Cutting Off Their Noses To Spite Their Faces!

That is what the unions in Wisconsin are doing. Instead of paying into their pension plans and having a co-pay for their Cadillac Healthcare Plans, they insist on forcing requiring the taxpayers of Wisconsin to foot the bill.

The trouble is that Wisconsin is broke. There is no money in the till for these luxuries. Something is going to have to be cut.  If not the luxuries, then it must be workers.  12,000 of them in fact.

If changes aren't made to the benefit contributions paid by Wisconsin's nearly 300,000 public sector employees, about 10,000-12,000 workers will lose their jobs, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warned Sunday.

The Republican governor has been targeted by protesters for nearly a week for negotiating a bill now in the state Senate that would require workers to increase their contributions to pensions and health care coverage, would limit collective bargaining rules and tie raises to inflation.

But Walker said while the state enjoys a lower-than-average unemployment rate -- about 7.5 percent compared to 9 percent nationally -- about 5,000-6,000 state workers and 5,000-6,000 local government workers could lose their jobs if they don't accept changes to their benefits plan.

"I don't want a single person laid off in the public nor in the private sector and that's why this is a much better alternative than losing jobs," Walker told "Fox News Sunday."

The budget vote was supposed to take place last week, but was delayed when state Senate Democrats fled to Illinois to avoid having to vote on the plan, which would cost public sector employees about $300 million over two years, or less than 10 percent of the deficit total.

President Obama, whose group Organizing for America, has bused in some of the nearly 70,000 protesters outside the state capitol on Saturday, last week called the bill "an assault on unions."

Walker said the president should stay focused on fixing the federal budget, which is $1.5 trillion in deficit this year. The president's plan, rolled out last week, proposes $1.65 trillion in deficits next year.

While union workers say they've been blindsided by the governor's plan, which he campaigned on through the midterm election, they also say Walker has unfairly targeted public employees while giving tax breaks to businesses worth about $117 million.

"We expected concessions, but we just didn't think there was a mandate for this. We didn't see him getting rid of collective bargaining," said Gary Steffen, president of the Wisconsin Science Professionals, the union that represents state scientists, including crime lab analysts, biologists, chemists and foresters.

Under the governor's proposal, unions still could represent workers, but they could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized. Only wages below the Consumer Price Index would be subject to collective bargaining, anything higher would have to be approved by referendum.

Walker said he hoped "cooler minds will prevail" and lawmakers will come back to vote.

"Democracy's not about showing up in another state," he said.

Full story

The state could choose the 12,000 to be fired from the assembled idiots at the capital.   Heck, Governor Walker should pull a Reagan maneuver on the union and give them 24 hours to get back to work or they get fired.  It worked against the Air Traffic Controllers, and will work here.