have to pay more into pension and health care. they say that is going too far that they ve taken low salaries already to keep those benefits. look out for similar battles in these states, some public employees are being debated in tennessee, indiana and nevada. other states may follow. florida s governor is calling for pension reform. ohio s governor is backing a ebb measure to limit collective bargaining in his state. he thinks what is happening in wisconsin will make his position stronger. protests broke out in columbus with thousands heading in inside the state house. and beyonds more sway in these government employee fights than in the private sector where membership has been plummeting. in 1965, 30% of nongovernment jobs were held by union members. now it is less than 10%. compared to the percentage of state and local government workers which has held steady
they re willing to talk about negotiating some of the benefits, but they don t want to lose their collective bargaining rights altogether? well, what really needs to happen, the bargaining routes need to be chipped away, because what the leaders have done is make promises to the union workers that are basically there unsustainable. you have states who are receiving less revenue, which means they re unable to cover the costs of the unions. so, something needs to be done and you know, thankfully, you have a governor walker who has taken a stand on principles and what he he ran for, and the voters voted him in for that reason, to clean up the states. fix the budget and what the union needs to do is realize that the benefits and the costs are unsustainable. jamie: there is a budget gap in wisconsin and the governor is being clear that he wants to close it, but their pensions are funded better than most states and there is money to cover it. is there anything behind what
he s trying to do other than closing that gap, another agenda? well, and you would really have to ask the governor about that, but what, what i m reading from this situation is that he s trying to fix the budget. and one proposal that he has is for the union to agree with what he is proposing and unfortunately, what they are doing, the unions, is trying to make an example of governor walk because this will most likely spread to other states and they re going to set an example with this individual to try to, you know, make sure that the other governors don t push back and don t do what governor walker is doing. jamie: it s heated on both sides. let me play you some pound sound from a state senator there, here is what he had to say about the governor s plan. the bill contains many provisions that have nothing to do with repairing the budget. nothing to do with balancing the budget, but is it a frontal attack on workers rights in wisconsin? public employees workers rights? and we fe
could spend 30 million to fight bills they don t like in dozens of states, jamie. jamie: some supporters are saying the union supporters, it s not the about balancing the budgets as we ve been hearing it s necessary to make that happen, but it s union busting. have we seen evidence that that is behind this? the governors say that s absolutely not what we re trying to do. they are he trying to make up for billions in budget shortfalls and the wisconsin bill would permit workers to stop paying union dues and supporters say it would take away the power and reason to join a union and look at the private sector, too, union members there has plummeted in. 1965, 30% of nongovernment jobs held by union members and now less than 10%. compared that to the percentage of state and local government workers held steady at 40% by 1965. expect to see more protests in wisconsin, in ohio probably
he said, as you pointed out, don t demonize them, these are firefighters, these are police, these are teachers, but he says, i really don t know anything about the bill, but i oppose it. well, he s right because he doesn t know anything about the bill. the bill actually excludes police and firefighters. look, i think this is a huge mistake for him to get involved politically, but he has to, he feels, because wisconsin is going to be a very important state for him to win. he s going to need at that state in 2012 and he s going to need the union support there. but look, governor walker was elected by the people to do exactly this, cut down bloated union budgets that are bankrupting this state and many other states across the country. so, i think obama s on very shaky ground, sticking his nose where it does not belong. kelly: what do you say about the president? a lot of people say he shouldn t have spoken, but there are people out there, joe, saying that the president should be be stat