Working Families Oppose Senate Bill 1/ Assembly Bill 1 Tort Reform

Labor and community groups hold press conference to urge Legislature to focus on job creation

(Madison, WI) – Labor and community groups gathered this afternoon in the State Capitol to express concern over Special Session Senate Bill 1/ Assembly Bill 1 Tort Reform. This is the first initiative of the emergency economic session and contains numerous changes to Wisconsin’s civil justice system which will negatively impact workers and their families.

“Unfortunately, the special session on job creation is being used as a cloak for corporate interests to achieve a long-desired goal – to deny meaningful access to the courts for workers who are injured or killed on the job, as well as consumers and other victims who have been harmed,” said Phil Neuenfeldt, President of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.

The Bill would have the following consequences for workers and the community:

· Changes punitive damages criteria for those injured on the job. Victims of at work accidents will now have the burden of proving that the injury was “intended” by the employer in order to be awarded punitive damages. This new heightened standard effectively closes the courthouse door to most victims of egregious conduct resulting in serious injury or death.

· Changes to product liability law that encourage the export of jobs. The bill requires that victims harmed by faulty products seek compensation from the manufacturer first. Since it is near impossible to track down manufacturers and pursue legal remedies in countries such as China, this bill creates a perverse incentive to shift more manufacturing jobs out of Wisconsin.

· Eliminates retailer responsibility for harmful products sold in sealed packages. This means that if a child is injured by a faulty toy the family has limited rights and options.

· Limits the rights of nursing home resident’s families to protect their loved one from negligent care. The bill changes legal standards for nursing homes making it significantly harder to hold institutions accountable.

“The legal climate sought by business through this legislation is one that nearly eliminates accountability to citizens for corporate wrongdoing and recklessness. This is not about job creation. This is an extreme shift in the balance of the law to dramatically favor corporate interest over ordinary people,” concluded Stephanie Bloomingdale, Secretary-Treasurer of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.

Organizational sponsors of the press conference include the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, and the Wisconsin Association for Justice.

Wisconsin State AFL-CIO launches Wisconsin Jobs Campaign

Labor unions and community allies hold Governor Walker accountable for the creation of family-supporting jobs

(Milwaukee, WI) -  Governor Walker made job creation a centerpiece of his campaign with a promise to create 250,000 jobs for Wisconsin within his first term.  The Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, along with community groups and concerned citizens, intend to hold Governor Walker accountable for the promised jobs and to ensure that any job created includes family supporting wages and benefits. 

“Wisconsin needs jobs and it needs jobs now.  Temporary, part-time work is different than a full-time job with benefits.  The goal of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO is to make certain that new jobs are stable jobs that can support a family.  The Wisconsin Jobs Campaign will be a way to track how many jobs are created or lost over the next four years.  I look forward to cheering Governor Walker on to our mutual goal of job creation,” said Phil Neuenfeldt, President of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.

Unfortunately, Wisconsin starts with a substantially larger jobs deficit because of Governor Walker's rejection of federal funds for a high-speed passenger rail line that would have created thousands of jobs.  However, it is the hope of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO that our state can overcome the deficit and create 250,000+ good jobs. 

From progressive to regressive: Wis. GOP declares war on workers

by Mike Konopacki and Kathy Wilkes

Wisconsin governor-elect Scott Walker and the new Republican legislature have declared war on working people. They want to abolish public employee unions and turn Wisconsin into a so-called “right-to-work” state, meaning no more “union shops” and no more dues from anyone who objects. This also means no more pressure from anywhere to keep wages at a livable level for anyone, union or not.

It’s all under the guise of cutting the State’s $3 billion budget deficit and creating 250,000 jobs. Sound familiar? Since the Reagan era, Republicans and corporate Democrats have pushed the big lie that tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, and busting unions would bring jobs and prosperity. Instead we got the Great Recession. And now the people of

Wisconsin have voted to cure the disease with more disease and turn our state into an economic dictatorship.

Harsh words? You bet. Reality is worse. One of the first things dictators do is go after organized labor:

- When Hitler outlawed “trade unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike, the German worker in the Third Reich became an industrial serf, bound to his master, the employer, much as medieval peasants had been bound to the lord of the manor,” writes William Shirer in his classic, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. This was done “democratically” when Germany’s parliament passed the 1934 Charter of Labor that “put the worker in his place and raised the employer to his old position of absolute master.”

- Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini abolished free trade unions.

- Communist China—America’s banker and manufacturer—only allows government-controlled unions.

