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Union electrician Vince Meamber attends a union rally at the Grant Sawyer Building Monday, Feb. 21. Nevada union members held rallies in Las Vegas and Carson City to show support for union workers in Wisconsin fighting to keep their collective bargaining rights.
By Anjeanette Damon (contact) 
, David McGrath Schwartz
Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011 | 2 a.m.
Sun Coverage
Sun Archives
- Hundreds of union workers rally in Las Vegas for bargaining rights (2-21-2011)
- Chancellor backs UNLV president in talk of financial emergency (2-16-2011)
- Regent says it’s time that K-12 shares in budget sacrifice (2-8-2011)
- Sandoval won’t push bill to eliminate collective bargaining (2-4-2011)
- Higher education officials say Sandoval budget cuts a ‘death sentence’ (2-4-2011)
- Education in forefront of upcoming budget battle (1-30-2011)
- Chancellor: University tuition would have to go up 73 percent to cover Sandoval budget gap (1-27-2011)
- A steep climb for Nevadans (1-26-2011)
- Soft words during State of the State hide Nevada in pain (1-25-2011)
- Gibbons wants to reform collective bargaining, though his deputy chief of staff once said he was in pocket of unions on issue (5-10-2010)
Public employees rallied Monday in Las Vegas and Carson City in a show of solidarity with the Wisconsin government workers who have crowded the Midwest Capitol to protest proposals to roll back collective bargaining rights and limit pay increases.
The day invited comparisons between the two states, as Nevada Republicans promise to pursue changes to public employee compensation and bargaining rights similar to those being sought in Wisconsin.
For now, at least, Carson City is not Madison, in its level of support for unions or civic activism.
It’s not yet clear all that’s at stake for Silver State public employees. Lists of proposed changes to collective bargaining rights and compensation are beginning to circulate in the halls of the Legislature.
What is clear is that Nevada conservatives see this as their best chance in a generation to make changes to government pensions, health benefits and contract negotiating rules. And the issues promise to be a key bargaining chip for Republicans as Democratic lawmakers, who have typically been staunch supporters of the unions, desperately seek votes in support of a tax increase.
In Wisconsin, the Legislature is at a standstill over a proposal to scale back collective bargaining rights for public employees and tie raises to inflation, unless there’s a vote of the people. Tens of thousands of schoolteachers and public workers have camped out at the Capitol since last week to protest the proposed changes.
Democrats in the Wisconsin Legislature are on the lam to prevent Republicans from reaching a quorum to hold a vote.
The Wisconsin protests have added a wrinkle to discussions of those issues in Carson City, as Republicans seek changes to negotiating rules — called Chapter 288 — and rules on things such as teacher tenure. Namely: What if conservative lawmakers went too far as they take on public employee unions?
“There will be a revolt in this state if they trade out collective bargaining for a tax increase,” said Danny Thompson, executive secretary of the Nevada AFL-CIO, which organized Monday’s rallies in Carson City and Las Vegas. “We’re talking about taking this fight to the street.”
But Republicans in the Legislature don’t appear cowed by the possibility, however remote, that their actions might spur similar unrest in Nevada. If anything, they seemed inspired to push harder.
“I frankly question whether collective bargaining for any government employee makes sense,” state Sen. Greg Brower, R-Reno, said. “Some people in our state seem to think it’s a right. It’s not. It’s a privilege.”
The freshman senator had a copy of a Wall Street Journal editorial criticizing Wisconsin public employees for trying to “intimidate lawmakers and disrupt Gov. Scott Walker’s plans.” Brower described Walker’s proposals in the same language as the conservative editorial page: “eminently reasonable,” “common sense,” “modest reforms.”
In 2009, Nevada Senate Republicans negotiated concessions on public employee benefits, pensions and collective bargaining. In exchange, enough Republicans voted for a temporary tax increase to meet the state’s two-thirds requirement and override Gov. Jim Gibbons’ veto.
Some business groups expect a similar situation this year. Only they have the more popular Gov. Brian Sandoval in their corner and more Republicans in the Senate and Assembly.
Other than saying they will pursue significant reform to public employee benefits and collective bargaining rights, Republican lawmakers have remained relatively quiet on the details of the changes they would like to see. Some would like to scale back or do away with teacher tenure.
“We need to put it on the table and take a good hard look at it,” Brower said of the various proposals circulating.
The two largest chambers of commerce differ on what to do about collective bargaining. The Las Vegas Chamber supports changing the rules.
“The chamber wants to look at local government pay and benefits, and bring those in line with other states, and hopefully the private sector,” spokeswoman Cara Roberts said.
