In Wisconsin, civil service change is another labor setback

 

By TODD RICHMOND January 22, 2016 2:08 PM

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker made a national name for himself among conservatives by redefining Wisconsin's labor landscape, eliminating public unions, wiping out closed shops and erasing local prevailing wages. Now, coming off a short-lived presidential bid, he's poised to deal state workers another blow by revamping the state's 110-year-old civil service system.

A handful of states have recently rolled back civil service protections. The rules are designed to keep officials from handing out government jobs as rewards to their political allies. But some officials say they lead to inefficiencies, offer little incentive for hard work and unfairly protect employees who behave badly.

Just days after Walker dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination in September, Republican legislators introduced a bill to revamp Wisconsin's civil service system. Walker is poised to sign the measure any day despite Democrats' complaints that the changes will open the door to cronyism.

The bill marks another in a string of labor policy victories for Walker, who has made rewriting employment law his claim to fame. In 2011 he authored a bill that all but eliminated public workers' union rights, becoming a national GOP star in the process. Last year he signed a bill making Wisconsin a so-called right-to-work state where private workers can't be forced to join a union. This past summer he signed a state budget eliminating requirements that local governments pay workers on government projects the prevailing wage for such work.

"Wisconsin is the place where all things good for labor have gone to die," Paul Secunda, who directs the labor and employment law program at Marquette University. "You want the 30,000-foot view? It looks like a bomb went off in Wisconsin in regards to workers' rights."

The new bill follows the lead of legislation that Arizona, Tennessee and Colorado enacted in 2012 scaling back civil service protections. In Washington, congressional Republicans last year launched an effort to remake the federal system as well. Supporters of change say government should handle its employees more like a business.

The Wisconsin measure would centralize hiring decisions within Walker's Department of Administration, eliminate exams for job applicants, extend probation periods and create merit bonuses. It would eliminate bumping rights, which allow senior employees to avoid layoffs by forcing less experienced workers out. And it would define what amounts to just cause for discipline. The changes would affect about 30,000 state workers.

The bill's authors, Rep. Jim Steineke and Sen. Roger Roth, said their proposal would enable state agencies to replace retiring baby boomers quickly and ensure employees are properly disciplined.

But Democrats say the changes would open the door to corruption.

"We shouldn't go back to the days of hiring people because of who they know rather than what they know," said Sen. Fred Risser, a Madison Democrat whose grandfather wrote the 1905 bill establishing Wisconsin's system.

Walker's administration said in 2014 he had no interest in changing the system, but he quickly threw his weight behind the bill last year and traveled the state to promote it. One of the stories he told was how the current rules protected two railroad commission workers caught having sex on state property from being fired. The workers actually could have been fired for just cause under the current system, but records show no one pushed for their termination.

In September, Walker issued a statement calling the legislation "common-sense reforms" that would give state agencies tools to recruit good people and fire "the bad actors who abuse the system."

AFSCME Council 32, the labor union that represents state workers, didn't respond to a message seeking comment on the bill.

Senate Republicans put the finishing touches on the bill Wednesday, passing it on a party-line vote and sending it to Walker. The governor's spokeswoman declined to say when the governor might sign it, but when he does it will mark yet another defeat for labor, employment experts said. Without exams to ensure applicants have some competence, fears of cronyism creeping into state government are legitimate, they said.

"The rationale the governor and Legislature is giving is they're streamlining the process, making positions easier to fill," said Will Jones, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in labor history. "The question is, do you want to just fill them or put the most qualified people in those positions?"

Above is from:  http://news.yahoo.com/wisconsin-civil-change-another-labor-setback-190652245--politics.html

DeKalb County jail to expand due to increase in population

Sycamore resident Jose Hernandez said he is concerned about his children’s safety due to a $35 million DeKalb County Jail expansion.

“I live right across from there, and I have two little ones,” Hernandez said. “I’m going to be working, so I can’t be there to protect them. With more people coming in to visit the inmates, will there be more patrols there?”

