take the monitor off, please. i heard we just listened to the governor s statement, and i played at the beginning of this broadcast what he said about why he needed to change the collective bargaining rights of these unions. in fact, i would like to play it for you one more time, because i am trying to find an answer that makes sense in any way in what the governor says about that. let s listen once again to what he says about why we have to reform the collective bargaining process. now some will question why we have to reform collective bargaining to balance the budget. the answer is simple. the system is broken. it costs money particularly at the local level. as a former county official, i know that firsthand. for years i tried to use modest changes in pension and health insurance contributions as a means of balancing our budget
president richard trunka. thank you very much for joining us. take the monitor off, please. i heard we just listened to the governor s statement, and i played at the beginning of this broadcast what he said about why he needed to change the collective bargaining rights of these unions. in fact, i would like to play it for you one more time, because i am trying to find an answer that makes sense in any way in what the governor says about that. let s listen once again to what he says about why we have to reform the collective bargaining process. now some will question why we have to reform collective bargaining to balance the budget. the answer is simple. the system is broken. it costs money particularly at the local level. as a former county official, i know that firsthand. for years i tried to use modest changes in pension and health insurance contributions as a
was dealt with through the local collective bargaining process under a law we had in place since 1968. and we re certainly willing to continue to bargain over those issues and to give and take wherever it is appropriate and necessary. we ve never said absolutely no to or refuse this. and i have to comment on that little clip you just showed where the governor seems to indicate a willingness to reach out and talk to us. he has on a number of occasions both privately to our to us, our organization and in public requests that we ve made, he s refused to even meet with us. we have had no meetings with the governor on any of this. and we have reached out and we ve asked publicly and i ll ask again right now for the governor to sit down with us and talk about these issues. we certainly have suggestions and we have certainly are willing to find solutions that are good solutions for everybody. the employees in the state, the school employees that we represent and others and for the
to contribute to her health and pension plans is that they believe public sector unions in this state and in many states of this country have simply too much power because of the collective bargaining process, and they believe it has hamstrung the ability of state lawmakers to balance budgets because of generous benefits that they enjoy that the private sector does not benefit from. now, we saw some folks from the tea party and other groups out here over the weekend demonstrating their support for governor walker, but they were outnumbered by the people from wisconsin and other places who have come to protest this proposed legislation. one of the more remarkable events we saw was a group of firefighters walk into the state capitol. they were greeted by raucous applause for the protesters who have been sleeping at that building for several days now. what s interesting is that these firefighters and other public safety workers are exempt from his proposal but are still
the term, you know, collective bargaining, collective bargaining rights. and the idea of taking them away doesn t poll very well. now, the polls are mixed on this issue, but they have made some headway with the public. i would say this about it, bill. that in wisconsin, the governor and the republicans out there, if they are going to come out ahead in the long run on this fight and even perhaps on the short run, they need to see this through. they need to pass this measure. they need to curtail these bargaining collective bargaining rights to some extent. they need to win. if they do, i think the effect of it will show up in the budget. it will show up in the budgetary picture in wisconsin. and it will be in the long term a victory for the republican and for the republicans and republican governor out there. if they back down, however, if they if he ultimately reach some kind of compromise in which they are seen as backing down it, will give a bad name to the cause and i think they