Unions Try And Snatch Defeat Before Battle Is Over

Read Ohio Gringo at Firedoglake.

I agree with him.

The fight in Wisconsin is not about Republican vs. Democrat.

It's about class warfare - the Ruling Class vs. the Rest of Us.

Period.

The Oligrachs think they're at the endgame.

They're putting the final clamps on the feudal chains.

Rachel Maddow of MSNBC can talk R vs. D shit all she wants.

It has NOTHING to do with that.

Hell, lots of Dems - Obama and Cuomo come to mind - are engaged in fights against the unions that are the same as Walker's in conception, if not in degree.

This is simply about class warfare.

Unfortunately the unions in Wisconsin HAVE ALREADY agreed to ALL of Waalker's concession calls on pay, health care, and pensions.

Talk about giving up the fight before the war is halfway over.

This is an egregious mistake, but not a surprise from this member of the UFT/AFT who watches his own union snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time after time in the battle against management.

The correct way to fight this was to say:

IF THE GOVERNMENT CAN BAIL OUT THE BANKS, THE CAR COMPANIES, THE MORTGAGE COMPANIES AND HOLD NOT ONE OF THE WALL STREET OR HEDGE FUND CRIMINAL CLASS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE 2008 FINANCIAL COLLAPSE, THEN THEY CAN NEGOTIATE IN FAIRNESS WITH MIDDLE AND WORKING CLASS PUBLIC WORKERS ON PAY, BENEFITS AND PENSIONS.

That's it - that's all you have to do to frame this fight.

People KNOW Wall Street got away with murder in 2008.

People KNOW, if the unions would bother reminding them, that the financial crises in the states were NOT caused by public employees but by the financial speculators and corporate criminals who nearly brought about financial collapse in 2007-2008.

Instead, the unions are saying, oh we'll give you everything you want EXCEPT for the right to collectively bargain.

Well, in effect you give away that right anyway by giving away all of these concessions BEFORE negotiations even start.

Yes, I understand, the union leadership thinks this will help win the P.R. war.

But the problem is that it concedes that the PROBLEM in Wisconsin is with the public employee pay and compensation when that is JUST NOT TRUE.

Wisconsin has a well-funded pension system, the state finances are in better shape then many states and the economy is okay given the horrors of 2008.

No, the problem in Wisconsin is that the 2008 financial collapse did to the state finances what it did to people and institutions all across the country - it decimated it.

And that is NOT the fault of public employees.

That is the fault of these criminals that Matt Taibbi writes about in his aptly titled "Why Isn't Wall Street In Jail" piece in the latest Rolling Stone.

That ought to be the message here going forward - not just for Wisconsin, but in Florida and Ohio and Tennessee and New York City.

Not only is that message the best one to send, it happens TO BE TRUE.