"Dropped the bomb" was what Scott Walker called Act 10, his Budget Repair Bill, during the infamous Fake Koch phone call.
3 years ago today, February 11, 2011, very late on a Friday, Scott Walker introduced his Budget Repair Bill. Someone working late actually read the thing and sent out an alert on what was actually inside the bill. The first I heard of it was an urgent email from my union President asking for volunteers to phone bank the weekend and Monday in order to get as many members as possible to Madison starting on Tuesday. We couldn't even order busses until Monday since businesses had closed, but planned on ordering them every day for a week.
The Budget Repair Bill had little to do with repairing a budget that Walker himself had sent into deficit by enormous tax breaks to business. It had everything to do with slashing our safety net and ending collective bargaining rights for every single public employee in Wisconsin.
Union dues collection would no longer be done by payroll deduction, unions would have to go from member to member collecting dues. Every public employee in Wisconsin would be required to pay 12% of their salary for health insurance and 6% for their pensions despite the fact that many unions were already paying into their insurance and had given away what could have been wage increases in order to maintain benefits.
Unions would have to recertify every single year by holding a union vote the same way that a brand new union would have to certify to represent a group of employees, but they'd have to hold an expensive election every year. The evil didn't stop there, though. Anyone who didn't vote would automatically be considered a "no" vote. Imagine doing that for any other election - every person not showing up to vote becoming a "no". We'd never elect another politician ever (that might be a good thing).
And public employee unions would also be prohibited from negotiating anything but wages, and those only within a maximum cap which the state itself would determine. No more input into health and safety conditions, vacation selection, days off, shift selection, working conditions, staffing, the type and scope of benefits (which ultimately allowed governments to introduce junk insurance to replace standard insurance).
