Budget Repair Bill Talking Points

* It’s about rights, not money: Government Walker’s new proposal to overhaul collective bargaining misses the mark on solving Wisconsin’s budget problems. The right to negotiate both wages and benefits through a union is a fundamental underpinning of the middle class. When workers, in either the private or public sector, join together in unions, it serves as a check on corporate power and helps ALL workers by raising community standards.

* It hurts the middle class: This is legislation designed to take away more power from the everyday workers and tilt the balance even more towards corporate CEOs.

* We need a balanced approach: Instead of balancing the budget on the backs of hard-working Wisconsinites, we need to come up with a balanced approach that looks at shared sacrifice from everyone. It’s time to stop the politics and focus on rebuilding the middle class.

* This bill won’t create jobs: This bill is simply a partisan distraction from the real solutions that will help address the source of our tremendous job loss and raise the bar for all workers. It is designed to cripple unions and the middle class. If unions are weakened then who is left to check corporate power and stop our jobs from being outsourced to China?

* We need to work together: We need to work together to solve our problems, not play politics as usual to satisfy campaign allies, so we can get down to the business of creating jobs.

* Public employees are already sacrificing: Public employees are already sharing the pain of a tight budget through unpaid furlough days as well as wage and hiring freezes. A study released yesterday by the Economic Policy Institute looked at both pay and benefits to conclude that full-time state and local employees in Wisconsin are under-compensated by 8.2%, when compared to otherwise similar private-sector workers.

* Collective bargaining preserves stability: Wisconsin’s long-standing tradition of allowing public sector workers to have a voice on the job has worked for the state since the 1930s. It has created greater consistency in the relationship between labor and management and a shared approach to public work. Are these things we can really afford to do away with?

* Public workers are members of our communities: Public workers are our friends and neighbors; they take pride in providing vital service to our communities. Any new budget legislation should respect these workers and the sacrifices that they have already made, rather than trying to dismantle their right to collective bargaining.

* This bill is about politics, not policy: The purpose of the Budget Repair Bill is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining. It’s the same partisan attacks we always see – people in power want to spend time punishing their enemies instead of doing their jobs.

* This bill puts services at risk: This new proposal would also put services across the state at risk because Wisconsin’s collective bargaining law has helped to stabilize services by cutting down on the number of strikes and labor disputes.

* This bill is a distraction from real solutions: This bill is simply a partisan distraction from the real solutions that will help address the source of our tremendous job loss and raise the bar for all workers.