The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ignores rally of thousands against corporate greed

Did you know that union workers in Wisconsin held their largest rally in years this week?

Don't blame yourself if you didn't because the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel didn't cover it.

Apparently the editors of the largest daily in the state didn't think the mobilization of thousands of workers and their supporters against the Kohler Company's demands for draconian concessions was worth covering even though a day earlier it dedicated an entire article to explaining the company's position.

Fortunately other media did cover the protest.

The Green Bay Gazette reported:

Several thousand Kohler Co. union employees and their supporters spent more than two hours picketing outside company headquarters Wednesday, following a day of labor negotiations that union officials said had taken on a slightly more positive tone.

The United Auto Workers Local 833 organized the "informational" picket — the union isn't on strike — to draw attention to what union members feel are unjust concessions asked for by Kohler as the two sides attempt to work out a new labor contract.

"Under their proposal, they could lay me off and bring me back and pay me the same wages I made in 1997, but it's not 1997," said Tim Tolman, 47, a 15-year employee who became a temporary Kohler worker last year following a companywide layoff. "I think it's totally unfair."

The state AFL-CIO blog ran a lengthy article:

Enough is enough. Kohler Company is taking advantage of the poor economy to demand extreme and unnecessary concessions from their workforce, including a wage freeze, a two tier wage system and the use of more temporary employees.

Nearly 2,000 people turned out yesterday to stand in solidarity with workers from UAW Local 833, as they fight to put the needs of working families ahead of corporate greed. Workers and community members picketed side by side in order to send a united message to Kohler management.

“During times of economic prosperity, the leadership of UAW Local 833 has always taken a reasonable and responsible approach to negotiations. Unfortunately, Kohler Company chose to exploit the current recession as evidenced by its present proposals,” says UAW Local 833 President Dave Bergene.

“Kohler harps about high labor costs. They conveniently forget to mention that the quality and productivity of Kohler workers is second to none in their global empire. Build it elsewhere, rework it here,” adds Dave Boucher, a full-time Kohler Foundry worker and an Executive Board member of UAW Local 833.

The contract fight at Kohler is part of a larger trend affecting all workers, union and non-union. As companies sitting on huge cash reserves consistently put profits above people, the Wisconsin labor movement is mobilizing to fight on behalf of the middle-class and all working families.

“This pattern of ‘restructuring’ is becoming all too frequent, with successful companies demanding huge concessions from workers; not because they have to, but because they can,” according to Phil Neuenfeldt, President of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. “This is happening at non-union facilities too, but you simply don’t hear about it, because those workers don’t have a democratic structure though which to fight back.”

Neuenfeldt and newly elected Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Stephanie Bloomingdale attended yesterday’s rally in Kohler in order focus statewide attention on the growing cancer of corporate greed which threatens to consume Wisconsin’s middle-class.

According to Bloomingdale, “It’s time to take a stand. This madness has to stop somewhere. If companies like Kohler want people to be able to buy their products, they must provide reasonable compensation in order to make it possible.”

“All too often the retirees that toiled to create a strong company are forgotten and thrown under the bus, all in the name of greater ‘competiveness.’ We’re not willing to let that happen here,” vows Pete Behrensprung, UAW International Representative and former Local 833 President.

“Maybe the company should focus less on improving their golf tournaments and more on improving their operations; then they wouldn’t have to extract huge concessions from the workers,” remarked Bruce Krueger, rank and file member of UAW Local 833.

In order to successfully fight the battles that lie ahead, working people will have to unite across sectors to support each others’ struggles. Thor Backus, AFSCME Council 40 Organizer, sees the larger picture and is speaking out in support of his UAW brothers and sisters. “If Kohler gets its way, workers and retirees in the area won’t be able to afford a pot to piss in, much less the company’s toilets.”

Unlike the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel media outlets around the state covered yesterday’s informational picket.

Wall Street Values Rock Mercury Marine

The year before the Great Recession, Mercury Marine and its union settled on a new contract indicating that their business model, including the negotiated wage and benefit structure, worked.

Once the recession hit, the demand for Mercury's discretionary product, outboard motors, plummeted.

