John August, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions and a native Wisconsinite, sends us this on events there. The coalition is an alliance of 29 local unions representing 90,000 health care workers.
Americans oppose taking away public employee collective bargaining rights by a margin of two to one, according to a March 1 New York Times/CBS poll. The same poll indicates that a margin of 56 percent to 37 percent of those polled also oppose cutting public sector employee wages and benefits to reduce state budget deficits. Furthermore, asked how they would choose to reduce their state’s deficits, “those polled preferred tax increases over benefit cuts for state workers by nearly two to one,” according to the New York Times. These figures may surprise some, especially when so many media fail to explore the roots of these issues. I think what we have here is another example of what rarely is appreciated: common sense.