Guardian:

Now the council is looking to take its blueprint for influence over statewide lawmaking and drill it down to the local level. It has already quietly set up, and is making plans for the public launch of, an offshoot called the American City County Exchange (ACCE) that will target policymakers from “villages, towns, cities and counties”.

The new organisation will offer corporate America a direct conduit into the policy making process of city councils and municipalities. Lobbyists acting on behalf of major businesses will be able to propose resolutions and argue for new profit-enhancing legislation in front of elected city officials, who will then return to their council chambers and seek to implement the proposals.

In its early publicity material, Alec says the new network will be “America’s only free market forum for village, town, city and county policymakers”. Jon Russell, ACCE’s director, declined to comment on the initiative.

Alec spokesman Wilhelm Meierling also declined to say how many corporate and city council members ACCE has attracted so far, or to say when the new initiative would be formally unveiled. But he confirmed that its structure would mirror that of Alec’s work in state legislatures by bringing together city, county and municipal elected officials with corporate lobbyists.

“As a group that focuses on limited government, free markets and federalism, we believe our message rings true at the municipal level just as it does in state legislatures,” he said.

To some, this might seem a little intimidating.  And it should.  This is the modern day equivalent of the Roman Empire sending its troops into our villages and cities to be either assimilated or conquered.

But even as intimidating as it might seem, it is far from a given that these would-be overlords will get their way.

In 2012, the Big Money powers went full out to make Barack Obama a one-term president and install their boy prince, Mitt Romney.  The went so whole hog that the Koch Brothers alone spent more than twice what the top ten unions spent combined:

And this doesn't include what the other plutocrats, oligarchs and special interests has spent that year.  Yet Barack Obama won reelection.  Tammy Baldwin toppled Tommy Thompson.  Across the nation, unions, grassroots groups and other progressives won many races.

Granted, we lost some big ones, such as the recall of Scott Walker. But that doesn't change the fact that we were so outgunned we held our own.

Imagine what the unions and affiliated groups could do if we grew larger.  And therein lies the not so secret truth.

While the Koch Brothers, the Bradley Foundation and other such groups have a vast horde of wealth and can buy all sorts of mercenaries to spread their lies and to fight their battles, that is really all they have.

But unions are not ruled by "union bosses" the way that corporations are ruled by CEOs.  Unions are made of their members, who also serve as their officers and board members.  Where CEOs issue decrees that their underlings jump to follow, unions put their issues to a vote by the membership, after a thorough, open discussion.  Where CEO's get their wealth from exploiting workers, union members voluntarily pay their dues to support the union and thus, themselves.

If you are like me, you are more than sick and tired of the assaults on our rights and the rights of our loved ones, our coworkers and our friends.  Things have simply gone too far and its time and beyond that we not only take back our states and our nation, but also draw the line in the sand in defense of our local government, the ones where our voices are still the loudest.

And as I have shown, the best way to do that is to join a union.  But it's not enough to just pay your dues.  You need to get involved and take an active role in the union.  Participate in meetings, take trainings, help support people-friendly candidates.

And if your workplace is not organized, consider organizing it.  Alternatively, join a grassroots group in your community.  After all, these groups are really unions of citizens, forming so that they can stand together and fight the corporate influences that are a threat to us all.

What I'm trying to say is that the power of unions - the thing that means they can successfully stand up to the Big Money Goliath - are the people.  People like you and me.

Now think about that a minute.

If the power of the unions are people like you and me, and the corporate special interests like ALEC, ACCE and their Big Money backers are at war of the unions, who are they really trying to hurt?

These groups aren't at war with the unions.

They have declared war on us.

Now, let's do this.  See ya at the union hall.

Some Days, An Emperor Just Can't Get Any Respect

On Thursday, Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele woke up with a smile on his face.  He just knew that this was going to be a great day.

He was scheduled to meet his good friend, President Barack Obama.  Abele had been telling people for days how Obama has been consulting with him on how to raise the minimum wage and it would be good to get some national attention in case he decided to run against Russ Feingold to take on Senator Ron Johnson.