During the Sycamore City Council meeting Tuesday, the council addressed concerns like Hernandez’ regarding the expansion , along with a presentation on the construction timeline and jail renderings.

The expansion of the jail was first proposed in March 2004 to accommodate for an anticipated increase in population of 18,500 by 2025, according to a March 2004 DeKalb County Jail study.

The expansion will add 60 beds to the county jail, said Lieutenant Joyce Klein, DeKalb County Chief of Corrections.

DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott said the increase in traffic will not result in an increase of patrolling or staff.

“The amount of police cars that come in and out of jail are significant already,” Scott said. “We don’t plan on adding patrols for that area, just the routine normal traffic. We’re not increasing staff. We don’t anticipate expanding visitation at this point.”

In response to safety concerns, Sycamore Mayor Ken Mundy said the council should review and update the project in six months and hold another event for residents to express their concerns about the jail expansion.

“This is something we need to keep an eye on,” Mundy said. “If things change, let us know.”

Brian Kerner, Dewberry Architects Inc. associate, said safety features to be added to the new building will include well-lit parking lots and a black, vinyl fence for the inmates rather than a razor or barbed wire fence.

The county will be in the bidding process for contractors until March. Following the bidding process, the start of construction on Exchange Street will begin in the spring.

The completion of excavation work on Exchange Street is tentatively scheduled for July, according to a timeline released by Dewberry Architects Inc. provided at the city council meeting Tuesday.

Kerner said the expansion completion is tentatively scheduled for summer 2018.

“We’re hoping for that date, but that also depends on when we’re going to start the work,” Kerner said

Above is from:  http://northernstar.info/city/county-jail-to-expand-due-to-increase-in-population/article_d93daec8-c010-11e5-bd31-efa555d320b2.html

AFSCME is firing back

 

AFSCME is firing back a week after Governor Bruce Rauner asked the state labor board to declare an impasse in contract talks.

Rauner's office also released three documents outlining the administration's reasoning for the move.

Major points of contention: Healthcare plans and raises.

AFSCME says those letters were full of half-truths and falsehoods.

Click the links below to read the full response from AFSCME.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Bi-iePG1O6Y3BEc1RxU0d4OXM/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Bi-iePG1O6SldyZG40M0owMjQ/view

Rauner’s Disapproval Rating Continues to Rise

 

By Tom Schuba

A January poll commissioned by the Illinois Observer found that Governor Bruce Rauner’s disapproval rating has reached 51.6 percent following a tumultuous first year in office.

This is a slight increase from an October poll that put Rauner’s disapproval rating at 49.9 percent. Both polls were conducted by Chicago’s Ogden & Fry. 

The latest poll, conducted on Jan. 9, shows Rauner’s approval rating has also slightly increased from 32.3 percent three months ago to 33.1 percent. Undecided voters have decreased from 17.8 percent in October to 15.3 percent.

The governor's first term has been overshadowed by an unresolved budget conflict that has handcuffed both state and local governents. The state of Illinois has been without a budget since June.

"The governor is focused today on saving taxpayers $1 billion through pension reform," said Rauner's Press Secretary, Catherine Kelly, when asked about the governor's recent poll numbers.

Rauner has drawn increased resistance from union bosses and democratic leaders who haven't aligned with the governor's plans for pension reform.

In an Ogden & Fry poll conducted last April, 100 days into Rauner’s first term, the governor garnered a 40.6 percent approval rating with 36.3 percent disapproval and 23.1 percent undecided.

Comparing this poll with the most recent statistics, Rauner's disapproval rating has risen 15.3 percent.

Published at 3:39 PM CST on Jan 22, 2016

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Rauners-Disapproval-Rating-Continues-to-Rise-366097401.html#ixzz3y4pDNFLX
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Koch Brothers’ American Enterprise Institute responds to “Dark Money”

 

 

The Koch brothers’ biggest sin: disagreeing with the liberal narrative

1. Jonah Goldberg @JonahNRO

January 22, 2016 | National Review Online

Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has a new book out: “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right.” It’s mostly about those old devils, the Koch brothers.

