The Republican War on Unions

This from "The Economic Populist" - please follow link to original.
More proof the American Electorate is both uneducated, insane, and knows NOTHING about their own country. Shame on us ALL -- we actually ALLOW this to happen. Insanity!!
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The Republican War on Unions

The Wisconsin State Supreme Court just overthrew a ruling stopping the Republican assault on collective bargaining. It was a 4:3 decision and unions are livid.

Acting with unusual speed, the state Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated Gov. Scott Walker's plan to all but end collective bargaining for tens of thousands of public workers.

The court found a committee of lawmakers was not subject to the state's open meetings law, and so did not violate that law when they hastily approved the measure and made it possible for the Senate to take it up. In doing so, the Supreme Court overruled a Dane County judge who had struck down the legislation, ending one challenge to the law even as new challenges are likely to emerge.

The majority opinion was by Justices Michael Gableman, David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler. The other three justices - Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and N. Patrick Crooks - concurred in part and dissented in part.

The opinion voided all orders in the case from the lower court. It came just before 5 p.m., sparing Republicans who control the Legislature from taking up the contentious issue of collective bargaining again.

The actions of Governor Walker and his Republican cohorts has led to the largest recall elections in history, 6 Republicans and 3 Democrats.

Robert Reich says this assault on unions is literally underminding the economy:

This war on workers’ rights is an assault on the middle class, and it is undermining the American economy.

The American economy can’t get out of neutral until American workers have more money in their pockets to buy what they produce. And unions are the best way to give them the bargaining power to get better pay.

For three decades after World War II – I call it the “Great Prosperity” – wages rose in tandem with productivity. Americans shared the gains of growth, and had enough money to buy what they produced.

That’s largely due to the role of labor unions. In 1955, over a third of American workers in the private sector were unionized. Today, fewer than 7 percent are.

With the decline of unions came the stagnation of American wages. More and more of the total income and wealth of America has gone to the very top. Middle-class purchasing power depended on mothers going into paid work, everyone working longer hours, and, finally, the middle class going deep into debt, using their homes as collateral.

This world is upside down. We have a jobs and middle class income crisis, yet instead of getting the real economy humming and the United States having stable, career oriented high pay jobs, we get attacks on workers.