Wisconsin Union Reeling As 40% of WEAC Staff Are Laid Off

Questions are being asked as Governor Walker’s ‘union-busting’ bill has rattled the WEAC from the inside.

Wisconsin’s powerful statewide teachers union said 40 percent of its staff members were laid off Monday as a result of the law pushed by Gov. Scott Walker and passed by the Legislature curbing collective bargaining rights, writes Scott Bauer at Boston.com.

Wisconsin Education Association Council executive director Dan Burkhalter said the laying off of 42 workers resulted from what he called Walker’s “union-busting’’ bill.

Opponents had argued one of the law’s goals was weakening the power of unions like WEAC, which is typically one of the biggest spenders in campaigns on behalf of Democrats.

The law takes away the right of teachers and other public workers to collectively bargain over anything except salary increases no greater than the rate of inflation. It also disallows the automatic withdrawal of union dues from workers’ pay checks and requires unions to vote annually on staying organized, making it tougher for public sector unions to stay viable.

“Across the state, school districts are eliminating positions either through layoffs or not hiring staff,” Burkhalter said. “Fewer school employees means loss of revenue for WEAC that represents them.”

About 98,000 public education employees belonged to WEAC before the new law. Now, the union needs to get a third of those employees to sign up again because they are no longer under contract from the state, reports David Edwards at The Raw Story.

It’s never good when people lose their jobs, writes Maureen Martin at Somewhat Reasonable. But WEAC grew fat for decades on involuntary dues. She continues:

“Now, like hundreds of other voluntary trade associations, it will have to prove that membership has benefits in order to survive competition with mortgage and credit card payments. It’s not apparent now, though, what those benefits are.”

Walker’s bill does not take away anyone’s right to join a union. And even the Republicans are fooling themselves if they think the lack of collective bargaining is enough to make the teachers’ unions go away, writes Mike Antonucci at EIA Online.

Mike Antonucci writes that he believes former executive director Debbie Swoboda and every other NEA official are sincerely convinced of the benefits of collective bargaining.

“It’s just that they take a less expansive view of its scope when it comes to their own employees.”

“Despite the budget cuts and layoffs our goal remains the same,” Burkhalter concluded. “To be a strong and viable organization that represents the voices of Wisconsin’s public school employees.”