Walker won’t round up labor leaders and have them jailed as Hitler did; he just wants them neutered. And there’s no comparison with Mussolini, who reportedly made the trains run on time. Walker hates trains; he lost us $810 million dollars and 5,500 jobs opposing high-speed rail. And where China requires even antiunion Wal-Mart to be unionized, Walker would never permit such an outrage.

A better comparison is Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, and L. Paul Bremer. In 1987 the Iraqi dictator declared that workers in his huge state enterprises were civil servants and therefore prohibited from forming unions and bargaining collectively. After Bush invaded Iraq, Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority abolished all of Saddam’s laws but one: the ban on labor unions.

For 80 years, Republican plutocrats have chipped away at “New Deal” laws that raised millions of families out of poverty and into the middle class. They’ve busted union membership down from 35% of the private sector in the 1950s to less than 8% today. Wages stagnated while income inequality soared. From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in incomes went to the richest 1% percent, which now owns more wealth than the bottom 90%.

Republicans don’t care about creating jobs or cutting deficits. GOP wunderkind Paul Ryan, for example, sat idly by as the remains of his district’s auto industry were dismantled, leaving Racine, Kenosha, and Janesville the most economically depressed cities in the state. Instead he plotted to privatize Social Security, despite the Wall Street debacle, and promoted tax cuts for the rich, despite the ballooning deficit.

If Republicans win their war against workers, we face dire consequences. As Shirer observed, “Between the Right and Left, Germany lacked a politically powerful middle class, which in other countries – in France, in England, in the United States – had proved to be the backbone of democracy.”

Mike Konopacki is a labor cartoonist in Madison. Kathy Wilkes is a Madison writer and editor.

Most Americans Say Tax Rich to Balance Budget: Poll 81% Say Tax Rich or Cut Military; 3% Say Cut Social Security

Most Americans think the United States should raise taxes for the rich to balance the budget, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released on Monday.

[Full Story]

Published on Tuesday, January 4, 2011 by Reuters

Konopacki–January 2011

Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President Phil Neuenfeldt on the Departure of Talgo Jobs from Milwaukee

While it is extremely disappointing to learn that high speed train manufacturer Talgo plans to leave Milwaukee at the end of their lease in 2012, it’s not really surprising, nor can you blame the company. Governor-elect Scott Walker sent a clear message that high speed rail and the family supporting jobs that come with it aren’t welcome in our state.

DEADLINE TO SEND PACKAGES TO TROOPS NEARS

This Saturday, Dec. 4, is the deadline to ship First-Class Mail or Priority Mail packages to Iraq, Afghanistan and surrounding areas — or to Army Post Office (APO), and Fleet Post Office (FPO) addresses with the ZIP Code 093. The deadline for packages to all other APO/FPO ZIP codes is Friday, Dec.10.

To help the friends and families of service members, the Postal Service offers a $2 discount on its Priority Mail Large Flat Rate Box shipped to APO/FPO addresses.

Mail addressed to military post offices overseas is subject to certain conditions or restrictions regarding content, preparation and handling. Items mailed to APO/FPO addresses generally require customs forms.

Statement by Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President Phil Neuenfeldt on the Need to Pass the Unemployment Extension

“Don’t Leave the Jobless Out in the Cold”

At midnight last night, 800,000 unemployed workers lost their unemployment insurance benefits.  By the end of December, 2 million are projected to lose their unemployment insurance.  Shame on those in Congress who aren't supporting this emergency lifeline.

The domino effect of the unemployment insurance expiration will affect more than just the families of the unemployed.  When jobless families are unable to pay their mortgage, buy groceries or generate tax revenue, local communities, businesses and governments all suffer.  The expiration of unemployment insurance benefits slows our economy down when we need to speed it up.

The Wisconsin State AFL-CIO and working families are calling on Congress to approve a one year emergency extension of unemployment insurance.  Never before has Congress allowed unemployment insurance to expire when so many people are looking for work but unable to find jobs.  But instead of focusing on working families, the newly-elected GOP Congress is pushing to pass tax cuts for millionaires by extending the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000.

Thank you to Wisconsin Representatives Baldwin, Obey, Kagen, Kind and Moore for supporting the extension of benefits.  Representatives Petri, Ryan and Sensenbrenner voted against even a short-term extension.

Don’t leave Wisconsin’s economy in the cold this December.  Keep our communities and jobless families afloat; support a one year emergency extension of unemployment insurance.