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Transcript

Mapping the Future with Stephanie Bloomingdale of AFL-CIO

The Paul Revere Show · Sat Mar 2, 2024

This is attorney Mark Thompson.

This is your Paul Revere show.

We are here weekly WAUK 540 AM 101.1 FM.

You know, we've spent, oh, you know, I think we're a little over a year and a half on the air talking about how to keep Wisconsin moving forward.

And I'd been really thinking in terms of.

What would really be a timely timely topic and We have brand new maps that are going to profoundly impact elections in the state of Wisconsin and one of the issues that jumped out at me was that the fact that There is hope for hard-working folks and particularly organized labor with new maps to really really

make gains and to test the water to see if my hunch was right.

I asked a friend and not just a friend, but the head of the AFL CIO in the state of Wisconsin, Stephanie Bloomingdale to come back and spend an hour with us talking about what this means.

So hello, Stephanie.

And it's great to sit here across the table and talk about it.

So we got new maps.

Is that pretty exciting from labor's point of view?

It is very exciting, and it provides a lot of new opportunities for us in the labor movement and for working people to make major gains for our rights, for our families, for our communities, and really to look at all of the, all we've been through in Wisconsin, which has been a lot.

over this past however many years, 14 years.

You know, with Governor Scott Walker taking away our rights one after the other, a concerted attack on workers, marchers forward every day.

And because of the work that was done by your listeners, by working people across the state, we were able to elect Janet Portisavich to the Supreme Court.

And then when this map case,

came up, they were able to decide that indeed the maps in Wisconsin had been severely gerrymandered more than any other state in the country, very unfair for the voters of Wisconsin.

And finally, this last week or this last, you know, over a little bit over a week ago, we saw Tony Evers, Governor Tony Evers, sign the new maps into law.

And so this is a major accomplishment of all of us.

And these new maps provide the road, provide the path to restoring much of the rights that have been taken away from working people.

Certainly it's a step forward, not another step backwards.

And I think many, many people, and I've thought about this, there's a lot of young people that can't even,

imagine what the world looked like before the abolition of, you know, with the adoption of act 10 and we'll get into what all that meant and right to work.

And just in terms of like, you know, if you were 10 years old and now you're 21, 22 and you're out there in the workforce, you had no clue what the world looked like for your parents and grandparents.

And I think, you know, people.

You know, this one thing, we don't teach good labor history in our schools and maybe someday we'll get there where labor history is actually taught in the classroom and people learn what hard work and people have contributed to our history.

But just, you know, there was a time when you worked in a union shop, you had full health care and you had pensions.

And it's just virtually unheard of now.

you know, and even if you're a union shop, how many still have full pensions, right?

I mean, they've just so effective.

Corporate America has become so powerful at so few checks with complete tax breaks.

So people didn't really know what the opportunities are, right?

We end up like fighting over scraps for each other.

But before we get into what the opportunities are,

Let's just spend some time on what was Act 10 and what did it do to labor in the state?

Well, it's interesting when you're talking about the kids that were only 10 years old at the time that Act 10, that Governor Walker enacted Act 10 to really a major assault on organized labor in general, and particularly on public sector workers.

And at that time, my kids were about 10 years old.

So they were, of course, part of the protests and part of the fight back that labor put forth against Act 10.

And to follow it through their eyes to see them see it being taken away and now have the opportunity within hopefully a few short years.

To to to get rid of right to work to get rid of act 10 to restore prevailing wage All of that to see that through their eyes is going to be very interesting But in particular for people who may not remember what act 10 did.

Yeah, I mean, I think

there's a lot of people that have Either it's just faded in their memory.

They weren't personally impacted.

Yeah, and they just don't get it.

Yeah, what was act 10?

I mean historically, Wisconsin was the first

state in the country to have public sector bargaining.

And so that was very historic and very proud for us.

And Scott Walker had it in his mind that he would so-called drop the bomb, which he did, which banned public sector workers to have the free and fair right to come together to collectively bargain over wages and working conditions.

it limited their ability to only bargain over up to the cost of living increase, which for many years was very small.

We've seen it bigger in the last couple of years.

But it also did not allow, it did not allow unions to be able to have an election and to win on a majority basis.

They were forced to every year recertify their body.

by having a majority of the people in the bargaining unit.

So not just a simple majority, but everyone that could belong in it.

Now, none of these politicians that passed this law would ever be able to be elected had that been the way that democracy works.

So it was real tricky maneuver there.

I think it's more than tricky.

It was a complete divide and conquer.

And Scott Walker,

Governor Walker at the time, he had actually said that we're going to divide and conquer and just blow up working people in the state of Wisconsin.

And it hit what all the teachers, municipal workers just completely undermined their ability to say, hey, we're working hard.

We deserve fair wages, fair working conditions.

Yeah, these are hardworking teachers.

These are hardworking public employees.

people that we rely on to keep our keep our families safe, keep our communities safe to teach our kids.

These are people that look out for the well-being of our community.

