A walk down State Street, which leads from the state’s flagship university here to the steps of the Capitol, illustrates the passions ignited by a controversial piece of legislation that would end collective-bargaining rights for Wisconsin faculty and staff members, rights they won just two years ago. It would also almost eliminate those rights for nearly all other state workers, including graduate students… The measure that has created such controversy is a "budget repair" bill that the state’s newly elected governor, Scott Walker, a Republican, says is crucial to curing Wisconsin’s fiscal ills. But many see the governor’s proposal as a political move, and one that fans ideological divides. Apart from reducing the state’s obligations to pensions and health-care benefits for university employees and other state workers, Mr. Walker’s plan takes direct aim at the very idea of collective bargaining.

Read full article [here].
by Jack Stripling, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Posted: February 17th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.