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Speaking of robot overlords...

Exercises tomorrow, and then that concludes that particular chapter. Which seems like it went by sort of quick. Huh.

Yes, I'm back. Took a few days off to bash my way through at least a draft of a story for submission so I know what needs to be fixed up and what I need to know and so on. Knowing what you need to know is very important! How else will you know what you need to learn? So, yes. I have a draft now, and almost four thousand words of two married men (to each other) in bed together for the first time (it's complicated) and I don't know where most of that came from. And a bit of writing about girls giggling over a holiday fling. And now it's time to catch up on all the writing I put on hold to do that. Including banging some on this world-building leviathan I've created. It's a monster. I'm serious. What's bigger than a leviathan? It's a world-building hydra, every time I take out one thing, two or three more pop in to fill its place.

I don't even know what's going on in the world, you guys. No, I know what's going on in the world, and I don't like it. We're swapping democracy for capitalist autocracy in Wisconsin, while the entire Middle East and most of Northern Africa, as far as I can tell, is embroiled in a to a greater or lesser degree bloody battle for democracy. It's backwards from how it's been all my life. And while I applaud what's going on on the other side of the world, I want to know when the fuck my country turned into a seething pit of despotism.

I don't even, you guys. I'm going to get ready for work and maybe spend the rest of the day hiding in my bunker of fictional stuff, because I do want to get this draft finished up and banged out and because apart from cheering on at a distance and signing petitions and things there isn't much I can think of to do and I hate feeling useless. And. And something. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I keep looking up at Wisconsin and expecting to see tanks and National Guard rolling across the streets. Or hear stories about how it's become a police state, or... I keep expecting it to get much, much worse. Which is mostly the fear talking, but still. It bugs me. On a visceral level. Kitty no like.

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German goes here as soon as I'm less exhausted.

But right now while I remember to, signal boosting a couple of excellent videos/transcripts and some links to the fuckery that is going on in Wisconsin these days. Videos passed on through Trinker to lireavue and transcribed by lireavue, I'm at work and chugging through my own deadlines or I'd link roundup all the stuff I've seen go by on Twitter lately.

One thing that amuses me: Egypt, Turkey, Korea, Finland, China, and Australia, and various other countries are buying the protesters pizza.

It's really, really sad when the country that portrays itself as being the or a model of democracy is stomping all over it.

ETA: To help with link roundup, please mention other states that are pulling this bullshit? I'm going to try to do somewhat about this later, after I finish time-sensitive day job stuff, but anything I don't have to wade through the web for...

Carrying the Banner

Seriously, you guys, I've got the Newsies in my head something fierce. ETA: 10:30 AM 2/23/2011 and I am finishing up link roundup in between day job stuff, which is thankfully quietish. We'll see how far I get.

Reblog away. Leave comments if you have fuckery having to do with collective bargaining rights and union busting to report. This started because lireavue (whose excellent transcripts of Wisconsin fuckery are here and who also has links of goodness) needed help and because I got a wild hair about seeing where else was going on. I'm going to try to keep updating this over the next day or so as I've done before; it seems to be a thing I do.


Overall
New York Times reports
Salon reports

The summation seems to be that states passing so-called "union busting" laws are New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana (which already issued an executive order ending collective bargaining [for public sector? confirm] in 2005 "In Indiana, Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican who is considered a possible presidential candidate in 2012, issued an executive order on his first day as governor in 2005 that ended collective bargaining for state employees"), Tennessee, and Florida. Pennsylvania also is looking at drastic cost-cutting measures but the spokesman for the governor there has said "“We’ll begin negotiations with the public-sector unions and anticipate we’ll conduct those in good faith."



Ohio
Bloomberg News: Ohio union protests
FOX News; you have been warned; they have been known to make shit up. That said, I have not read the article and cannot speak for what other sites confirm and what they have made up or spun.
WTOL Local (Ohio) News

A bill to eliminate collective-bargaining rights for state workers and limit collective-bargaining rights of local employees as well as teachers, firefighters, police, and university employees to wages only is before the Ohio Senate. Direct quote from Bloomburg "The state is facing an $8 billion budget shortfall in the next biennium, and governments and school districts need flexibility to manage their costs, said Senator Shannon Jones, the bill’s sponsor." Ohio only requires a simple majority to vote, so the stall tactic that worked in Wisconsin is not available as the Republicans do have the simple majority.