And to come after them with this idea that they made too much money and they had too good of health benefits and pensions is absolutely shameful.

And, you know, Scott Walker, he thought that he could divide us.

by talking with his friend Diane Hendricks, you know, in that famous moment where she said, well, Scott, what are we going to do about these unions?

And Scott Walker replied, well, first we're going to use divide and conquer.

We're going to go after the public sector workers.

And then after that, we're going to come after the private sector workers.

Remind everybody who Diane

is.

Diane Hendricks is one of the most wealthy women in the world, really.

And certainly one of the top.

wealthiest people in, um, in the state of Wisconsin, um, she owns a business called, um, the ABC corporation out

of Beloit,

out of Beloit.

And she's

very, very, uh, far right in her politics.

She doesn't want to pay any taxes,

right?

Right.

She wants

to keep all her money.

Yeah.

And she doesn't want anybody that works hard to have the ability to stand up to that kind of power.

Yeah.

And so what the.

What really ended up happening is that he was not able to divide and conquer.

Working people in the state of Wisconsin came together as never before and not only joined together in the state of Wisconsin but workers all across the country and indeed the world came together to say no to Scott Walker that we were not going to stand up stand stand still for this kind of union busting.

Absolutely and I mean we had

Over a hundred thousand people in Madison, you know out there saying look at we have the right to exist.

We have the right to organize it Didn't stop

right governor

Walker with his gerrymandered maps Right.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean the maps were there And the politics were such that we were not able to reverse that law at that time

But we were able to make a stand that this was very important to working people, whether they were in a union or not in a union, that the ability to join together in a union is a fundamental American right that should not be taken away by any governor or any politician.

And we are seeing now that that momentum is going to continue today as we now have finally got rid of these rigged, gerrymandered

maps.

The fact that Governor Walker and the far right were able to attack labor and successfully so, relied virtually 100% on their ability to, with the court's help, create gerrymandered maps where the majority of people never got to weigh in on any issues.

And so we just had a...

far right Republican leadership that wanted, I mean, they were not willing to tax the wealthy.

They wanted to reduce taxes on the wealthy and eliminate anybody's ability to fight.

And so it's that historical moment of why maps are important.

Yeah.

And coming out of that fight back after Act 10, working people decided that we were going to persevere.

We were not going to give up, and we were going to continue to work every which way we could to restore democracy, to restore worker rights, and to restore real fairness and opportunity for people who all they want to do is work hard and have a family and be able to live a good life and a prosperous life and give back to our communities.

Folks, this is Attorney Mark Thompson.

I am here.

with Stephanie Bloomingdale, the head of the AFL-CIO in the state of Wisconsin.

We are talking about how important these new maps are to labor, working people's rights, and frankly, folks, to each of us, whether you work, you know, no matter what you do, to democracy.

We'll be back with more on this very, very important issue.

Welcome back.

This is Attorney Mark Thompson.

This is your Paul Revere show.

This is WAUK 540 AM 101.1 FM.

You know, I'm here with the president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, Stephanie Bloomingdale.

And we're talking about how important these new maps are to labor and democracy.

the opportunities that 2024 and going ahead really, really provide for people.

We talked a lot about Act 10 and how the far right tried to divide and conquer labor, not successfully, but with the gerrymandered maps, we're able to implement it.

That also led to the passage of right to work.

So what is right to work?

There's a lot of folks that just don't know what it means.

Well, I think that's true.

A lot of people don't.

I mean, I remember when the battle was going on back in 2015 and I was in a cab and I was just talking to the guy about right to work.

He said, well, that sounds like a great idea.

Everybody should have the right to work.

So people don't really understand that it's an anti-worker law.

The words are a misnomer that it's really a right to work for less.

right to work without a voice.

Without a voice, without a voice, without a strong union, without many of things.

It's designed, right to work is designed to weaken unions and weaken working people and working their collective voice for action and betterment.

So before...

the far-right Republicans with their gerrymandered maps passed, end quotes, right to work, which is really not, folks, it has nothing to do with whether you're gonna be happy working.

But what did the state law look like before they passed it?

What does it mean for a union member?

It means that unions, which are a group of people that come together to have a voice for themselves and their coworkers.

we're able to have the full ability to bargain with their employer and to have a strong organization.

And as we all know, in order to have strong organizations, it requires funding.

And part of being a union member, as every union member knows, is we have to pay dues.

And we do that because we are able to collectively put together our collective money to have the funds we need to

to better ourselves and our co-workers.

So what right to work does is it allows some people not to be required to pay dues.

So they would enjoy the full benefits of the collective bargaining contract, the full rights of everything that the union has bargained for with the corporation, with the company, but yet not have to pay their fair share.

And so it's very unfair and it is, you know, in some places it really served to weaken the structure for unions, but I do have to report that in general, in most of our places, union people have continued to support their union by paying dues and it did not have the effect that Governor Walker wanted it to with his divide and conquer, but it does restore the ability or right to work.

