Facts About Conservative Republican Fairy Tales: State and Local Government Workers

Facts About Conservative Republican Fairy Tales: State and Local Government Workers 

This brief report presents some basic facts about state and local employees:  the jobs they perform, how many there are, how their pay compares with pay in the private sector, and how much states and localities — mainly school districts, cities, and counties — spend on pay and benefits.

Who Are Public Employees?

By far the largest share of state and local government workers are the nearly 7 million teachers, aides, and support staff working in the nation’s elementary, middle, and high schools.  (See Figure 1).  Other prominent categories of state and local employment are protective services (including police officers, fire fighters, and correctional officers), higher education, health care (including nurses and other workers at public hospitals and clinics), and transportation (including road maintenance workers and bus drivers).
How Has the Number of Public Employees Changed Over Time?

Over the last 30 years, the number of state and local workers grew modestly relative to the overall population, from about 59 per 1,000 in 1980 to 65 per 1,000 in 2008 before declining to 61 per 1,000 in 2011.  (See Figure 2).  All of that growth has been in education workers and reflects demographic changes and policy initiatives, such as efforts to reduce class sizes and better help children with special needs.  Over the same period the number of non-education workers remained about the same relative to the overall population until declining somewhat after 2008.   Since August 2008, the total number of state and local government employees has declined by 662,000.

How Do Their Pay and Benefits Compare to Those of Private-Sector Workers?

Studies find that public workers are paid 4 to 11 percent less than private-sector workers with similar education, job tenure, and other characteristics.[1]   This wage disadvantage is greatest for higher-wage public workers.  The typical middle-wage worker earns about 4 percent less in the public sector than the private sector.[2]  Low-wage state and local workers, by contrast, receive a small wage premium.  (See Figure 3.)

While the average pay for all public employees exceeds that of all private workers, this reflects the fact that public-sector jobs are much more likely to require higher education; teaching positions require a college or master’s degree, for example.  State and local employees are twice as likely as private-sector workers to have a college or advanced degree.[3]

Public-sector workers also earn less than their private-sector counterparts when one counts both their wages and benefits such as pensions and health insurance.  Benefits are typically more generous and secure for public employees than for most private-sector workers, but factoring in the value of these benefits does not eliminate the gap between state and local employees and their counterparts in comparable private-sector jobs.[4]  

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, widely recognized as an authoritative source on retirement income issues, recently found that total compensation for public-sector workers — including the value of benefits — is 4 percent less than that of comparable private-sector workers.[5]

Murdoch's Anti-American Fox News Pushes Propaganda On Wisconsin Anti-union law

Murdoch's Anti-American Fox News Pushes Propaganda On Wisconsin Anti-union law

Fox & Friends hosted Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch to discuss a recent court ruling finding that GOP lawmakers may have violated Wisconsin's open meetings law when they pushed through a bill ending most public union collective bargaining rights. During the segment, the co-hosts repeatedly failed to challenge Kleefish's claims about the legality of the proceedings surrounding the bill.

WI Judge Blocks GOP's Collective Bargaining Law

WI Judge Issues Restraining Order On Collective Bargaining Law. On March 18, Judge Maryann Sumi of Dane County Circuit Court in Wisconsin issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the law that would end most collective bargaining rights for public unions from taking effect. According to The New York Times, the ruling delays publication of the law "until at least later in the month, when she plans to hold a full hearing on a lawsuit that accuses Republican lawmakers of violating the Wisconsin open meeting requirements to push through the bill." [The New York Times, 3/18/11]

Fox & Friends Hosts Kleefisch To Claim "The Law Is On Our Side"

Camerota: "Is This Just Another Way For Democrats To Overturn [The Law]?" On March 21, the co-hosts of Fox News' Fox & Friends hosted GOP Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch to discuss Judge Sumi's ruling. The co-hosts did not challenge her repeated claims that "the law is on our side here" and that the judge is "block[ing] publication of a law because she doesn't like what's inside of it." From the broadcast:

    ALISYN CAMEROTA (guest host): A Wisconsin judge is blocking Scott walker's law reducing union's collective bargaining rights. Judge Maryann Sumi says the law may violate the state's open meeting laws. So is this just another way for Democrats to overturn it?

    BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host): Joining us now on the phone in Wisconsin is Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch. Lieutenant Governor, thanks for joining us...Can you tell us right now how concerned you are that this law you worked so hard to pass will go through?