In past recessions when sales declined, firms laid off their hourly employees until demand picked up. The national unemployment compensation system is designed precisely for such circumstances. It provides the unemployed worker with a weekly check and saves companies money by ensuring their skilled and experienced labor force will return when the economy begins to grow again.

Mercury cynically used the Great Recession to restructure its labor costs and externalize its costs.

It whipsawed the Fond du Lac plant against an offer from right-to-work Oklahoma demanding concessions including a 40% wage cut. The local union that represents the hourly employees initially stood up to Mercury's naked money grab, but under pressure from community and political leaders eventually agreed to the significant concessions.

Mercury's threat to relocate also got the state, Fond du Lac County and the City of Fond du Lac to pony up almost $125 million, $50 million of which will be generated by an increase in the county's sale tax.

Now Mercury Marine is handing out bonuses to all its non-union folks. The Wall Street ethos has come to Main Street.

As union president Mark Zillges says: "Fifty years worth of benefits they took away from these people in one swoop. Now they give themselves bonuses. That's the biggest slap to these people there is...This is not right. It's not right for these people to get rich off the sweat of these other people who just lost it."

For more check out this video: www.620wtmj.com/news/local/84748697.html

For sale signs popping up like dandelions in Oak Creek

Steve Jagler, executive editor of Small Business Times, reports that:

"...'for sale' signs are popping up like dandelions in front of condominiums throughout Oak Creek, as (Midwest) pilots and flight attendants prepare to lose their jobs or take pay cuts that would prevent them from staying in their homes."

The Midwest Airlines pilots who agreed to "deep concessions" to keep the Oak Creek-based company afloat in 2003 do not plan to even vote on company demands that would slash their pay by up to 65 percent.

Jay Schnedorf, a captain and chairman of the Midwest unit of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), told Jagler: "'There will be no vote on their proposal. It's unacceptable on its face. We are planning a counter-proposal to present back to the company … We've told them (company officials) their demands are unacceptable.'"

Jagler's article details the human costs of Midwest management's demands for concessions.

Journal Sentinel Is Consistent: Concessions Are Needed!

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (MJS) is nothing but consistent when it comes to editorializing on labor relations. It has never seen a wage or benefit concession it won't support.

Over the last six months, as corporate profits have risen to their highest level since the Gilded Age and labors’ take has declined to its lowest, the MJS's editorial board has urged three separate groups of local employees to agree to concessions.

First, County employees were urged to be “realistic”and praised for agreeing to pay more
for health insurance and scaled back pension and sick leave benefits.

Then Milwaukee’s Harley Davidson workers were urged to accept lower wages for new employees and changes in their health and pension plans even as Harley generated record revenues and rewarded its executives with huge compensation increases.

Now the editorial board has urged Kensoha’s Chrysler workers, members of UAW Local 72, to "be realistic" and accept “painful concessions” from the company's new owner, the private equity firm, Cerberus, even though Cerberus hasn't even asked for them.

In contrast to the MJS's suggested "...spirit of compromise," management at the County and Harley played hardball in negotiations.

The County threatened to layoff 100 employees, many of them courthouse complex maintenance workers and parks laborers, if it did not get concessions and replace them with private contractors, despite the failure of privatization at the Milwaukee County Public Museum and in providing child welfare services.

Harley threatened to make a new investment, including 100 new jobs, elsewhere if it didn’t get the give-backs it was demanding.

In the case of Chrysler, the editorial board didn’t even wait for Cerberus, a hedge fund with $24 billion in holdings that paid its CEO $50 million last year, to demand concessions before it began to advocate for them.

Its not as if corporate American needs the Journal’s help in fleecing workers. The compensation gap between CEOs and employees has soared; virtually all wage gains since 2000 have gone to the richest 10% of Americans; Bush’s tax cuts have exacerbated the growth in inequality by benefiting high income earners and investors; the percentage of private sector workers represented by unions has fallen below 8%; and workers who receive healthcare benefits from their employers are paying up more and more of the costs which continue to escalate.

The MJS editorial board ought to spend less time lecturing this city’s working people about the need for cooperation, and a little more time advising the corporate class on treating its employees fairly!