Stand up, Fight Back! So the common rallying cry goes. The first step is for unions that represent different types of public employees to come together in solidarity and identify their common challenges.
That is exactly what happened on February 8th, when representatives from the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT-Wisconsin, Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals - AFT and Wisconsin Education Association Council - NEA met with allies from the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future and the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families.
Every union that represents public sector employees in Wisconsin is facing the same bleak picture—a growing state deficit that adversely impacts public services and public education at all levels. This is happening at the same time that working families are depending on various government programs for economic assistance. The group that met last week heard a presentation by Katherine McFate, Program Officer for Government Performance & Accountability, at the Ford Foundation. She provided background on the 1 to 1.5 million jobs that were either saved or created by the federal stimulus bill known as the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, especially through the federal aid given to the states to maintain vital services. More federal aid is needed for the states in 2011-12 because they continue to face record deficits. It may be difficult to directly observe the impact of a nurse, a teacher or firefighter who remained on duty because of stimulus funds. But if we stop funding for vital services, the absences will be readily apparent and devastating.
We must organize pressure on the Congress to act.
The banks crashed the economy, especially the big banks that received the TARP bailout. They brought down the economy by creating, marketing and gambling on riskier and riskier financial products—with borrowed money. These are the consequences of that irresponsible behavior:
- $15 trillion in personal wealth is gone
- $6.1 trillion in housing value disappeared
- The top 1,000 pension funds dropped a trillion dollars in value
- 8 million jobs have been lost since the recession began
- Unemployment hovers around 10%
- One in nine Americans—34 million—are on Food Stamps
- 39.8 million people are in poverty—the highest number since 1960
The national recession was caused by national banks and we need a national response. Without that, there will be ever more pressure on state and local governments to privatize public services.This affects every citizen, not just public employees, because privatization often means that we get lower quality services and less accountability for our tax dollars.
“At the same time that public services are outsourced to private, for-profit firms, there are fewer public employees to monitor the private contracts and hold them accountable for the expenditure of taxpayers’ funds,” says Phil Neuenfeldt, Secretary-Treasurer of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. “Taxpayers are being pressured to give up democratic control of public assets.”
This is no time for half measures. Community services and working families did not cause the economic meltdown, and large or small, they are too important to fail. Last week’s meeting was solid start, and representatives from the affected unions and community allies will continue to meet in order to plan actions to save and strengthen our public services.
(Photos: Representatives from the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT-Wisconsin, Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals - AFT, Wisconsin Education Association Council - NEA, Institute for Wisconsin’s Future and the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families met on February 8th. Photo Credit: Bob Allen of AFSCME.)