    KLEEFISCH: I'm not concerned, because the law is on our side here. What we have is a legal case that is going to talk about how a specific meeting was convened and not at all the content of the law that was signed by Governor Walker after it was passed by the legislature. So I'm not worried.

    CAMEROTA: But since there's this technicality, about how the meeting was convened, is the easiest thing just to reconvene and take another vote?

    KLEEFISCH: Well, that is an option, I guess, down the road, but we think that in this case, justice is going to be swift because the law is on our side. We know that in special session of the legislature which the legislature was in when this meeting was convened, both the Senate and the Assembly rules trumped the open meetings law in the state of Wisconsin, and our attorney general, J.B. Van Hollen, has said that Supreme Court decisions have made it very clear that judges can't force the Secretary of State from publishing a law. The secretary of state can't just refuse to publish a law because of procedural or constitutional concerns. And, you know, that speaks to the fact that a judge cannot simply block the publication of a law because she doesn't like what's inside of it. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/21/11, emphasis added]

But Legal Status Of The Proceedings Remains Unclear

Judge's Ruling Delays Implementation Of Law Until "Full Hearing" On Whether Open Meetings Law Was Violated. According to reports, Judge Sumi has ruled that it is not legally clear whether or not Republican lawmakers violated Wisconsin's open meetings law by holding a vote on the collective bargaining bill with less than 24 hours' notice. From The New York Times:

    Efforts to shrink collective bargaining rights for public workers in Wisconsin were slowed on Friday when a judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking a much-debated law from taking effect.

    The decision, issued by Judge Maryann Sumi of the Dane County Circuit Court in Madison, temporarily bars the Wisconsin secretary of state from publishing the law, which limits bargaining to matters of wages. The fight over the law has drawn tens of thousands of demonstrators to the State Capitol, and the issue has become a focus of debate in numerous statehouses.

    Publication of the law -- a procedural requirement needed before it can take effect -- had been expected next week. But Judge Sumi's ruling could delay that until at least later in the month, when she plans to hold a full hearing on a lawsuit that accuses Republican lawmakers of violating the Wisconsin open meeting requirements to push through the bill. State officials said they were pursuing an appeal of the restraining order.

    [...]

    The lawsuit says that Republican legislative leaders not only failed to provide 24 hours' notice for the conference committee meeting, they even failed to give two hours' notice -- which is permissible under state law if more notice is "impossible or impractical."

    Republican leaders contended that because they were dealing with a bill tied to a special session, they were required only to post a notice of the meeting on a legislative bulletin board. The posts, they said, appeared on boards near the Senate and Assembly chambers two hours before the meeting began. [The New York Times, 3/18/11]

WSJ: Judge Found The Lawsuit "Had Enough Merit For Her To Issue A Temporary Restraining Order To Prevent" Publication Of The Bill. From The Wall Street Journal:

    A Wisconsin circuit court judge put on hold Friday a new law that would curtail collective-bargaining rights for public unions, delaying for now the implementation of bitterly contested legislation that drew thousands of protesters and shut down the legislature.

    [...]

    Judge Maryann Sumi said a lawsuit filed by the Dane County district attorney had enough merit for her to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the bill while she reviews the case.

    In his complaint, District Attorney Ismael Ozanne argued that the state's open-meeting laws were violated when Republican leaders whisked the bill through committee last week without giving a 24-hour public notice. In emergencies, meetings may be called with just two hours' notice. Mr. Ozanne argued that even that minimal standard hadn't been upheld.

    [...]

    Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, said the Wisconsin Department of Justice planned to appeal the judge's restraining order. [The Wall Street Journal, 3/19/11]

Contrary To Fox & Friends' Claims, There Is No Evidence That Judge Was Ideologically Motivated

Judge Sumi Was Appointed By Republican Governor Tommy Thompson. Contrary to Camerota's suggestion that the legal proceedings could be "just another way for Democrats to overturn" the law,as well as Kleefisch's assertion that the judge "cannot simply block the publication of a law because she doesn't like what's inside of it," Judge Sumi was appointed in 1998 by Governor Tommy Thompson -- a Republican. [The New York Times, 3/18/11]

WI State Journal: "Sumi Said She Was Making No Judgment On The Merits Of The Bill." An article in the Wisconsin State Journal stated that Judge Sumi said she was not passing a judgment on the merits of the bill and also noted that she acknowledged she has no power to stop the Legislature from reconvening and passing the bill again. From the article:

    Sumi set a hearing on a longer-term order blocking the bill for March 28. That is expected to take much longer, with a number of witnesses expected to testify. But in response to a question from Lazar, Sumi said she can't stop the Legislature from re-convening a properly-noticed meeting and passing the bill again.