Then, after meeting with his good chum he would return to the Milwaukee County Courthouse to watch his lackeys work the County Board's Finance, Personnel and Audit Committee so that he could get several million dollars to his corporate pals and then really stick it to both the low wage workers in the county as well as those pesky county workers themselves.

Yes, it would be a grand day indeed, and well worth giving up his usual routine of spending the morning at Collectivo and the afternoon at the University Club with his fellow plutocrats of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, toasting each other and congratulating themselves for being masters of the universe.

Still smiling in anticipation, Abele stretched and got out of bed.  He decided not to show up his BFF Obama and so when he slipped out of his silk pajamas, he decided to put on a suit instead of his usual ermine robe.

Little did he know just how wrong he was.

When he got to the airport to wait for good old Barry, he was glad to see the snow had not started falling yet.  At the expected time, Air Force One landed and the President disembarked with US Congresswoman Gwen Moore.

But as his good friend Barry Obama was acknowledging the various local dignitaries, he got to the Emperor and called him County Executive Chris Abila.  Not only did the President screw up his name he got the title wrong.  Even worse, it showed everyone that he was lying about his closeness with Obama.

The last part was the worst.  He was counting on using that charade to keep the Board from passing that horrible resolution that would require county employees and anyone working for a company that contracts with the county or gets money from the county to get paid a living wage.  Well, not quite a living wage, since it was only 100% of the poverty level.

Regardless, he was hoping to distract the supervisors with this fake out, hoping they would settle for the sub-poverty rate of $10.10 per hour, even though he secretly knew that even that small increase was not likely to happen.

After doing his stint with Obama and still trying to keep a positive outlook, he had his chauffeur drive him to the courthouse so that he could listen in on the committee meeting as they stuck it to the little people and help his corporate pals out.

But even that went wrong.

He quickly learned that a large number of the unwashed masses of common workers were crowding the committee room to push for the living wage.  He felt anger and dread wash over his body as the committee foolishly listened to those commoners and voted for the living wage, 7-2.

What was wrong with these supervisors?! Didn't they know that might cut into the many millions of dollars his friends stood to gain as he privatized and/or sold off every part of the county he could?!

Abele's - or rather - Abila's day just kept getting worse.

He had sent his top man in to get the committee to approve a pay out worth several millions of dollars to give to the companies that were still cleaning up the mess left from Abele's fire last summer.  He was hoping that the supervisors would be gullible enough to believe him when he said that the check from the insurance companies would be in the mail.  In a few months.  Maybe.

To Abila's disbelief, those rubes called supervisors balked at giving the insurance companies free loans - or maybe even gifts - by holding it over until next weeks meeting of the whole board.

Oh, well.  Abila consoled himself with the thought that he would soon have his Crosswalk plan in place.  He was very proud of his Crosswalk plan.  Not only did he take $5 million from the county workers to help increase the surplus to $14 million, but now he was going to take away their rights like seniority, grievances, vacations and fair work conditions.

But Abila's jaw fell to the floor as that uppity Supervisor Dave Cullen immediately moved to have the issue tabled until the call of the chair (that's legalese for putting his scheme in indefinite resolution purgatory) and called for the vote.  Those rotten upstarts then proceeded to vote it into limbo unanimously.

How dare they!  Abila was so upset that he stomped around his throne room for a whole two minutes, until he got too tired and had to sit down.

Don't they know who he is? He's Emperor Abila, er, Abele.  How dare these fools stand up for the commoners and the little people!

Sighing, Abila regained his composure somewhat and vowed to take his revenge on those uppity supervisors, especially that rotten chairwoman, Marina Dimitrijevic.  And then he would be able to do what he wanted with those miserable serfs.

Abila let out another deep sigh.

Some days, an emperor just can't get any respect.

Author's note: To make it satire, some fiction was added - Abele's robe is really sable, not ermine.

