for the nail that the ledbetter bill was. the two go together. but i really believe had this been the law back in my day, had this been an act that had been on the books, i could have found out from coworkers without being retaliated against. mr. romney i m sorry to interrupt. mr. romney, the republican presidential nominee, has not taken a position on this bill as we ended up finding out today through a sort of bizarre series of e-mails in which he said he supported the concept of equal pay but he would not take a stand on whether or not he supported legislation to try to achieve it. if you could have an audience with governor romney to try to persuade him on this, what would you tell him to convince him that this is a good idea? i would want to tell him he needs to be committed to doing something for the women and their security, because this is so important to the american family because it was like what
explain what act 10 is. well, it s really a budget reform bill and what happened was the governor needed to give some tools to districts because we knew there were some budget cuts coming and we didn t just want to gouge the district so he said you know what? here s some tools to go ahead and balance your budgets to take away some of the union s strong hold and to allow you to keep teachers, allow you to put money back in the classroom where it belongs and not be tied to these ridiculous insurance contracts that exist so it was really just a chance for districts to kind of have their hands untied and do what s right for education. when your paycheck came in, did you check the box that say union dues, go ahead and take it from my check? no, it s automatic. so you still it s automatic. it still automatically comes out? i understand you now have a choice. no, i don t. i teach in kenosha and we re one of the districts that went ahead and put through the contract. i m still
my question was a little bit more directed. you talk about safety in firefighters. if i understand it, correct me if i m wrong, this new provision in collective bargaining accepted firefighters and police officers we are talking about other public workers. that s not necessarily true. we work with act 10 in the current form. we are hit by state aid. i was in wisconsin yesterday had to layoff five firefighters. we had to layoff five firefighters for a cut in state aid. it effects us. scott walker is putting in place does effect fire and police and in turn effects public safety. when gfrn another wa governo had a 3.6 budget deficit he had to deal with. he advised by the constitution or the law in the city of wisconsin submitted a balanced budget. if this were a yier ago and you were the lieutenant governor working with a democratic
greta: i understand the big picture with what collective bargaining does. the question was a little more directed and you talk about safety and firefighters. as i understand it correct me if i m wrong the new provision in the collective bargaining exempted firefighters and police officers so we are talking about other public workers is that right, sir? we are exempt from act 10 in its current form but we are hit by state aid. i was in ba loit, wisconsin, just yesterday. they had to lay off five firefighters because of cut in state aid to that municipality. it does affect us and the cuts that scott walker is mountaining in place does affect fire and police and in turn affects public safety. greta: when governor walker took office he had a $3.6 billion budget deficit he had to deal with and by the constitution or by law in the state of wisconsin the governor has to submit a balanced budget. the legislature has to balance the budget. if this were a year ago and you were the lieutena
but we need true shared sacrifice. and tax break, fine. but tax breaks without any accountability to create jobs is where we have a problem. you have to give back to the community in order to get a tax break and that is what we are not seeing. we are seeing tax breaks with no accountability. greta: do you have any idea sort of what the cost savings has been with the collective bar againing? i m not taking a side on this. i m just trying to understand what the number is. has governor walker put out a number of how much money he has recouped or recovered or somehow refined from this? i have not seen those numbers, greta. but remember last year when you talk about cost savings, when you talk about collective bargaining and cost savings. it is not just about costs. it is about hours and working conditions and public safety. if you remember last year the unions that were being affected by act 10 conceded to the concessions of the healthcare and also the pensions. but he had to go furthe