Hundreds of union members attend a rally at the Grant Sawyer Building Monday, February 21, 2011. Nevada union members held rallies in Las Vegas and Carson City to show their support for union workers in Wisconsin who are fighting to keep their collective bargaining rights.
She took pains to say it didn’t want to “demonize” anyone and wanted to work with the unions.
Tray Abney, government relations director of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce, said “The chamber’s official position is 288 should not exist ... It doesn’t make sense that the people we elect have to go on hands and knees and beg unions for concessions.”
Senate Minority Leader Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, had little to say, other than joking he would take his caucus to Hawaii if it finds it’s in the position of having to flee the state to prevent a vote from taking place.
Sandoval also has declined to take up the fight on collective bargaining. He elected not to pursue Gibbons’ bill eliminating those rights entirely but has not stated his position on how the law should be softened.
Sandoval has, however, proposed state workers take a 5 percent pay cut to replace the monthly furlough days they have been required to take since 2009. He also wants teachers and other employees to contribute more toward retirement and health benefits.
The governor’s senior adviser, Dale Erquiaga, said that rather than choose sides Sandoval is positioning himself as a negotiator in the debate over collective bargaining rights.
“He is truly the guy in the middle here in this conversation,” Erquiaga said. “Most people predict collective bargaining will be part of the final closing deal on the budget. So it’s logical for the governor, the guy who has to negotiate all those deals, to be in the position of arbitrator and negotiator.”
For many of the state workers and their supporters rallying on Monday in Carson City, they believed that the burden of balancing the budget during the Great Recession is being unfairly placed on their shoulders.
“It wasn’t state workers, teachers, or firefighters who caused this” recession, said Darlene Cobbey, a retired private sector worker living in Silver City. “It was the big corporations and the banks.”
As teamster Dennis Miller put it at the rally in Carson City: “This fight is only beginning.”
Sun reporter Joe Schoenmann contributed to this story from Las Vegas.
Not all private sector union workers agree with the government variety. They are afterall, taxpayers too.
http://www.twulocal568.org/index.cfm?zon...
The money tree at city hall has been picked clean.
My wife & I packed our bags, sold our business and moved away from Wisconsin nearly a quarter-century ago and relocated to LV. Madison, WI wasn't referred to as the "Berkeley of the Midwest" for no reason. WI was mess because of "Progressives" (really Communists) and their wacky ideas. Tommy Thompson was starting to make an inroad in getting rid of their business-busting rules & regulations and the welfare state, but, for us, it was too late. We'd had it with governmental interference in our affairs, the high rate of taxation, the indolent complaining that their welfare checks, food stamps and subsidized housing wasn't enough and, of course, winter. We, like 100s of 1,000s of others came west and found relief from all 4 maladies to a great extent. It's time the majority of WI residents revolted against the minority "Progressive" agenda which strangled real progress in WI for decades. "Progressives" are so enamored of socialism & Communism? Let the Garafalos, Baldwins, Striesands and their fellow travelers move to Cuba, China or North Korea. See how they enjoy living under totalitarian rule!
It truly is frightening to realize that there are delusional psychopaths such as Fink wandering the streets amongst the rest of us.
If one were to take out WI from his post, youdathunk he was talking about his time living in East Germany, or perhaps the years he spent under the thumb of Mussolini.
People like Fink exhibit the kind of intellectual immaturity and lack of critical thinking skills that are sending this country down the tubes. You stay classy Jerry!
Jerry, you are a living, breathing, caricature.
Glad to see the troops out there, standing up for truth, justice, and the American way.
We need to stick together against the rich who want to enslave us. That's basically the story, as it always is, everywhere and always in human history.
The Republicants are doing what they do best, trying to destroy working people. They are not doing anything on getting jobs, just destroying the ones that are there. Their hidden agenda is showing it ugly head. Republicants are using this economic down turn to promote their agenda, what is amazing is the propaganda they are putting out in their scummy defense of their actions. Everybody must remember Bush caused this problem for some reason. Now he is wanted for international war crimes, just like Hitler would have been. Now we are dealing with the same hinchmen Hitler had, just with different names, and titles but they are trying to achieve the same goal. Ruin everyone that does not follow their lockstep agenda.
Nice demonstration, wonder how many of these union workers are actually working? Wisconsin is more about ending tenure for teachers rather than wages. The governor wants to end collective bargaining on benefits and pensions not wages and increase contributions to both. This is not unreasonable considering the states budget shortfall, the same thing is happening here in Nevada. Workers would still have civil service protection and be able to negotiate on wages. Public sector union workers should get over it, the states, counties and cities are broke, your salary is paid by tax payers who are also broke.