    [...]

    In her decision, Sumi said she was making no judgment on the merits of the bill and was deciding only the open meetings issue. [The Wisconsin State Journal, 3/18/11]

Why does Fox hates honesty, integrity and traditional American values. I'm not sure.  They do make millions feeding America's knuckle dragging community lots of propaganda. So maybe its all the money that blinds them to the kind of values we should have from a true American broadcaster.

Insane Republican Fool of the Week - Maine Gov. LePage dramatically changes his story on labor mural removal

Insane Republican Fool of the Week - Maine Gov. LePage dramatically changes his story on labor mural removal

There's a lot of competition for most evil among the governors elected in 2010; there's no competition for biggest buffoon. That is and always has been Maine's Paul LePage, and in this video clip, Brian Williams offers him the chance to burnish that reputation. Naturally, burnish he does.

Back when LePage was making headlines for having a labor history mural removed from Maine's Department of Labor, he offered a number of explanations for the decision—it was "one-sided," it made business owners uncomfortable, and so on. But all of his explanations made clear that the mural was removed because it depicted working people and their unions in a positive light.

Now, in response to Williams' question, he's claiming it's all about the funding:

    LEPAGE: I have absolutely nothing about organized labor. My objection to the mural is simply where the money came from. The money was taken out of the unemployment insurance fund, which is dedicated to provide benefits to unemployed workers. They robbed that account to build a mural, and until they pay for it, it stays hidden. [...] We are putting it under safe lock and key.

As Political Correction notes,

    LePage's new line accusing the department of 'robbing' the jobless to pay for a painting is smarter politically than his clearly stated original reasoning, but state officials say that "nobody lost any benefits to which they were entitled," according to the Portland Press Herald. Furthermore, the federal Department of Labor actually demanded that Maine return the money used to buy the mural if it is not going to be displayed any longer.

LePage getting some political sense will deprive the world of much-needed hilarity, but given that his recent forays into the news have included rejoicing over kids arriving at summer camp in private jets and signing a law easing child labor restrictions, it's not like he's about to become a political whiz en route to easy reelection.

A reproduction of the labor mural is on display at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C. until Oct. 11.

Lepage is a poster child for the conservative conviction that American who labor for a living - Labor being what Abraham Lincoln called the foundation for all capital - are all thugs. The thugs meme is repeated across the internet and in right-wing conservative junk mail. Conservatives think Americans who work for living and organize are radical Marxist thugs. Labor unions and labor built America. They didn't sit behind a desk barking demands and whine about how unappreciated they are, nope, labor just did what needed doing. All they asked for is lunch breaks, fire escape doors that work, a fair wage they could live on. Lepage and his fascist-lite cohorts in the conservative movement have nothing but contempt for those people - people who do real work.

Herman Cain’s weird opinion columns published by birther website


Confronting the Malefactors

There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear, but we may, at long last, be seeing the rise of a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people.

When the Occupy Wall Street protests began three weeks ago, most news organizations were derisive if they deigned to mention the events at all. For example, nine days into the protests, National Public Radio had provided no coverage whatsoever.

It is, therefore, a testament to the passion of those involved that the protests not only continued but grew, eventually becoming too big to ignore. With unions and a growing number of Democrats now expressing at least qualified support for the protesters, Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.

What can we say about the protests? First things first: The protesters’ indictment of Wall Street as a destructive force, economically and politically, is completely right.

A weary cynicism, a belief that justice will never get served, has taken over much of our political debate — and, yes, I myself have sometimes succumbed. In the process, it has been easy to forget just how outrageous the story of our economic woes really is. So, in case you’ve forgotten, it was a play in three acts.

In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. In the second act, the bubbles burst — but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers’ sins. And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support — and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts — behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis.

Given this history, how can you not applaud the protesters for finally taking a stand?

Now, it’s true that some of the protesters are oddly dressed or have silly-sounding slogans, which is inevitable given the open character of the events. But so what? I, at least, am a lot more offended by the sight of exquisitely tailored plutocrats, who owe their continued wealth to government guarantees, whining that President Obama has said mean things about them than I am by the sight of ragtag young people denouncing consumerism.

