Making Labor Pay and Why We Need Universal Pensions

"The facts were with the demonstrators: there were no shortfalls in pension funding for taxpayers to make up, and unions had already offered higher worker contributions to help pay for benefits.

When the Republican legislature nevertheless passed legislation eviscerating public-sector bargaining rights and unilaterally raising worker pension contributions, unions launched a yearlong effort to recall the governor.

In the 1930s, Wisconsin had been the birthplace of AFSCME, the nation’s largest public-sector union; in the 1950s, it had passed the first state legislation authorizing public-sector bargaining. Yet public pensions remained a wedge issue throughout the campaign.

Wisconsin was once a private-sector union manufacturing stronghold as well, but more recently workers there have been battered with job and benefit losses. As one activist put it, the Walker campaign’s uninterrupted message was “cut taxes, create jobs, don’t pay for other peoples’ pensions.” Union workers were almost as vulnerable to the argument as non-union workers: 38% of union households in the state had at least one member who voted to keep Walker in office, handing him a 53% to 47% victory."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/19-4