Scott Walker - Union Organizer

In 2008, Sarah Palin unintentionally motivated community organizers across the nation when she belittled their job:

And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities.

In an instance, she became a community extraordinaire.

Now, our own version of Palin, Scott Walker has proven himself to be quite the union organizer himself.

As everyone in Wisconsin knows, in 2011, just after taking office, Walker and his fellow corporate-controlled Teapublicans dropped "the bomb" of Act 10 on public sector workers   Walker and his echo chamber tried to sell this as a win for workers and taxpayers alike.  They claimed that this would give public sector workers a choice to belong to the union or not - ignoring the fact that the workers had this choice all along.

In reality, what Act 10 did was take thousands of dollars out of each workers' check each year so that Walker could give that money to his corporate sponsors.  The only choice public sector workers had was whether they could afford to pay their union dues and still keep a roof over their head and food on the table.  Sadly, the pay cuts were so big that many could not.

It didn't have its intended effect of completely busting the unions, but there is no denying it did hurt them a lot.
But Act 10 did have other effects, such as taking so much money out of the economy that it severely hurt the private sector.  If people don't have the money to spend, they aren't going to spend it.  This cost the state tens of thousands of good-paying, family-supporting jobs.  People that were able to keep their jobs saw their wages severely cut.  Those that were able to find new jobs in the poor state economy Walker created also saw their pay severely cut.

But now, after three years of Walker's maleficence, people are realizing that he indeed was selling them a false bill of goods. They realized that the unions were actually good for them and that they were still very much needed.

As I've been saying for months to anyone who would listen, the union membership is back on the rise.

In 2012, Wisconsin had the third largest decrease in union membership.  In 2013, Wisconsin baffled many of the "experts" by having the seventh largest increase in membership:

There was a surprise in the Bureau of Labor Statistics report Friday on union membership: Trade unions appear to have gained ground in Wisconsin last year.

Wisconsin’s union membership rate -- the percentage of wage and salary workers who belong to unions -- rose from 11.25 percent to 12.34 percent, the seventh biggest gain in the nation. This after 2012, when Wisconsin had the third largest decrease in the nation.

But as the gentle reader knows, when it comes to all things Walker, there is more. There is always more:

The report shows Wisconsin had an increase of about 24,000 union members in 2013, while the overall number of wage and salaried workers dipped by about 36,000.

So while Walker's agenda was costing the state tens of thousands of jobs, those managing to hang on to their jobs or get new ones were even more eager to join or rejoin the unions.

This was also exemplified when most unions were able to recertify at the end of last year despite they way Walker tried to manipulate the voting by putting insane obstacles in the way.

I've got to hand it to Walker.  That is some mighty impressive union organizing.

But as for the reason for this upsurge in union membership - and the same reason the corporate special interests are spending billions of dollars each year to try to bust the unions - really isn't that surprising.

In fact, it was highlighted in a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that just came out last Friday, unions help their members get fairer compensation and benefits, not to mention better work conditions:

Workers who have a voice through collective bargaining earn more and have better access to health insurance, retirement security and other benefits, according to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among full-time wage and salary workers, median weekly earnings were $950 among union members. That’s $250 more than for nonunion workers.

“When workers have a seat at the table, they are better able to bargain for their fair share of the value they helped create; and that leads to greater economic security and economic mobility for everyone,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said Friday. “As our economy continues to recover and we work to create good jobs, we need to ensure workers can lift their voices to raise wages, reduce inequality and help more people climb ladders of opportunity.”

Other data shows that union members had greater access to employment-based benefits such as health insurance, a retirement savings plan, and sick and vacation leave, Perez noted.

Approximately 16 million workers in both the public and private sector were represented by a union last year. That figure includes those whose jobs are covered by a collective bargaining agreement but who are not dues-paying members. Those union contracts helped build America’s middle class by providing workers with wages to support their families, and a voice on the job to protect their rights.