Ironically Working Class Republicans Are Helping The Wealthy Conservatives With Class Warfare

Ironically Working Class Republicans Are Helping The Wealthy Conservatives With Class Warfare. While this article is primarily about Democrats and cautioning them not to back off the class warfare rhetoric. It notes that blue-collar/working class conservatives are helping the wealthy take away their earning power and labor rights.

While the GOP has been attempting to get the whole “Obama as class warrior’ narrative to catch on for a few years now, it appears that the phrase ‘class warfare’ may finally be taking root in the public consciousness.

It’s about time.

On Sunday, the Republican Congressional leadership launched a concerted effort to sell the notion of the president fomenting class warfare by his insistence that wealthy Americans pay more in taxes to help bring down the nation’s debt obligations while financing the federal government.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday”, GOP Budget Committee Chairman, Paul Ryan, had this to say -

    Class warfare may make for good politics, but it makes for rotten economics. We don’t need a system that seeks to divide people. We don’t need a system that seeks to prey on people’s fear, envy and anxiety.

Since Ryan’s appearance - one echoed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during his own Sunday morning talk show turn -the GOP has been using every opportunity to parrot the phrase.

In response, the Democrats have taken every chance presented to them to once again go on defense by rejecting the allegation. By so doing, they are completely forgoing the opportunity to acknowledge that there is most assuredly such a war, it’s been raging for decades, and it’s high time that people begin to focus on who is on the side of the rich and who is on the side of the middle class and the poor.

Considering that this war was launched in the mid-1970’s, when CEO’s decided that it no longer served their interest to continue paying their workers a fair wage, it’s difficult to understand how anyone could be shocked to learn that the middle class has been under attack since Jimmy Carter sat in the White House or be persuaded that, somehow, Barack Obama is responsible for its creation.

Back in the 1970’s, before the first shot was fired, the richest 1 percent of Americans earned 9 percent of the income. By 2007, that 1 percent was taking 23.5 percent of the money. The numbers are even more depressing when we add in the next 4 percent at the top of the income scale. Meanwhile, everyone else has been left to suffer stagnating household incomes.

What does the wealthy class have to do to make it any clearer that they’ve been fighting a war where the other side has not only done little to nothing to fight back but is incapable of acknowledging the war even exists?

With these being the rules of engagement, who can blame the GOP for trying to pin the tail on Obama?

Not only have the forces of the wealthy, under the capable direction of four star generals like Charles and David Koch, managed to have their way with relative ease, they’ve cleverly succeeded in convincing many of their victims to join in on their side.

Exhibit ‘A’ to support that reality would be the Tea Party, a collection of middle class people financed by the Koch brothers who have locked arms with their enemy without even knowing they have done so. By sounding a false alarm about the dangers of big government, the upper class has fooled these people into believing that laying down the only defenses they’ve ever had - government and unions-is the way to solve the problems that plague them.

With successes like this in hand, it’s no wonder that Republicans believe they can sell the notion that Obama is somehow responsible for trying to start a class war that has already been going on for decades.

And yet, rather than take advantage of the opportunity the GOP has presented, the Democrats have chosen to take the narrow, defensive position of protecting the president from the attacks without taking the proverbial bull by the horns and sounding the alert that it is time to join the battle and fight back.

Democrats will not get a better chance to do what they should have done years ago. Not only is it good politics in an election year, it is an obligation that they cannot continue, in good conscious, to pass up.

As the president likes to say, it’s a simple math.

If those tasked with fighting the political battles for the middle class continue to engage in political malpractice by refusing to stand up to the forces of the wealthy, others will take up the fight for them. But these warriors will fight the battle beyond the walls of the Capitol and the White House. They will replace floor fights in the House of Representatives to battles that will play out on the streets of our largest cities.

Is this really the way we want to see this war go?

Democrats who play the game on the national scene need to follow the lead of the courageous Democrats in states like Wisconsin- Democrats who were willing to engage in the fight to stop the advances of the wealthy class.

This week, the President set the tone. Now his party must stop playing defense and step up to the fight.

In Ohio and Wisconsin Patriotic Americans Are Fighting Back Against The Right-wing Republican War On Democracy

In Ohio and Wisconsin The Right-wing Republican War On Democracy and Working Americans Continues

On the same day that Gov. Scott Walker's anti-public employee law takes effect in Wisconsin, public workers in Ohio can celebrate a victory in the battle for democracy.

