Union Hysteria

President Obama called the bill an “assault on unions.” Democratic state senator Lena Taylor compared Scott Walker to Hitler. But the results of the changes in Wisconsin were not nearly so terrible.

From the Weekly Standard:

On June 29 at 12:01 a.m., Koczela could finally breathe a sigh of relief. The budget repair bill​—​delayed for months by protests, runaway state senators, and a legal challenge that made its way to the state’s supreme court​—​was law. The 27 teachers on the chopping block were spared.

With “collective bargaining rights” limited to wages, Koczela was able to change the teachers’ benefits package to fill the budget gap. Requiring teachers to contribute 5.8 percent of their salary toward pensions saved $600,000. Changes to their health care plan​—​such as a $10 office visit co-pay (up from nothing)​—​saved $200,000. Upping the workload from five classes, a study hall, and two prep periods to six classes and two prep periods saved another $200,000. The budget was balanced.

In Brown Deer and school districts across the state, Walker’s budget repair bill, known as Act 10, is working just as he promised.

Were the unions and their supporters who stormed the capitol and those senators who left the state simply overwrought in their rhetoric, incapable of understanding the proposed fixes or stumping for their special interest? Will there be any apologies and realizations that the anger was all on one side on this issue?

From the Washington Examiner

But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it's all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.

In the past, teachers and other staff at Kaukauna were required to pay 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance coverage and none of their pension costs. Now, they'll pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their coverage (still well below rates in much of the private sector) and also contribute 5.8 percent of salary to their pensions.

But when the Milwaukee teachers’ union president Bob Peterson was asked “You have a choice: layoffs or pension contributions. Do you see that choice? Why did you make a choice of layoffs?” when collective bargaining resulting in layoffs, the union president said, "I didn’t lay off anybody,”

Who was it in Wisconsin that kept teachers employed, pensions in place and the fiscal house in order? The union assaulting Hitlarian governor? Or the union?