“Workers’ ability to form unions and engage in collective bargaining has been a cornerstone of a strong middle class,” Perez said. “The decline in union membership over the last few decades has contributed to more working families struggling to get by.”

While Act 10 has greatly limited the unions' ability to do any real negotiating, they are in no way powerless, as demonstrated by their ability to fight the cronyism and nepotism that came along with Act 10 and to preserve workers' rights right here in Milwaukee.

Walker's intention might have been to bust the unions, but as with everything else he does, he's shown himself to be an utter failure.  At least for this one occasion, that worked out in our favor for a change.

The Lessons Of MLK Lost On Chris Abele

As the gentle reader is aware, this past Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  For the week leading up to this day, people across the country have celebrating his life and his teachings and in his honor, have been trying to make the world a better place.

Sadly, for too many politicians, MLK Day is just a series of photo ops, where they attend some breakfast or other event where they say a few words or make some token gesture.  When they go back to doing what they've been doing, you can tell it was nothing more than lip service for them.

An excellent example of this is Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele.

Abele made sure everyone knew that he was going to five whole events over two days in honor of King.

The hypocrisy is enough to make one physically ill.

When one reflects on the too short life of Dr, King, one usually thinks of his efforts to promote racial equality.  Without doubt, this is one of his greatest contributions to the world, making every effort to bring up the awareness of the bigotry that is still too prevalent in this country.

As great as his work for racial equality was, Dr. King was about so much more as well.  He also believed in workers rights and that people, regardless of race or gender or any other attribute, should be paid a living wage.

King also taught us that one of the greatest things a person could do was to be in the service of others.

And these are the areas where Abele falls pitifully short of King's legacy.

Abele has been systematically trying to dismantle Milwaukee County government and abdicating his responsibilities.  Most notably of his many failures to serve people is the way he is maltreating the patients at the mental health complex and pushing them out of the hospital even though there is a severe shortage of safe places for these vulnerable citizens to go.

While King would often walk with workers - and get arrested with them - in support of their efforts to be treated with respect and get paid a sustainable wage, Abele has shown himself to be quite the opposite.

Abele has sided against the workers at Palermo's, even though the company has been shown to be guilty of unfair labor practices and extremely unsafe conditions.  Abele has actively fought against the notion that the employees of companies contracting with the county be paid a living wage or be allowed to unionize.

He has shown his disdain towards his own workers by forcing them to pay more for their benefits than any other government in the state and possibly in the nation.  Abele's pay cuts to workers is more than twice than those imposed by Scott Walker.  Many county workers, including members of Abele's own staff, have had to take on second jobs just to pay the bills.

Instead of praising the unions as King had done, Abele has also taken it upon himself to try to bust the unions in order to ease his exploitation of the workers.

On Tuesday, the day after the official celebration of Dr. King's life and teachings, Abele shows just how out of touch he is with the meaning of the day.

Even as vulnerable citizens are put in harm's way and workers are struggling to stay out of bankruptcy, Abele has decided that he will not cut the extravagant salaries of his top political appointees.  Not only that, but he also has told his HR director to allow them to make even more money:

Now Abele has directed his personnel director not to implement the cuts. The board action capped many managers' pay at $120,000, which would amount to a $22,100 a year reduction for Administrative Services Director Don Tyler; a $12,000 cut for Human Resources Director Kerry Mitchell; a $6,875 cut for Transportation Director Brian Dranzik; and a $5,000 cut for Health and Human Services Director Hector Colón.

[...]

Mitchell, Abele's personnel chief, notified supervisors in a memo that she assigned new and higher pay ranges for 11 top county managers as part of a wider county salary study.

That would raise the top possible pay to $170,450 for Bargren, Tyler, Colón, Dranzik, Parks Director John Dargle Jr. and Zoo Director Chuck Wikenhauser. That would be about a $28,000 increase.

