OPINION: Cheese Heads Have The Final Word

By Roger Madon

There is something exciting and enticingly different about our beloved country.  And this is being demonstrated right now in Madison, Wisconsin.

In 1963 after nearly 100 years of organized labor’s efforts in the state of Wisconsin the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers for the first time in the country gained for its public employee members the right to collectively bargain with respect to their terms and conditions of employment.  At the time there were those that expressed concern that it was analogous to putting the wolf in the hen house.  Wisconsin voters however were undeterred in their belief that since private sector unions already had the right to collectively bargain with their employers since 1936 under the National Labor Relations Act the time was ripe to provide the same rights to public sector unions.  Within a decade nearly 40% of all public sector employees throughout the country gained the right to collective bargaining.

Now we have come full circle.  Yesterday, after nearly half a century of collective bargaining in the public sector, the state Senate in Wisconsin repealed this right by a vote of 18 to 1.  There wasn’t a Democrat in the Senate chamber since they had fled Wisconsin and are currently ensconced in Illinois believing that this would deny the Senate a quorum prohibiting the Senate to vote on the bill to repeal.  This legal technicality didn’t work and now these AWOL Democrats are claiming that democracy no longer exists in the State of Wisconsin.  Union protesters have converged upon the capital angry and frustrated unwilling to accept the inevitable.

Those who expressed caution in 1963 have now been proved correct.  The wolf has been eating the hens and the hen house is nearly empty.  Today the bill goes to the Assembly and then to Governor Scott Walker for his signature.

So what does all this mean to the great American experiment?  Unlike China or Russia which have autocratic governments, or even seemingly democratic countries such as France or Germany the American system of democracy has the American people providing the first word and the last word.  Today, in Madison, Wisconsin, notwithstanding the anger and anguish of the public sector employee protesters, the American people will have the last word.  Now what’s wrong with that?