We Are Ohio, the group leading the effort to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 5, the anti-collective bargaining bill, delivered a record number of nearly 1.3 million signatures to the Ohio Secretary of State today, backed by a "Million Signature March" parade of more than 6,000 people, retired fire trucks, motorcycles, a drum line and bagpipes.

"This is the people's parade," said We Are Ohio spokesperson Melissa Fazekas in a news conference after the parade. "You are truly one in a million."
Ohio's Veto Referendum

Both Ohio and Wisconsin have had union-busting legislation forced on them by Governors John Kasich and Scott Walker in the name of fiscal austerity, and both states saw massive protests in response to the attacks on workers' rights and public services. The electoral methods of recourse, however, differ between the states.

Ohio is one of 21 states that allow for veto referendums. A veto referendum is a unique mechanism that allows a new law to be placed on a ballot for voters to either ratify or reject if enough signatures are collected within the statutory timeframe.

About 231,000 valid signatures are required to put the collective bargaining law on the November ballot as a referendum. The 1,298,301 signatures were delivered in 1,502 boxes carried by a 48-foot semi-truck. The Ohio Secretary of State's office must now sort the signatures by county, count them and distribute them to county boards of elections for validation.

According to the Toledo Blade, "Just the filing of the petitions Wednesday will keep Senate Bill 5 from taking effect on Friday as scheduled. If at least 231,149 of the signatures are determined to be valid, the law will remain on hold until the results of the election are known. If voters reject the law, it will never take effect."
Wisconsin's Recall Elections

In Wisconsin, six Republican state senators face recall elections over their vote to abolish public employees' collective bargaining rights. Three Democratic state senators have also been targeted for recall, in response to their decision to leave the state during the battle that ensued over the controversial legislation. Primary elections for the recalls will take place July 12 for the Republicans and July 19 for the Democrats, with general elections following in August. If the Democrats hold onto their seats and three of the six Republicans are recalled, the state Senate will flip to a Democratic majority, loosening the Republican stronghold on the state.

While papers cannot be filed to recall Walker until January 2012, United Wisconsin, the grassroots organization behind the gubernatorial recall movement in Wisconsin currently lists 189,321 pledges for recall. To prompt a recall election, 540,206 signatures would be required.

"What we saw today in Ohio was a response of millions of people saying 'no' to Gov. Kasich's agenda and standing up for bargaining rights and workers' rights, because we don't have the ability to remove him," said Kris Harsh, spokesperson for Stand Up for Ohio.
Both Mechanisms from the Progressive Era

Ohio does not have a recall provision, thus the referendum drive. But both referendums and recalls are progressive tools that date back to the early 1900s. According to the Ohio Historical Society, "Progressives argued that the referendum made the American political system more democratic." Referendums were approved as an amendment to the Ohio Constitution in 1912, and the Wisconsin Constitution was amended to allow for the recall of elected officials just one year after Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette's death, in 1926.

La Follette fought for progressive ideals -- such as recalls and open primaries -- to empower average people at a time when corporate bosses ruled the political scene. La Follette's fight was against railroad barons and agricultural monopolies, while Ohio battled the Standard Oil Trust.

The overwhelming outpouring of people standing up for their rights and for their communities in Wisconsin and Ohio today indicate that the progressive tools given to Americans by fighters like La Follette are just as relevant and necessary now as they were more than 100 years ago.


Jessica Opoien is an intern with the Center for Media and Democracy

Republicans tell lots of really big lies. One of them is the often repeated lie that they are the party of small government. Nothing could be further from the truth. Americans who believe that are being conned. The attacks on worker rights in the states which have Republican governors have all been about shifting power to corporations at the expense of everyday working Americans. In every case those conservatives have claimed attacking workers rights was done to save money even as all the public unions agreed to huge concessions. Thomas Jefferson Feared an Aristocracy of Corporations

He was, as well, a relentless critic of the monopolizing of economic power by banks, corporations and those who put their faith in what the third president referred to as "the selfish spirit of commerce (that) knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

Jefferson might not have wanted a lot of government, but he wanted enough government to assert the sovereignty of citizens over corporations. To his view, nothing was more important to the health of the republic.

In the early years of the 19th century, as banks and corporations began to flex their political muscles, he announced that: “I hope we shall crush… in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."