I won't pretend to know if Abele's failure to internalize Dr. King's teachings are intentional or if he is truly unable to understand what it means to stand up for the people, but either way, Abele's hypocrisy makes his "participation in events honoring King an embarrassment.

But it does serve as a reminder why people keep referring to Abele as "Little Walker."

Grothman Hates That You Have Weekends

Once again, State Senator Glenn Grothman, the asocial Teapublican from West Bend, has put his foot into it.

In his latest escapade of Grothmann has joined forces with State Representative Mark Born to announce that they don't think you need a day off of work and plan to outlaw weekends:

Wisconsin manufacturing and retail workers could volunteer to work seven days straight without a day off under a bill two Republican lawmakers are circulating on behalf of the state’s largest business group.

The bill promises to ratchet up tensions between the GOP and Democrats and their organized labor allies, who are still stinging after Republicans passed Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to strip most public workers of nearly all their union rights in 2011.

The measure’s authors, Sen. Glenn Grothman of West Bend and Rep. Mark Born of Beaver Dam, say the bill brings Wisconsin in line with federal law, gives workers a way to make extra money and employers a way to boost production. But Democrats and labor leaders insisted bosses would use the bill to force their employees to work longer and effectively erase the weekend.

“Even God said rest on the seventh day,” said David Reardon, secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Local 662, a union that represents about 10,000 workers across various industries in west-central and east-central Wisconsin, including manufacturing, transportation, government and food service.

“I would hate to see that Republican bill pass. Some employers would really take advantage of that,” Reardon said.

Current Wisconsin law requires employers who own or operate factories or stores to give workers at least 24 consecutive hours off every seven days.

Under Grothman and Born’s proposal, workers could volunteer to work seven straight days without a rest day.

Ah, but it gets even better as their rationale for such a heinous bill falls apart and it becomes obvious that their only reason is that it is what their corporate masters wish:

In an email to lawmakers seeking support for the bill, Born and Grothman said they had heard from businesses with employees who want to work the additional time. But when asked for names, Born said the only people he met with to discuss the bill were from WMC.

“We should have worded that differently,” Born said. Grothman said he has talked to a business but declined to name it.

WMC spokesman Jim Pugh didn’t return messages.

Born said the bill gives workers a chance to make some extra dollars and their bosses a means to increase production.

“Here’s an opportunity for folks to work together to get things done in a positive way for the employer and the employee,” Born said. “It just seems like a win all the way around.”

But opponents warned the only choice employees will have is work the extra hours or lose their jobs. The measure also would give workers who can work the extra day an advantage over workers who want to spend a day with their family, they said.

Now, if they were really interested in allowing the employees to earn more money, they would jump on board with the Democrats' proposal to raise the minimum wage in the state (although what they are proposing still isn't high enough, it's a start). Imagine, being able to make more money and still get to spend time with your family - what an unique concept!

And if the employers want to increase productivity, they could do it the old fashioned way - by hiring more workers.  Yes, I do realize that would mean actual job creation instead of the lip service version that the Teapublicans are spewing now.

It is rather telling that such simple solutions to the problems facing the state is still beyond the grasp of these corporate puppets.

Of course, like most of these stories goes, the money quote comes at the end of the article:

Grothman dismissed their concerns, saying he’s never heard of any business where pressuring employees to work extra hours has been a problem. He, too, insisted the bill would help workers make extra cash.

“It’s ridiculous when people want to work extra hours why Democrats would stand in the way of that,” he said. “I don’t know why some people want some people to remain poor.”

It's rather mind-boggling in its hypocrisy, isn't it?

It's not surprising though, that Grothman hasn't heard of any businesses trying to screw their workers. Heck, he hasn't even heard of any African Americans that celebrate Kwanzaa either.

Related: Glenn Grothman hates that you get Martin Luther King Day off too.

The County Emperor Versus Solidarity

Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele has a deep disdain for workers of all sorts, but it is county workers that he really likes to take his arrogance out on.