Indiana

Local Indystar Reporting

As of 3.40 local time there, "Gov. Mitch Daniels signaled this afternoon that Republicans should to drop the right-to-work bill that has brought the Indiana House to a standstill for two days and imperiled other measures." Democrats have left the state and are refusing to return until the bill limiting private and public-sector unions is dropped or amended. This is still in flux
The 2005 Executive Orders archive for Indiana if anyone wants to go archive diving, I'm going to spend another couple minutes here and then move on.



Florida
Florida Union Busting Begins from Daily Kos. The language is not impartial and I am considering removing this from the link roundup.
Contradicting that, Miami CBS says that Governor Scott vows no union busting in Florida. He seems to plan to increase employees paying into their pensions, but says that "as long as people know what they're doing, collective bargaining is fine."
Politico also reports that Gov. Rick Scott supports collective bargaining rights but also that he is looking forward to the discussion Wisconsin generates around the country. This article also cites former Sen. Rick Santorum and former Gov. Mike Huckabee have spoken out in favor of the bills banning collective bargaining rights.



New Jersey
Policker NJ seems to indicate some confusion within the government as to whether or not any "union busting" will be going on. The Senate Government says no, Governor Christie seems to indicate support for Walker's bill.
WNYC discusses mostly New Jersey's budget, but it looks as though part of the reason why this is now a hot zone for the union turmoil is because public employee contracts are up for renegotiation in June and this makes a budget issue. Christie wants to see the state's retirement age raised and workers pay more for their pension benefits. Quote: "Christie balanced his last $29 billion dollar budget by not making a required $3 billion dollar pension payment. Out on the town hall circuit, Christie has said that due to bipartisan mismanagement of the state pension funds, there is currently a $54 billion dollar unfunded liability. He’s said without concessions on both pensions and health benefits, state workers face the prospect that the plans will go under."
Politico reports that Christie sees this as a class clash, the taxpayers who pay for the benefits that other people get. (I've watched the video and he does not mention collective bargaining rights. His rhetoric is combative and aggressive but he does not mention collective bargaining rights.)

The New Jersey Newsroom discusses Christie's proposed budget. In it he seems to want to cut Medicaid further than he has already and make up for it in people's personal budgets with property tax rebates. He also wants to increase charter school funding and private schools. No word on unions in this, necessarily, this is here because he's giving the same reason for any union-busting legislation as Walker, which is budget shortfalls.




Tennessee
The Mountain Press indicates that the TN bill is limited to teachers. Other public employees would still be able to bargain through a union.
Local TV News seems to bear that out and discusses a protest march and counter protest by the Tennessee Tea Party.
This local press article also includes a paragraph of intent from the bill's initial sponsor.


Vermont
This local news article describes a bill that would ban teacher strikes. It is dated Feb 21. However, also according to this article, this is one of only two states in New England that does not ban teacher strikes.
This is an OP-ED piece dated Feb 18 that says that a recent bill "would mandate all early education, after school program and home child care workers to join in statewide collective bargaining." The author believes this would be a bad thing and lists reasons why.


Rhode Island
This article suggests Rhode Island may be the next to see a collective-bargaining rights bill of some kind.

Colorado
Article dated Feb 8 Local press describes a bill to end collective bargaining by state employees as dying in Senate committee. The bill's sponsor, a Republican senator, will continue to press.

Idaho
Bloomberg reports that "House Republicans have pushed through two bills aimed at undermining union influence." Idaho is already a right-to-work state. These bills eliminate contractors needing to work with unions to take government jobs and forbids unions to use their membership dues to subsidize wages to help contractors with union workers win projects. The article does not mention collective bargaining rights, as other states have done. This article has since disappeared.
This blog article from Spokesman.com describes a bill introduced to ban public sector collective bargaining, but the Senator who introduced it does not plan to advance it.

Iowa
The Quad-City Times reports a small-scale protest both in support of Wisconsin and against the advancement of a bill in the State House that will change the way the state bargains with unionized employees. It allows employees to negotiate directly with their employers. "It also requires that wage and benefit comparables take into consideration both public and private wages and benefits. Health insurance and retirement plans would be exempted from mandatory bargaining."
Bloomberg also reports, but Rep Lance Horbach who heads the House Labor Committee has said that they are "keeping collective bargaining."


Kansas
LJ World, which also seems to have a PDF of the bill, introduces legislation that would prohibit unions and labor groups from using dues, fees, or deductions for political purposes.
A local news channel says teachers in particular feel they are under attack.


( States against taking away collective bargaining rights )

More states as I do more infodiving