Looking across the Mississippi River in Southeastern Minnesota, I read another piece about blowback from the reign of Governor Scott Walker.
The Winona Daily News reports in UW-La Crosse faculty votes to unionize:
Faculty members at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse have voted overwhelmingly to join a union.
Thursday's vote was 249-37 in favor of union representation through AFT-Wisconsin, a statewide labor federation affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. The UW-La Crosse unit numbers 328.
The vote comes amid daily protests at the Wisconsin Capitol over legislation to strip most public employees of their collective bargaining rights.
Susan Crutchfield, an associate English professor, says Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair proposal galvanized the UW-La Crosse faculty's resolve to form a union.
In 2009, UW faculty and academic staff were extended the right to collectively bargain. Since then, faculty at UW-Eau Claire and UW-Superior have voted in favor of union representation.
There's more in the LaCross Tribune:
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse faculty members Thursday approved forming a union, despite the prospect that state action soon could take away any collective bargaining rights gained from the move.
The faculty voted 249-37 to organize as part of the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin. The 286 ballots cast represented an 87 percent turnout.
The two-day vote would have been canceled had the state Legislature passed Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill, which calls for repealing collective bargaining rights that Wisconsin faculty and staff gained only two years ago.
UW-L faculty members said they weren't daunted by the threat of losing bargaining powers.
How badly are Walker and the other Koch Republicans screwing up here?
They've managed to utterly alienate the police and firefighters' unions. Utterly. http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/02/25/wisconsin-professional-police-association-asks-walker-to-keep-capitol-open/
And the same thing's happening in Ohio: http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/02/police_and_fire_unions_say_the.html
The days when the Republicans could count on the cop unions to undermine the others are now officially over.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Feb 25, 2011 at 03:03 PM