Abele and his staff have spent months poring over spreadsheets, comparing pay scales and benefits between the various job titles and between the various unions.  Abele claimed that they were looking to make things more equitable between job titles and unions.  What Abele didn't tell people that the equity he was looking for involved the lowest common denominator.

Abele's ultimate goal was to break AFSCME - which has been a constant barrier to Abele's plans of running rough shod over the workers and privatizing everything so that he and his fellow plutocrats can make the county into their own cash cow - and then in turn pick off the smaller unions at his leisure.

He used this as an excuse to freeze pay raises for all county raises (except for his own staff of course!).  He also was looking to all but destroy the grievance process, making it a Machiavellian system that was stacked against the workers.

Furthermore, he wanted to make safety and written reprimands as the only grievable issues.  In other words, if the worker got an oral reprimand, they were out of luck.  If one worker was given twice as much as work as the worker who was Abele's crony, the first worker was out of luck.  If management created a hostile work environment, the workers were out of luck.

Under Abele's proposed system, the workers' only choices was to live with the unfair practices, quit their jobs or sue the county.

There was one thing in Abele's way of doing this - the Status Quo Ordinance.

A couple of years ago, the leadership of AFSCME District Council 48 saw what was coming with Act 10 and how it would cut the union off at the knees and throw the county into chaos.  The unions then worked with the Milwaukee County Board and Abele to codify as much of the contract the union had with the county as possible under Act 10.  This would prevent some of the chaos that is happening in other governments and protect the workers as much as possible.

But then Abele changed his mind after realizing that the Status Quo Ordinance would keep him from his corporate takeover of the county assets and hence his plan which he calls "Cross Walk."  It should really be named "Cross Hairs."

Earlier this month, Abele tried to launch his attack by presenting it the County Board's Finance, Personnel and Audit Committee.  The unions had seen this coming and had already been working together and sharing their concerns with Board members.  Thus they drafted a resolution that not only maintained the Status Quo Ordinance, but strengthened it by including the small unions.  Ironically, this also met Abele's stated goal of equity.

Undaunted and unthinking, Abele still had his people present his plan, which got shot down in favor of the immeasurably more preferable resolution.  It didn't help Abele's cause much when Kerry Mitchell, Abele's handpicked Director of Human Resources, insulted the committee members:

Things got testy during the board's finance committee meeting Thursday over a proposed set of work rules that Human Resources Director Kerry Mitchell said she'd been trying in vain to get supervisors to discuss.

"I don't think any of you have any comprehension" how difficult and complex the work rule project was, Mitchell said. She said she could tell supervisors also didn't understand a complicated salary study.

Supervisors said they were insulted by her remarks.

"Maybe I'm just too much of a bumpkin to get it," Cullen said.

The committee voted 9-0 to approve the resolution strengthening the ordinance.

Abele was so upset about again being told no that he had yet another one of his temper tantrums, accusing committee members of ignoring legal advice and breaking the law and said that they should be recalled:

Abele even suggested the board's failure to listen to the advice of county lawyers on those issues could provoke a recall effort against supervisors.

"When your legal adviser tells you this isn't legal and you do that anyway, the word that usually comes to mind is recall," Abele said.

In an exclusive report, I demonstrated that Abele was a bold-faced liar with an email showing that not only did Corp Counsel help write the ordinance and found it legal, but Abele already knew about it:

Click on image to embiggen it

On December 19, the County Board voted on it as a whole.  It passed with a remarkable 18-0 vote.  Even the traditionally anti-union, pro-Abele supervisors voted for this.

The moral of the story is that when people pull together, when we work in true solidarity, we can overcome the big money special interests and thwart their attacks on the people.  The keys are to educate and to organize.

As I keep pointing out time and time again, "The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor." (Quote from Thomas Donahue)

Perhaps it's time we beat this into the Democrats' collective head so that we can take on the Kochs and the Bradley Foundation and their sockpuppet, Scott Walker.

The County Emperor's New Clothes

On Friday, I pointed out that Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele - the Mitt Romney of Milwaukee County - was spitting mad because he was once again thwarted from taking away workers' rights.