The Republicans are just doing the bidding of their Wall Street corporate masters: destroy unions so they can pay their workers less and increase the pay of their fat-cat corporate execs!
How any working person with a salary under 100K can believe the rhetoric coming from the right is beyond me.
Give the Koch brothers and their tea puppets credit.
At a time of record unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies those far-right extremists have sifted the national dialogue away from ending the Bush Great Recession and getting people back to work, to blaming our troubles on labor unions and the lazy, no-good middle class.
Quite a trick. Not even David Copperfield could pull that one off.
Disclaimer: No "working people" were harmed in the passing of this BILL.
I thought this was an anti-union state and that the citizens liked it that way. Why the dissent, all of a sudden?
Why didn't Walker include firefighters and police in his actions against union public workers? Is it because those two unions supported him in the election?
Nothing to see here folks, just move along.
Funny, Unions work extremely well in other countries. These countries have growing economies, good jobs, good benefits AND LESS PUBLIC DEBT THAN THE US.
Of course, the rich people in those countries pay LOTS of Taxes.
And the RICH people are not as rich as the GROSSLY RICH PEOPLE in the US - who get 90% of all the money.
There is NOTHING WRONG WITH UNIONS. What is wrong is greedy rich people who are overpaid and who don't pay taxes.
Back in the 50s and 60s when rich people were taxed at 65%. The middle class was growing and there were jobs.
Now with rich people essentially paying no taxes - the middle class is being devastated- and our jobs have gone to China.
Guess who shipped the jobs to China? Guess who bribed politicians to cut rich people taxes and make a huge deficit?
Jerry:
you and your wife moved here because of the weather. And, you moved here AFTER your kids got a decent education at WI's expense. You should try Reno and the North of NV to see what lack of services like adequate snow-plowing is like. I bet the streets of Madison have all their street lamps working. I bet WI isn't #49 or #50 in every measurment. And oh yes, the unemployment there is 7.5%, not 14.8 %. And the population is many times that of Nevada.
I love Nevada too, but let's be honest, you took all you could from WI and then retired here.
ronster says, "How any working person with a salary under 100K can believe the rhetoric coming from the right is beyond me."
How true... how true!!!
A little INVESTIGATION with the journalism please. MEDICAID for ANCHOR BABIES is BANKRUPTING OUR STATES. Look into Wisconsin. Exponential Medicaid growth for ILLEGAL BABIES. Do an Oklahoma--LEGISLATE DEFINITION OF STATE CITIZEN PER 14TH AMENDMENT AND BAR ILLEGAL ANCHOR BABIES FROM MEDICAID, TANF, LIHEA, CCDF, EBT FOOD STAMPS.
Oh, Wisconsin will probably let the unions survive. Been there, done that. But they will cut pension benefits and compensation packages because they have to keep paying WELFARE FOR ANCHOR BABIES.
Thanks SUN for wrecking my day! You ran a picture of Dina Titus in your article today. Why do you subject the voters of Nevada that threw her out of office to her BS? She is a failed politician that continues to live off of the taxpayers. She should take her PERS check and go back to Georgia or Arkansas. Just leave Nevaduh!
Without hate the angry extreme right would have nothing.
Significant educational reform is needed, and busting the teacher's union in and of itself won't do diddly. We'll still have quite probably the worst state school system in the country -- only at less cost. The State needs to implement a full voucher system, where public, private & charter schools compete for students. With annual standardized testing to gauge performance; small specialized schools tailored to the needs of the students; a longer school day & a longer school year; a greater focus on teacher performance vice credentials, with a pay scale the follows suit; the list is virtually endless.
So shut it down, simple. Why bother with silly signs and rallies? shut it down, there will be no negotiating with the likes of a Brian Sandoval.
The problem is these fake Unions are not interested in doing what a real Union would be doing.
It is a tough position to be in because when you have a union and a private company, the private company can always declare bankruptcy if they are unable to reach a workable agreement and the company is in financial trouble. States are unable to do that at this time and so if overly generous deals are made, there is little recourse if the union does not want to negotiate. So, when you combine that with a system that doesn't promote long term fiscal responsibility on the part of the state, you can create serious problems. If you had good fiscal management at the state level, you could avoid these problems. Some of the states that have pension problems got there because they looked at a few good years of returns and changed the assumptions which in turn allowed increasing benefits. When those rates of return did not maintain that level, the system was suddenly underfunded. In this state, there was a large increase in revenue and in the span of a couple of years spending was also increased dramatically. In a responsible world, you would ramp up spending slowly as you became certain the revenues would hold steady. In that would you would also maintain a rainy day fund, but then most people do not seem to do that either. If we kept an eye fixed more on the long term, we would avoid many of the problems we now face.