Charles and David Koch are billionaires. They own a very big company. They also are very prominent philanthropists, giving hundreds of millions to cancer research, concert halls, and other worthy causes. But what makes them hated and feared by progressives such as Mayer is their political work. They help fund some organizations and foundations, some purely educational, some partisan.

To listen to the Left, they are the closest thing we have to real-world James Bond villains. So what is their agenda? Is it to retreat to their orbiting harems, populated with fertile females, as they wipe out humanity below so that they can return to repopulate the planet? Or is to dupe the Russians and Americans into a nuclear squabble so that the Kochs can rule the ashes?

Well, here’s Mayer’s explanation of their dark and sinister ambitions.

“What people need to understand is the Kochs have been playing a very long game,” she told NPR’s Steve Inskeep. “And it’s not just about elections. It started four decades ago with a plan to change how America thinks and votes. So while some elections they win and some elections they lose, what they’re aiming at is changing the conversation in the country.”

Dear God, it’s worse than I thought! They want to change the conversation! They want to persuade Americans to vote differently! The horror, the horror.

You might be forgiven for thinking that this is pretty much exactly what democracy is about. But no. For you see, only Hollywood, college professors and administrators, the ACLU, People for the American Way, the Human Rights Campaign, NARAL, Emily’s List, the Ford Foundation, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, MoveOn.org, the NAACP, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Steven Spielberg and, of course, publications such as the New York Times, The New Republic, The Nation and Mayer’s own The New Yorker are allowed to try to change conversations and argue for people to vote differently.

Ah, but those voices are open and honest — and progressive! — about it, while the Kochs are secretive, sinister denizens of the stygian underworld of “dark money” and the “radical right.”

Except for the fact that the Kochs have been out in the open for nearly a half-century. David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket in 1980, which you might argue is a brilliant way to hide in plain sight, given how little attention the Libertarian Party gets.

Which brings me to that term “the radical right.” When racist idiots do idiotically racist things, we’re told that’s the radical Right in action. When Christian conservatives say Christian things, we’re told that’s the radical Right in action. When Donald Trump says he wants to ban Muslims from entering the country or build a giant wall, that earns him the radical-right label. When Ted Cruz says he wants to carpet-bomb the Islamic State, he . . . well, you get the point.

I have myriad problems with those usages of “radical right,” but let’s just stipulate for the sake of argument that this is the correct term in such circumstances. How, then, are the Kochs members of the radical Right? They are pro-gay marriage. They favor liberal immigration policies. They are passionate non-interventionists when it comes to foreign policy. They are against the drug war and are spending a bundle on dismantling so-called “mass-incarceration” policies. They’ve never seized a national park at gunpoint.

They are members of the radical Right for the simple reason that they don’t like big government and spend money to make that case. Full disclosure: I’ve given paid speeches to some Koch-backed groups, despite the fact that I have my disagreements with the Kochs. They haven’t changed my mind, and I haven’t changed theirs. But the conversation continues.

And that’s their great sin. Liberals are constantly talking about how we need an “honest conversation” about race or guns or this or that. But what they invariably mean is they want everyone who disagrees to shut up. (That’s why they hate Fox News, too.)

The best working definition of “right wing” today has almost nothing to do with the ideological content of what right-wingers say or do. A right-winger is someone who disagrees with the liberal narrative, has the temerity to say so, and dares to actually try to change the conversation.

Discussion: (2 comments)

1. Ryan January 22nd, 2016

   I’d say their biggest sin would be paying off congressmen to deny the facts of climate change.

   Reply <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = "[default] http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" NS = "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" />Share

2. Ryan January 22nd, 2016

   The brothers have also donated $70 million to anti-climate change organizations.

   Above is from:  http://www.aei.org/publication/the-koch-brothers-biggest-sin-disagreeing-with-the-liberal-narrative/