Abele wanted to gut County Ordinance 17, which preserved the workers' rights that would normally be found in a contract.  Abele wanted to do this so he could bust AFSCME and subsequently, bust all the other unions at his leisure. Instead, the County Board proposed rolling the other unions into Ordinance 17 so they would enjoy the same protections.

In fact, Abele was so angry that he started making wild accusations and threats of recalls:

Abele accused supervisors of flouting the law in defiance of their oaths of office over two issues. One was whether the board should be able to confirm 11 high-level managers appointed by Abele. The second was over a purported delay in adopting uniform work rules for county workers, as called for by the 2011 state law that eliminated most public employee collective bargaining.

Abele even suggested the board's failure to listen to the advice of county lawyers on those issues could provoke a recall effort against supervisors.

"When your legal adviser tells you this isn't legal and you do that anyway, the word that usually comes to mind is recall," Abele said.

[...]

Abele also said the board's failure to adopt a set of employee work rules his personnel director referred to the board nearly two months ago constituted disregard for Act 10, the 2011 law spearheaded by Gov. Scott Walker.

The board's finance committee backed an alternative resolution that called for maintaining the rules that were in place in union contracts. The panel also endorsed five new contracts that were limited to 1.5% pay raises — something nonunion employees got in May.

But later on Friday, new information came out, which Abele really does not want the public to know.

HIS legal adviser told him that what the board did was perfectly legal:

Click on image to embiggen

In case the reader is having difficulty reading it, here is a copy and paste version:

From: Paul Bargren/Corp_Counsel/Milwaukee County
To: sschultze@journalsentinel.com, Marina Dimitrijevic/CtyBoard/Milwaukee County@milwco, Kelly Bablitch/CtyBoard/Milwaukee County@MILWCO, Bill Zaferos/CtyBoard/Milwaukee County@MILWCO, Chris Abele/Co Exec/Milwaukee County@MILWCO, Amber Moreen/Co Exec/Milwaukee County@MILWCO, John Zapfel/Co Exec/Milwaukee County@MILWCO, Brendan Conway/Co Exec/Milwaukee County@MILWCO
Cc: Mark Grady/Corp_cnsl/Milwaukee County@milwco, Colleen Foley/Corp_cnsl/Milwaukee County@MILWCO
Date: 12/13/2013 11:48 AM
Subject: "Status Quo" Ordinances


In response to some inquiries, let me state the following in case there is any confusion:
Lawyers from the Office of the Corporation Counsel, including me, worked closely with supervisors to draft the "status quo" ordinances they had requested. Those were the ordinances approved by the Finance Committee yesterday. Those ordinances were intended to be -- and are, in my opinion -- consistent with current state law.
--Paul Bargren

In case you missed it, Abele and his top staff were included in this email from Abele's Corp Counsel, Paul Bargren.  And since it came through before noon, there was plenty of time for Abele to correct himself, unless he was incapacitated in some form. such as being drunk, which is a complete possibility.  I know for a fact that he wasn't at the Milwaukee Area Labor Council's holiday event.

Since there was no correction forthcoming, one must conclude that Abele purposefully meant to mislead the public in order to spur the people into recalling the supervisors.

In other words, Abele tried to take away workers' rights and bust the unions because the unions, along with the County Board, has been the only thing to keep Abele from turning Milwaukee County into a plutocrat's playground.  When the County Board thwarted his plan to bust the unions and instead made things better for everyone, Abele became so enraged that he told outright lies in order to get people to recall the board.  That way, they would be out of his way and he could proceed in reaping his political and personal gain.

Now, what was Abele saying about not listening to legal counsel, flaunting the law and recalls?  He just might be onto something.

Except that it should be him that is nervous.  By his own statements and standards, he's the one that should be recalled.  And we all know that we can't count on him to do the right thing on his own.

