Anonymous Uncovers Corruption in Wisconsin Labor Dispute

[superbatranger]

Ooh, much, much juicy, someones going to jail for that.

Has a billionare ever been stuck in the slammer before?

Are you kidding

Bernie Madoff is serving like...100 something years for the largest Ponzi scheme ever.

 

[spectrenihlus]

He ran on this as this as his platform and won.

Swing and a miss [http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2011/02/28/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-didnt-campaign-on-union-busting]. Try again.

Doesn't negate the fact that they did the exact same thing in Indiana and it worked out fine for everyone.

 

[Nieroshai]

So... not to start a flame war but just because Anonymous has picked a side in this battle means they picked the right side? Just because they're "noble hackers?" I don't want to start the debate on whether the union is in the wrong, but it seems we're automatically taking sides based on celebrity.

 

[Nieroshai]

Collective bargaining is no big deal. I live in Maryland, and am a government employee. We just got collective bargaining 2 years ago. You know what it got us? A 2% pay CUT the last 2 years! The union is only out for itself. They already agreed to cut workers pay 8% in Wisconsin. Are the union leaders taking pay cuts? They are trying to force all workers to join the union.(that's called a closed shop state) Then they will force all union members to pay union dues. Then some of those dues are given to the politician that the union wants elected. It doesn't matter if you don't want to contribute to a candidate you don't like! The unions are nothing but leeches that live off others hard work. And if teachers want more pay, start teaching! The USA is doing badly educating it's children, compared to the rest of the world! Even though we spend more on education!

It's not exactly Sunny McGainfully Employed-ville when you aren't in a Union, either.

I also live in MD, and I'm not a union worker. Needless to say, when the recession hit, I was just a name on a long list of losses that a handful of board members were okay with. Because they were much more determined to ensure that their golden parachutes were ready when they filed for bankruptcy than to keep their employees - even though we were willing to stay after numerous pay cuts, a raise free, an massive demotions that resulted in loss of benefits.

Are Unions perfect? Not by a long shot. But, for the time being, they're the only defense workers have against corporate interest severely overriding the well-being of its workforce. Don't forget, after all, Unions are the reason we have reasonable work days and the concept of minimum wage was fought for by them.

While this is, I repeat is, true, unions are as you say "far from perfect." They buy politicians and rally strikes for political reasons and on occasion extort businesses and get employees that refuse to unionise or strike fired. I am not referring to all unions and am not implying that they should be abolished or crippled, but as a society we are convinced unions are saints. My grandfather can attest otherwise personally. The problem people have with corporations, I also have with unions, but that doesn't mean they are unnecessary. It's politics as usual, but EVERYONE has their dick in the pudding.

 

[realslimshadowen]

He ran on this as this as his platform and won.

Swing and a miss [http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2011/02/28/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-didnt-campaign-on-union-busting]. Try again.

Doesn't negate the fact that they did the exact same thing in Indiana and it worked out fine for everyone.

They haven't even voted on that yet in Indiana, so it kind of does.

 

[faselei]

I'm really horrified that a western democracy would even consider removing the right to organise from workers. It's disgraceful.

Secondly the fact that in the US it seems big business can get away with funding extremist political lobbying groups is terrifying.

The anti union sentiment expressed by some is equally as panic inducing. These are trade unions right? Not communist party branches. Simply groups of workers who educate you or your children (many of you, given comments here suggest many have yet to be exposed to the terrible life sapping drudgery of full time work).

Yankees's ... mad as a sack of badgers.

 

[spectrenihlus]

He ran on this as this as his platform and won.

Swing and a miss [http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2011/02/28/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-didnt-campaign-on-union-busting]. Try again.

Doesn't negate the fact that they did the exact same thing in Indiana and it worked out fine for everyone.

They haven't even voted on that yet in Indiana, so it kind of does.

They did this a couple years back.

 

[Neferius]

The Revolution will not be Televised ...it will be Tweeted

What revolution? All I see are bunch over idealistic children who think their opinions matter.

That's what Mubarak said!

 

[InfiniteSingularity]

Anonymous = legendary

Seriously

 

[Rafe]

Not sure what to say about this, although they said they don't have a collective political agenda, once they've gone this far supporting socialism, what could they justify next?

