Here is our latest spot promoting Wisconsin’s recent reforms. It features public employees and taxpayers.

The city of Cincinnati is broke.

Their 2011 budget includes a $55 million deficit. Part of the problem is that Cincinnati public employees enjoy some of the most generous perks in the state.

The City Council-approved contracts include benefits that, among other things, permit manyworkers to draw 13 sick days a year, grant three weeks’ worth of compensatory time to public safety employees for holidays whether they work them or not, and entitle veteran police officers to nearly 10½ weeks of various leaves annually.

That’s bad enough, but here’s what makes it even worse. These employees can save up all those days and cash them in when they retire or leave for another job. It isn’t rare for these payouts to be over six figures.

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The city of Lancaster, Ohio recently closed one of its firehouses after laying off 13 firefighters.

Jess Lanning/Eagle-Gazette

LANCASTER — Engine House 3 has been shut down indefinitely, and Lancaster will have just two firehouses covering a city of 18.84 square miles and more than 37,000 people.

“It’s going to be a very fluid situation with all these changes going on,” said Lancaster Fire Assistant Chief Dave Ward.

The layoffs took effect on Monday. Engine 3 and Medic 3 are being stored at Engine House 3, 1596 E. Main St.

A huge tarp was put across Engine House 3, saying it was closed and that if you have an emergency need, call 911.

But Mayor David S. Smith is asking for an increase in the city’s income tax.

City officials are asking voters on Nov. 8 to approve a 0.25-percentage-point increase in the city income tax for five years, raising it to 2 percent. The increase would generate $2.5 million annually to help balance next year’s budget, Smith has said.

“It’s critical,” Ward said. “If this doesn’t pass, I anticipate city hall having to lay off more firefighters.”

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Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern

Democrats have never been afraid to use the race card, but this is a new one. Senate Bill 5 and HB194 have nothing at all to do with race. But the union front group “We Are Ohio” and their Ohio Democrat lapdogs are airing a new radio ad that suggests that it is all about race.

As Democrats work to place Ohio’s Republican-backed elections law on hold through a referendum, they’re arguing that the measure is akin to poll taxes, grandfather clauses and other footnotes from America’s Jim Crow past.

But does the same argument apply to Senate Bill 5, the GOP-sponsored limits on collective bargaining for public employees that is currently subject to a referendum as state Issue 2 on the November ballot?

Democratic, labor and African-American leaders say yes.

We Are Ohio, the organized labor coalition seeking to repeal Senate Bill 5, is airing a radio ad that says “Gov. John Kasich and the Columbus politicians have passed two laws to take us back to the days of Jim Crow.”

Remember when we told you how the unions will say ANYTHING to hold onto their power? You’re witnessing that right now. Listen to some of the ridiculous justification for this outrageous ad.

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There’s an old TV saying given to the moment when viewers realize a series has peaked – it’s called “jumping the shark.”  It’s in reference to the fifth season of Happy Days, when the Fonz is waterskiing – complete with leather jacket – and proceeds to jump over a shark.  The scene was so outlandish and ridiculous, that viewers realized the show as creatively bankrupt. The popularity of the series declined from there.

We may have just witnessed the Wisconsin public employee unions’ shark-jumping moment.

The Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) has been organizing its members to show up to school board meetings to protest the cost-saving measures being implemented, thanks exclusively to Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair law.

WEAC crybaby sessions at local school board meetings are becoming a weekly event.

See EAGtv’s report on the latest episode.

But to WEAC’s dismay, school board members who have been targeted for intimidation are showing up to these meetings prepared for the protests. So are local residents who have had their fill of union bullying.

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Israeli security forces use a system of profiling passengers in order to protect air travel. They don’t conduct these silly random searches we see almost daily in America. The Israeli security guards know the type of person who is most likely to carry out a terrorist attack; they don’t need to pat down 95-year-old grandmothers.

Likewise, when the protests turned ugly outside of the Milwaukee Catholic school where Gov. Scott Walker was appearing last Friday, I instinctively knew that the worst offenders would be  teacher union leaders.

Why? Because a nasty, belligerent attitude has become a requirement for a leadership post in most teachers unions. Sure, union leaders publicly talk about the need for civility and open-mindedness, but in their unscripted moments they spew vitriol, intimidation and hatred.

And the unionist thug is...

In yesterday’s article, I wrote about a video that was taken of the Walker protestors who lined the sidewalk outside the school. The video captures one of the thugs verbally intimidating a female school employee, telling her, “We don’t want you in our neighborhood.  Go back to there you came from.”

Former teachers union and SEIU organizer Brian Rothgery. Source: Flickr

I ended that article by asking for tips to identify that individual who should have a civil rights complaint filed against him. I received several tips, and the offender has been identified as Brian Rothgery. Not only is Rothgery a former co-president of American Federation of Teachers Local 2169 (the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association), but prior to that he was a – wait for it…wait for it – an SEIU organizer!

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Before the Republican takeover of state government, the leaders of the Wisconsin Education Association Council were very influential people who wielded a great deal of political power.

They were extremely well funded by a system that forced schools to deduct union dues from individual teachers, whether they wanted to be members or not. And they used a big chunk of that wealth to pressure state lawmakers into passing union-friendly policies.

Notice we didn’t say “education friendly policies.” Education has very little to do with the teachers union’s agenda. Its main function is to constantly angle for a bigger piece of the taxpayer pie, and WEAC did that very effectively prior to 2011.

All of that became clearer this week when the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board released a report showing that WEAC spent more than any other organization on lobbying state government in 2009-10.

The union spent a total of $2.5 million in those years to wine, dine and twist arms in Madison, according to the Associated Press. That amount was on top of the millions of dollars in campaign contributions WEAC hands out to friendly legislative candidates.

All of that money will buy a lot of influence, particularly when union-friendly Democrats are in power.

What did the union use its influence for? More money to spend on student books, computers and learning programs? Nope.

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Wisconsin schools, once scrambling for every tax dollar available and relentlessly proposing new ones for taxpayers, are now seeing their cost of doing business drop, thanks to the collective bargaining reform law that has now taken effect.

The new law, which was met with union protests unlike this generation has seen, put more power into the hands of school boards and administrators to set spending policy.  That’s because spending policy was taken off the collective bargaining table, where the Wisconsin Education Association Council could manipulate the process to its own self-serving advantage.  Perhaps most significantly, the new law took employee health insurance off the bargaining table, so WEAC is no longer able to pressure school boards to purchased overpriced coverage from WEA Trust, an insurance carrier established by the union. Read an exposé on that here.

That has all been wiped away and many school boards are about to reap the rewards.

The MacIver Institute recently produced a report showing the potential savings many school districts stand to receive, just from new mandatory employee contributions to health benefit premiums and pension plans.  For example, in the Green Bay district, if employees contribute 12.6% of the health insurance premium and 5.8% to their pensions, it stands to save $11 million.  With similar contributions by employees, Madison would see $15.5 million; MacIver estimates the Racine district would save $19.2 million.

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