Abele Threatens Recalls In Latest Tantrum

Chris Abele is upset.  He is very upset.  He is stomping up and down angry.

The reason he is so upset is that because another one of his plans to make Milwaukee County a right to work county was foiled again.

A couple of months ago, I told the gentle reader about Milwaukee County Ordinance 17, otherwise known as the Status Quo ordinance.

Long story short, when Scott Walker was dropping his Act 10 bomb on the state, most unions were scrambling to get new contracts drawn up and ratified while the unconstitutional law was tied up in the courts.  However, when it became apparent our own cohorts in unethical conduct - Chris Abele, Lee Holloway and Joe Sanfelippo - were never going to bargain in good faith, AFSCME switched gears and started pushing for the status quo ordinance, which more or less codified the contract, with the exception of things that fell directly under Act 10.  The county board passed the resolution creating this ordinance and Chris Abele willingly signed the resolution into law.

A couple of years later, Emperor decided that he no longer cared for the law that he had originally agreed with.  He found it too cumbersome to allow workers to keep their rights.  He wasn't able to act on every whim and fancy as he systematically dismantled the county.

So Abele developed this elaborate scheme to do his own version of "Divide and Conquer."  He called his plan "Cross Walk".  I'm more than a little surprised that he didn't call it Cross Walker after his hero and mentor, Scott Walker.  I won't go into details, but the general gist of his plan was to try to play the unions against each other in an effort to keep cutting rights and protections from all of them, in an effort to "make things equal."  In other words, he was seeking the lowest common denominator for county staff, making it a right to work county.

But there were two things Abele didn't count on.

One was that the Milwaukee County Board wasn't as ignorant or as hateful as he is.

The other was a thing called Solidarity.  He must not have thought unions spoke to each other much less worked together.  The unions quickly sniffed out what Abele was scheming to do and joined forces to fight against it.  The best solution was immediately obvious.  To incorporate the other unions into Ordinance 17.  That way the unions would be on an equal level and still have their rights intact, as much as possible under Act 10 anyway.

On Thursday, all the sides met for the first time on this issue at a meeting of the Finance, Personnel and Audit Committee.   The Board saw what a really, really bad idea it was right away.  Then again, Abele's staff didn't help themselves much by arrogantly insulting committee members:

Things got testy during the board's finance committee meeting Thursday over a proposed set of work rules that Human Resources Director Kerry Mitchell said she'd been trying in vain to get supervisors to discuss.

"I don't think any of you have any comprehension" how difficult and complex the work rule project was, Mitchell said. She said she could tell supervisors also didn't understand a complicated salary study.

Supervisors said they were insulted by her remarks.

"Maybe I'm just too much of a bumpkin to get it," Cullen said.

Needless to say, the committee did not go along with Abele's plan to make Milwaukee the first right to work county and to further his agenda of making the county into a plutocrat's playground.

This caused Abele to jump up and down in fury and throw yet another temper tantrum, making threats to eliminate anyone who would dare say "no" to his Imperial Self:

Abele even suggested the board's failure to listen to the advice of county lawyers on those issues could provoke a recall effort against supervisors.

"When your legal adviser tells you this isn't legal and you do that anyway, the word that usually comes to mind is recall," Abele said.

Now he's taking a page from his good buddies and fellow Walker supporters at Citizens for Responsible Government.  (You'd think that someone with as much money as Abele would show a little more class than that.)

Abele keeps forgetting that he isn't really the Emperor of Milwaukee County and his whims are not the law of the land. When he doesn't get his way, he throws these tiresome tantrum, but this one goes beyond the pale.

After Abele was called out on this, he backed down, saying that this wasn't personal. Yeah, right. We know what he means when he says something is not personal. He means it's personal as hell.

Does anyone remember when Abele kept saying how he wanted to work with the county board?  Me neither.

All we get from him now is how he wants to work over the county board - as well as the county employees - in his ongoing plutocratic agenda.

Hint to Abele: That is not what leadership, accountability or maturity looks like.