 

[BabyRaptor]

I mean i would love to support unions, the whole better pay better benefits workers rights thing sounds great but how they go about stuff just sits with me wrong. Nevermind that government employees already have benefits and pensions, why do they need collective bargaining? Collective bargaining just says if you do not give us what we want we can shut you down, that is way too much power for state and federal employees to have, especially when it is our tax dollars paying for their salaries, benefits etc, not a private corporation, state workers and federal should get what they get a decent and fair wage and decent and fair benefits but stop trying to leverage our tax dollars into more for you.

Public employees make less than their private sector counter-parts consistently. I don't have the stats, but you can Google it and find a plethora of info. Also, the Unions in Wisconsin have agreed to a no strike law, meaning they couldn't "shut the state down." Lastly, they'd already agreed to an 8% pay decrease AND an increase on what they pay into the pensions. The Unions have tried to work with Walker, he just wants to destroy them. He won't even agree to meet with them to talk.

Also, based on your ramble, I doubt you're aware of what all Unions have brought into the public workforce. Do a little research before you make such a solid opinion.

 

[Kanazuchi]

I'm always glad to see the people informed and empowered. It just makes them aware of how badly the system is screwing them over, and gives them impetus to do something about it. Thank you, Anonymous.

 

[jebussaves88]

THIS IS IRRELEVANT! SAVE IT FOR A NEWS SITE. Seriously, I thought this site was about games, and at a stretch, movies and comics and tabletop gaming. What is the relevance of this to any of them? You guys really are selling your journalistic integrity for page views.

 

[freedomfirst]

Anonymous is hypocrisy. They would never attack billionaire George Soros who "undermines" democracy with millions of dollars to thousands of lefty groups.

 

[joes]

That's just not true. The unions in Wisconsin have already voluntarily agreed to a 8% PAY CUT, right off the bat. This isn't about the state trying to save money, that's just a cover. This is really about the Republicans trying to destroy unions so they stop supporting Democratic politicians.

I think this is an excellent example of how hard it is to really get a good grasp on this whole issue. Yes, two large state-wide unions have said that they'll accept having to pay towards their excellent benefits. But numerous smaller unions across the state have already started trying to rush contracts through that still require them not to contribute to pensions or health care. Nobody speaks for all of the unions, and a lot of people are saying a lot of things.

There has been a lot of propaganda in play surrounding the whole issue. (Full disclosure: I'm a conservative Wisconsinite who supports the governor. I'll do my best to be even-handed, but I'm only human; there's bound to be bias.) The legislature is trying to do 2 things: require unionized state employees to contribute ~5% of their pay to their pensions and roughly double how much they pay towards health care; and disallow collective bargaining over such things (but not pay). As Ergoemos mentioned above, this still gives them more collective bargaining than federal employees, but that's more of an aside. The biggest detail, to me, is that the state employees would still have excellent benefits. The pension deal still blows my 401(k) out of the water, and they'll still pay far less than average workers for better coverage.

More directly on topic: while this does have the taste of tin-foil-hat to it, I think it's more an example of Anonymous stumbling across something that's fairly routine in politics and making a big deal of it. But I could be wrong... politics gives me a headache.

(One last thing: there are a lot of factors in play with this craziness, and I only highlighted a couple of points which happen to support my position. I'm not claiming to be laying out everything.)

Union workers in Indiana saw their health insurance premiums almost double after they lost the ability to bargain over benefits. Also, you mention unfair pensions, but they are different at every level and every position so I think it is a little unfair to compare a blanket pension plan with a 401K. The issue here is not private vs public employment, its how we are trying to solve our budget problems. Everything else does seem to be a distraction. Why is it so hard to realize that budgets issues are solved by raising revenue and spending cuts; cuts that won't inspire thousands of people to descend on the capital?...

 

[Ghengis John]

Many people, myself included, want to picture this loosely-held together group of posters on a forum as something grander than they actually are.

You sure do don't you? You do a bunch of these pieces and you constantly come off as some kind of anonymous groupie. That said I can get behind this action, this time and join you in the stands. The Koch brothers are some slimy bastards. Anyone who wants a good read can check out this little tidbit from the new yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

1

The unions are hardly better than Koch. "Well, we are not bankrupt yet, so we want our raises now!" To hell with the consequences.

2

I have to pay out for my retirement plan, I have to pay for insurance, yada yada. Why should others get it for free in this hard economic time and I have to pay through the nose?

3

The USA is doing badly educating it's children, compared to the rest of the world! Even though we spend more on education!

I had a diatribe here about people like you. But it's unproductive. So allow me to elucidate you.

1: Raises? The unions agreed to an 8% pay cut. But on your ignorance you build a shaky house and you bellow from the roof of that house so loudly.

