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Saturday, February 26, 2011

Truth. Pass it on.
Posted by Jill | 8:24 AM
I'm serious. Start telling everyone who will listen the truth (from David Cay Johnston) about the Wisconsin state workers and their benefits:

When it comes to improving public understanding of tax policy, nothing has been more troubling than the deeply flawed coverage of the Wisconsin state employees' fight over collective bargaining.

Economic nonsense is being reported as fact in most of the news reports on the Wisconsin dispute, the product of a breakdown of skepticism among journalists multiplied by their lack of understanding of basic economic principles.

Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to "contribute more" to their pension and health insurance plans.

Accepting Gov. Walker' s assertions as fact, and failing to check, created the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not.

Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin' s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

How can that be? Because the "contributions" consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages – as pensions when they retire – rather than take immediately in cash. The same is true with the health care plan. If this were not so a serious crime would be taking place, the gift of public funds rather than payment for services.

Thus, state workers are not being asked to simply "contribute more" to Wisconsin' s retirement system (or as the argument goes, "pay their fair share" of retirement costs as do employees in Wisconsin' s private sector who still have pensions and health insurance). They are being asked to accept a cut in their salaries so that the state of Wisconsin can use the money to fill the hole left by tax cuts and reduced audits of corporations in Wisconsin.

The labor agreements show that the pension plan money is part of the total negotiated compensation. The key phrase, in those agreements I read (emphasis added), is: "The Employer shall contribute on behalf of the employee." This shows that this is just divvying up the total compensation package, so much for cash wages, so much for paid vacations, so much for retirement, etc.

The collective bargaining agreements for prosecutors, cops and scientists are all on-line.

Read the whole thing here. The media will not tell your conservative, and even your not-paying-attention friends this truth. You have to.

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Blogger Unknown said...
Thanks for your work on this...we are headed down to the state capitol in Tallahassee for the solidarity protest in just a few minutes..and then a Hot Tuna show here tonight....pretty much a full day of working with, and then playing with my sisters and brothers..
2/26/11, 10:39 AM  
Blogger Jill said...
Dusty: The Hot Tuna show will be awesome. The first show of this tour played up here at the end of January; it's among my 5 best concerts ever.

You can see clips from this show here. Have fun!
2/26/11, 11:55 AM  
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