The part where neither you nor Bricker have explained why first responder unions have been made exempt from a law that covers all other public workers. Just because they deserve to have special clauses in their contracts should not give them a special privilege in how those contracts are negotiated.
As I pointed out, no one disagreed as far as I can tell. So I really don’t know what he’s talking/gloating about.
Thank you. And why was that law not overturned as part of the Walker plan? That is my actual question.
In a sense, yes – more specifically, because the nature of their jobs is immediate redress of emergency situations. Their jobs are distinct from teachers, because while teacher provide a necessary service, the job of teaching is not one that we would associate with emergency response, with the need for instant, competent response by qualified personnel where the failure to provide same results in catastrophic losses in terms of life or property.
He could have, without constitutional infirmity, extended the law to first responders. But the difference in role between the emergency services provided by first responders and the less immediate roles played by other municipal workers is the rational justification for the decision.
And the fact that they endorsed him was purely coincidental.
For the same general reason we pay EMTs more than we pay park service employees of equivalent years of service.
We are willing to grant more concessions, in pay and other perks, to more valuable employees. “Value,” is found here in the nature of their jobs. Wisconsin legislative history shows previous examples of public safety unions being granted perks that other municipal unions did not enjoy, undoubtedly for the same general reason: these are people that we pay to go into the burning buildings or run towards, as opposed to away from, the lunatic with a knife.
I have no idea what role it played, if any. But the concept is defensible on its face, and as cited was done in the past as well. I guarantee you that the 1971 police union did not endorse Walker.
Because first responder unions represent first responders. And first responders are different from all other public workers, in that their jobs are much more immediately important. Nobody dies if teachers go on strike. This is not true of police or firefighters.
This notion that unions who backed Walker are being given some kind of payback does not hold water. Both the Wisconsin Professional Police Association and the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, which are statewide organizations, backed Walker’s opponent Tom Barrett. If this is a payback, why are they getting the benefit of this supposed quid pro quo?
Regards,
Shodan
Thank you, Bricker.
I also know that the vast majority of police unions in Wisconsin did not/do not support Walker. My final question on this than is: am I correct that there was nothing prohibiting Walker and the Wisconsin legislature from including first responders in this bill, but rather it was an active decision not to include them?
And now I will go polish my badge to see what kind of perks I can get.
Certainly there were no constitutional imperatives prohibiting Walker from including first responders. From a political standpoint, Walker needed to get the votes of a majority of both houses of the state legislature, so there may well have been political issues that affected the support he could gather with a decision to include or to exclude them. While Walker was popular, and the measure was (generally) popular, it wasn’t monolithically so, and I imagine that some horse-trading of some kind was in play. But that’s purely speculation.
But you’re right that – contrary to the impressions given in some posts preceding this – the endorsements Walker received were not from all police, nor all firefighters’ unions. The Milwaukee Professional Firefighters Association and Milwaukee Police Association backed Walker, but the state-wide counterparts, the Wisconsin Professional Police Association and the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, both endorsed Barrett.
The Wisconsin Professional Police Association – Walker’s police backers – has a membership of approximately 1,400. The Wisconsin Professional Police Association – the union that OPPOSED Walker – has roughly 11,000 members.
Similarly, the firefighter’s union membership tells a similar story: roughly 3,000 members in the state group that opposed Walker and endorsed Barrett, and 875 members in the local Milwaukee union that backed Walker.
So two major unions that backed Walker’s opponent, with dramatically higher membership numbers then the two which supported him, nonetheless were recipients of this supposed “quid pro quo.”
Bricker, why don’t you tell us where the people who disagreed with you went off-track?
Well, by disagreeing with me. 
On a more somber and less self-aggrandizing note, I’d say roughly the same thing, although focused on the argument. The initial proposition, from the original thread, was that the bill “…places a lot of difficult and burdensome restrictions on a union and it’s membership…” and that these restrictions might be in conflict with federal law and “…our right to freely associate.” Further speculation was that the bill impermissibly limited people’s right to seek redress for grievances from the government.
All of those suppositions were off-track from the beginning. The OP of that thread never identified what federal law he felt was being violated, but of course federal law does not apply to states or their subdivisions. The original 1938 version of the Fair Labor Standards Act specifically excluded states and their political subdivisions from its reach; even after Congress weakened that exclusion in 1974, the Supreme Court still said that Congress’ powers did not reach state employees’ relationships with their employers (National League of Cities v. Usery and its progeny).
The right to freely associate does not include the right to be recognized and dealt with as an association. No law forbids a public sector union – the law simply does not compel the state to treat that union as the only authorized representative of its employees.
And of course a similar analysis torpedos the claim that this somehow impermissibly limits the ability to petition the government.
So the longer answer is: they went off-track at the beginning of their argument.
The fact that they were disagreeing with me when they did so was happenstance.
Sorta.
Every Union member should go to their boss and ask to individually negotiate their salary.
That’s how it essentially works for non-union members. So, yes.
And that justifies a more liberal range of topics that they can collectively bargain for because…?
I can see the school principals begging for collective bargaining after 45 or so one hour negotiation meetings with his or her staff.
ETA: And budgeting would be a nightmare. Let’s see, we have two second grade teachers at $58,500, one at $45,675, and an aid at $15,678. Let’s see what the third grade teachers will take…bring them in here…"
We like them better. We are willing to give more concessions because we hold their jobs in higher regard.
And yet private industry manages just fine. Typical techniques include yearly review cycles, staggered so that everyone isn’t done on the same day, general categories and pay bands for employment positions, and the ability of managers to deviate from those pay bands for good reason.
That, and hiring Pinkerton goons as strike breakers was beyond Walker’s budget.
Because it is more important that they not go on strike, and since their legal opportunities to go on strike has been limited in Wisconsin since 1971. (Cite - pdf.)
Regards,
Shodan