GOP AWARDS CORPORATE GREED WITH TAX BREAKS WHILE TRYING TO BREAK UNIONS AND GUT PUBLIC SERVICES; RALLIES SWELL ACROSS THE NATION

CSEA president Danny Donohue speaks during a rally of unions and progressive groups to show solidarity with the working people of Wisconsin on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011, at the State Capitol in Albany, N.Y.
 (Cindy Schultz / Albany Times Union)

Rochester, N.Y.-- The battle in Wisconsin came to Albany and nearly 36 other cities across the nation today as a show of labor solidarity attracted progressive types ranging from unions activists for teachers, state workers and trades, as well as local political figures and pro-equality groups.

With bullhorns, placards and even Green Bay Packer jerseys, hundreds of thousands of union members and their supporters festively rallied outside the state capitals Saturday, blasting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's controversial plans to severely limit collective bargaining rights for public employees unions.  Solidarity rallies are scheduled to take place in all 50 states over the next couple of days.  Labor advocates are calling this newfound momentum "a watershed moment" in the American Labor Movement history timeline. 

Like we have said before here at the CSEA Voice Reporter, the issues of the day are not really about saving taxpayers money. It's about consolidating political power and union-busting plain and simple.

Wisconsin Governor Walker and such leading lights of the GOP leadership as Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, among others, have decided that public employee unions make great targets, effective scapegoats for an outraged electorate and a satisfactory diversion from the real culprits of this grim, economic melodrama. Walker's budgetary arguments are, of course, without merit, a cover-up for long-held ideological opposition to the union movement.

Instead of making the tough choices necessary to help their states weather the current crisis with some semblance of the social safety net and basic government services intact, Republican governors are instead using it as an opportunity to advance several longtime GOP projects: union-busting, draconian cuts to social programs, and massive corporate tax breaks. These misplaced priorities mean that the poor and middle-class will shoulder the burden of fiscal austerity, even as the rich and corporations are asked to contribute even less.

The rich get tax breaks and the middle-class get pink slips

In Arizona, a GOP dominated state the CSEA Voice Reporter visited last week, we learned that Republican Gov. Jan Brewer wants to kick some 280,000 off the state Medicaid rolls.  At the same time, two weeks ago she signed into law $538 million in corporate tax cuts. Florida Gov. Rick Scott's new budget calls for billions of dollars in cuts to essential programs and services to pay for corporate and property tax cuts of at least $4 billion. Rick Snyder, newly elected governor of Michigan, has asked for $180 million in concessions from public employees and more than a billion to be taken from schools, universities, local governments, and others, most of which could be avoided if he wasn't so deeply dedicated to giving business $1.8 billion in tax breaks.

While there are legitimate and critical public policy issues about education reform, spiraling health costs, and pension liabilities at a time of state and municipal budget deficits, why is the fault laid at the feet of teachers, librarians, police and firefighters? Today's pension obligations are the product of massive investment losses, not excessively generous public pensions that, in fact, average about $16,000 to $19,000 a year. For that matter, a 2010 Economic Policy Institute study showed that public sector workers actually earn less than their private sector counterparts.

So, instead of screaming about the advances public employee and other unions have made to preserve health care, job security and economic justice, angry voters should be asking what or who has been keeping them from obtaining the same. Nor does Wall Street's pillaging of private 401 (k) retirement plans justify the eye-for-an-eye acts of covetous revenge against union pensions.

The race to the bottom

A generation ago, non-union workers often welcomed news of improved wages and benefits for unionized employees, recognizing that a rising tide lifts all boats.  However, at a time of sacrifice and insecurity, many would prefer to sink their neighbor's slightly bigger boat while wistfully hoping for a glance at a yacht in a gated marina.  So much for the 21st century human condition.  We affectionately call this phenomenon "the race to the bottom."  It's exactly the conquer and divide strategy global corporations implement and hope for.

The American middle class largely exists because of unions; it would be a tragedy of Greek proportions if, in frustration, resentment and fear, members of that class were to turn on labor and bring about their mutual destruction. 

Don't reward corporate greed and malfeasance with yet more tax breaks and a blind eye to windfall bonuses. And don't punish unions for whatever success they've had protecting members and holding on to an ever-dwindling power base of American workers. That's just plain evil and anti-democratic.