2: Union workers pay for their own pension plan. As a former union member myself, these dues are no fun but they ensure that union workers are treated like human beings. I have twice been fired from non-union jobs for the sin of honesty. That is neither here nor there though, you don't pay a thing for teacher's retirements or health care. Your entire reason for being upset is a farce. Whoever told you this lie is your enemy.

3: Yes. We spend more in dollars than any other country in the world. In dollars. You have to remember though that this figure is not the big picture because the dollar goes farther in other countries. In China, a factory worker makes 3 cents a day. How much do you think they have to pay for education in dollars?

The scenario becomes very different when we calculate it as a percent of our GDP however. That is to say, how much are we spending out of our total earnings on education. Please find the US on the list.

# 1 Cuba: 18.7%
# 2 Vanuatu: 11%
# 3 Lesotho: 10.4%
# 4 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: 10%
# 5 Yemen: 9.5%
# 6 Brunei: 9.1%
# 7 Mongolia: 9%
# 8 Denmark: 8.5%
# 9 Guyana: 8.4%
# 10 Malaysia: 8.1%
# 11 Cape Verde: 7.9%
= 12 Saint Lucia: 7.7%
= 12 Sweden: 7.7%
= 14 Saint Kitts and Nevis: 7.6%
= 14 Barbados: 7.6%
= 14 Norway: 7.6%
# 17 Israel: 7.5%
# 18 Namibia: 7.2%
# 19 Swaziland: 7.1%
# 20 Kenya: 7%
# 21 New Zealand: 6.7%
# 22 Morocco: 6.5%
= 23 Finland: 6.4%
= 23 Tunisia: 6.4%
= 25 Belgium: 6.3%
= 25 Bolivia: 6.3%
= 25 Cyprus: 6.3%
= 28 Slovenia: 6.1%
= 28 Jamaica: 6.1%
= 30 Malawi: 6%
= 30 Belarus: 6%
= 30 Iceland: 6%
# 33 Lithuania: 5.9%
= 34 Switzerland: 5.8%
= 34 Portugal: 5.8%
= 34 Latvia: 5.8%
= 37 Estonia: 5.7%
= 37 United States: 5.7%
= 37 Austria: 5.7%
= 40 Poland: 5.6%

37th? Really? Ouch. And on a per capita basis the US comes in 8th. The tendency of parents and casual observers is to blame the teachers. Hey, who's fault is it ultimately if your kid can't read when he leaves high-school or never does his homework? It's yours. Your kid should be reading BEFORE he even starts school. Teacher can't follow your kid home, teacher can't provide spankings, teacher can't MAKE the kid do his homework. Parents want to pass their kids off to schools that they see as daycare centers and let the school raise them. You hear about kids being tormented online, even driven to suicide and the parents had no idea. Social wellness index says we're actually moving farther apart the more tech we get. In short, parents need to get involved in their children's education. And not just to yell at teachers or to defend their perfect angels.

 

[Citizen Snips]

Does anyone else find it weird that the Koch Brothers, who run private enterprises, gives two shits about the collective bargaining of public workers rights? This bill does not effect them at all, so something seems off.
On a secondary note, when FDR and the first president of the AFL-CIO began discussing major unions, they were both vehemently against public workers being able to form unions. Their idea behind that was that if a private union demands more pay the American public will either purchase the product or move to a cheaper one, but if the government workers demand more pay from the very politicians they work for you can't decide to not pay those extra taxes to cover the increase.

 

[8bitlove2a03]

Somebody should probably eventually go out and explain to the public exactly what Anon is and what it's doing. People who start hearing about this are going to think that it's many highly coordinated people, they'll Google it and start thinking that everyone on 4chan is a group of super-hackers, think that it's some type of political party, or some combination of these options. That's not going to do anyone any good.

Hopefully political activism doesn't become a new meme like the Scientology thing did. Could you imagine how bad it would be if some teenagers started wandering around protesting this crap in the name of Anon, spouting memes that would sound like incoherent blather? The press would have a damn field day with it. It's not like anyone's reporting on Anon right now, considering what they're doing is fighting to uphold American rights. But if these morons off 4chan get involved...I shudder to think.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

The truth I suspect, as always, is somewhere in the middle- Unions have in the past been found to be greedy parasites that unecessarily stagnate the process. Governments and corporations have been found to be abusive and manipulative and parasitical to their workers. It's choose a devil, really, each has their values and faults.