At the Rally

I am somewhere in this crowd:
http://www.jsonline.com/multimedia/photos/116479938.html#id_46774588

Yep, I was one of 60,000 or so who went to the "kill the bill" rally in Madison, WI, on Friday, and I was so impressed.

The "captain" of the bus I rode on from Milwaukee to Madison prepped us with a little speech that included instructions on how to conduct ourselves. No hostility, no name calling, no incivility. Be peaceful, be respectful and clean up after ourselves. She told us the capitol police wouldn't allow "sticks" or backpacks inside the building, so to leave them outside. The no backpacks I got, but no sticks? I didn't understand that until someone else asked. We could take signs inside the capitol, but only if they we're not attached to sticks. Oh.

Well, I didn't have sign, attached to a stick or otherwise. I just had me. I don't have union affiliation or any specific dog in this fight. But I do support those who do and that's mainly because I am so truly conservative.

I'm way too conservative to think it's OK for goverment to tell its workers that there's no money for pay increases like private sector workers got for years, so to compenstate, their benefits contributions would remain low, and then renig when the folks in charge have maxed out the credit card on other expenditures. And that's on top of the equivilent of a pay cut for at least two years, thanks to furlough days they were forced to take off without pay every month.

Even worse is government intrusion into telling employees they can have no say in their work situation. Yet, that's what Wisconsin's supposed "small-government" administration and legislative majority are doing with what is being called a "Budget Recovery" bill.  Nevermind that workers being able to negotiate for safe working conditions and humane treatment have nothing to do with a governor needing to balance his budget.

While I was cheering and clapping with demonstrators in the capitol rotunda on Friday, I was thinking about my recently retired sister-in-law who was an elementary school teacher in that great right-to-work (NOT) state of Virginia.

Contrary to popular belief that teachers work only nine months a year and six hours a day, my sister-in-law, like the vast majority of her colleagues, worked through much of the summer vacation while the kids were off. And during the school year, her work day began before the kids arrived and ended long after the official school day was over. She got half-an-hour for lunch, which she often really didn't get because the noon hour was often when parents wanted to meet with her about their children. She got no bathroom breaks, so had to make mutual arrangements with other teachers to watch her class--in addition to their own--so she could go to the restroom. And, like so many other teachers I know, she spent a not insignificant amount of money on supplies, often essential supplies, that the school either couldn't or wouldn't provide.

Then I started thinking about the child-labor laws and unsafe conditions in which people worked before unions came along and began to negotiate with employers and lobby Congress for safer and more humane conditions and realized that I'm much too conservative for employers -- public or private -- to be able to so liberally exploit their workers.

Then came the disturbing news on Friday that Wisconsin Gov. Walker was apparently using the ruse that he's facing a budget crisis to justify his draconian "Budget Repair" proposal. Last month, Wisconsin's equivalent of the feds' non-partisan Congressional Budget Office had projected a budget surplus for this year. I say "had" because that projected surplus has been gobbled up by tax breaks and other gifts Walker has bestowed on the business community on the premise that doing so would generate jobs.

I covered just how likely that is to happen in a previous blog post, titled "What Wisconsin Elected 2."

So back to Friday's rally. While there, I heard talk that tea partiers would be showing up on Saturday. So the word went around that instead of trying to take them on, kill-the-billers should try to engage them and chat them up. Bill opponents might not win any tea partiers over, but they could at least show that they can be civil and friendly.

From what I heard today, that seemed to be working.