The free union ride is coming to an end. Unions are obsolete and outdated, that's why membership numbers have declined to multi-decade lows in both public and private sectors. Union employees wanted to hold their companies (or states) hostage and extort them for ridiculous wages way above their qualification level. You threaten to walk out unless you get paid $30/hour + free lunch + 2 hours of paid breaks + a couple months of vacation + sick leave + pension + other benefits to bolt tires on to a car. And you're shocked and angry when companies start outsourcing for cheaper labor? Or when your state is forced into major cuts just to stay afloat? You can't suck your employer dry and then complain when they have no choice but to make drastic decisions.
Sorry, but these days you may want to consider an actual education (not talking about refrigerator school) if you'd like to have a better chance at success. Many of you had a nice long free ride and you'll live well on your pensions, but your sons and daughters may not have anywhere to work when they grow up. I suggest you take some of that money and send them to college.
The problem is not Labor, the problem is phony and corrupt Unions. These are not real Unions. These are window dressing Unions designed to control and eventually destroy Labor. That is the issue, the rest noise.
To all these Labor critics, ahh have you looked at the CEO to frontline worker pay ratio lately? Understand what the Double Irish is? This is America, this is not some sweatshop in Tland. Problem is for too long we have allowed sharks and crooks to gut America, enough already.
@LastThroes
"Give the Koch brothers and their tea puppets credit.
At a time of record unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies those far-right extremists have shifted the national dialogue away from ending the Bush Great Recession and getting people back to work, to blaming our troubles on labor unions and the lazy, no-good middle class.
Quite a trick. Not even David Copperfield could pull that one off."
The mind does boggle, LastThroes!
How ever did we get the impression that Wall St., corporate greedsters, sham mortgages, big banks, credit default swaps, Bernie Madoff & his brotherhood of theives, overcooking the economy to OVERBOIL, conspired to bring down our free-market house of cards... but, yes, apparently it's those damn public servants and middle-class worker-bees that wrecked the whole thing, and we should HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE!!!
Clearly, public servants, and the middle-class in general, must PAY!
And apparently, they must pay with everything they have.
& Yes, OBVIOUSLY, these evil unions are to blame for the collapse of the U.S. economy, and as such, should be responsible to make it right again.
Since all of the states seem to have gotten into the same mess, even though they got there by different paths, this might be the time to try to figure out what all these states have in common. I think it is this: 1. All the states found it convenient to hire people and get them to work with promises of pensions. 2. Almost none of the states which bound themselves to deliver these pension benefits found it convenient to adequately fund them. Those that did found it convenient to balance their budgets by "borrowing" from their pension funds. 3. Now, with the states in financial crisis after years of imprudent and unsustainable spending, the states want to stop funding pensions and to use whatever assets are still in the pension plans to help close their budget deficits.
Unions are self serving. They have gotten it there way from home to Washington DC and now its time for them to ante up, they want the tax payers to carry the burden. The money is not there, the govenor if the boss, he was elected to office to be responsible to the tax payers and cuts come with the job when the funds are nolonger there. When time are good union scream and holler they want more, but when times are bad they hold the tax payers hostage for even more, the buck stops here. Unions have driven companies overseas and bankrupt companies across the nation with their demands, that only line the pocket of union executives. Its nolonger about work conditions, its strickly about pay and benefits. The tax payers say no, they must make a living to support their own families and not support social programs and unions. If state and local public employees don't like what elected official must do then quit, no one held a gun to their head to become a public employee. Just like the military you either want to serve or you don't, its not about pay and benefits, its about service to city, county, state or the nation. I've seen public employees in action, many do not care about the public all they care about is the pay check and try to get as much from public funds as they can. Public employees do not care about general funds, fraud, waste and abuse.
The budget 'shortfall' in Wisconsin was manufactured just like the Iraq war, a war created for the purpose of spending America into debt in order to privatize Social security and destroy the rights of people to bargain collectively as a union.
Privatize social security means sending your money to those who have NO legal obligation to pay it back - they can loose everything in a recession, your 30 years of savings is gone and 'get a job' will be the only reply.
Free and easy money for the money managers, "Personal Responsibility" for those who work.