Restoring or repealing right to work would allow union unions to be able to have everyone pay their fair share

the You know this this idea I Was up just gotta tell this story so I was up deer hunt with my in-laws and One of my in-laws cousins from Kenosha

works hard and his daughter was up and she asked, you know, what are you doing?

I said, I'm a lawyer now, you know, and she shook my hand and she goes, oh my God, your hands are so soft.

And it reminded me because there was a time when I was a steelworker, right?

Nobody ever said that, right?

But I say this because I remember the benefits.

that my eight and a half years working with people and we shared fights together and we fought for safety and the job and we fought for the some of the best contracts in the world at that time the best benefits but it came because we were together paying our dues standing side by side and the I I want to emphasize this

There is such a great benefit when you stand together and this idea that you know somehow corporate America has got inside our heads That we're afraid and you know right to work is one of those things.

It's just it's a it's a law that inhibits intimidates and and tries to Tell people don't get together

Don't chip in your money and don't fight us Right.

Yeah, I mean it exactly and you know when we go back to the fundamental nature of what we're really talking about is Working people coming together to have a better voice a stronger ability to contract to have a contract that delivers good wages good working conditions safety on the job and a better life for our families and

We're not saying we want it all, but we are saying that we want a fair piece of the pie.

And that is the way that we can have a strong communities.

We cannot have a strong society if we ship our jobs all overseas and de-industrialize our communities and also take away the rights of working people to be able to have a good wage and living and be able to reinvest in our communities.

You know, I think it's the other component that you didn't mention because I was a union rep.

So I had a lot of grievances, right?

And I think your ability to sit down with your employer and say, this is wrong.

We need to adjust.

You need to fix this is really, really important and that you can't just fire, walk into some place and say you're fired, right?

This at will doctrine that is in place around the state is absurd.

Right?

I mean, the just cause provision is so important.

The just cause.

And also what you mentioned is we as a union help the companies, help our employers to be successful by looking out for problems that the person that's working on the floor knows before management does.

And so if

We can establish good working relationships, which we do in many, many, many, many cases.

We help these companies to grow stronger for everyone.

Yeah.

Without a doubt.

I mean, the UAW, you know, when they bailed out the, the whole auto industry, the last major collapse, that's an example.

I mean, if the unions hadn't sat down and said, we're going to commit to the industry longterm, where would we be now?

Right?

That's right.

The, uh,

You know, I think The issue when you when you go out there just send this and you know in 10 15 seconds What do you see in terms of people's?

Reluctance or hesitance to jump in that union boat

Well, I think that That a lot of times the the the companies are out there breaking the law and they shouldn't be able to do that

And that that's what would have happened with the pro act had we been able to or when we are able to pass that in at in congress, but A lot of times companies are out there breaking the law and they they should be stopped

Folks this is attorney mark Thompson.

I am with president Stephanie blooming dale of the wisconsin AFL CIO talking about the importance of unions to democracy

Hello, Wisconsin.

This is your Paul Revere show.

This is attorney Mark Thompson.

I am honored and privileged to have the Wisconsin AFL-CIO president, Stephanie Bloomingdale with me today.

And, you know, we have these new maps and there is hope for labor.

There's hope for democracy in our great state.

And we've touched on, you know, Act 10, right to work.

Another major issue was the far right and former Governor Walker, they repealed the prevailing wage law, right?

So what is the prevailing wage law?

What happened and why do we want to get back to it?

Right, and I might also add that with the right to work, you know, Governor Walker had made promises to people saying that he was not going to

Institute right to work.

And you know what?

He did anyway.

And so he came after with right to work or so-called right to work.

And then he also took away our right to have a prevailing wage.

And prevailing wage is something that was used on construction projects across the state.

So if there was a state construction project or a municipality construction project, they were required to pay

the prevailing wage for building trades workers.

And so they would have to look at all of the wages across the state and make a chart and make sure that they were prevailing so that they couldn't undercut the workers and that they couldn't undercut the working people in one part of the state and then continue a calamitous tumbling to the bottom.

And so that is what prevailing wage is.

And Scott Walker and his cronies came in and banned that ability for construction workers to be assured of a prevailing wage on projects that were done by municipalities or the state.

So we have new maps.

They're going to get to the Wisconsin Elections Commission pretty soon.

People will be out there.

running for office in these new maps will have primaries for the first time.

Actually, you know, we probably will even see some Democrats running against each other for who's got the best idea, right?

I mean, just unheard of.

Michigan faced a lot of the same issues that labor in Wisconsin did, right?

So what does Michigan, what happened in Michigan, and how does that create an example for labor in Wisconsin to move forward?

Well, it really shows us a path forward here because like Wisconsin in Michigan, there then Governor Rick Snyder and the legislature in 2012, they enacted this so-called right to work.

And, you know, Michigan is a very pro-union state.

Historically.

And to have that happen in Michigan and Wisconsin and other states across the country was really a blow to working people.

But in Michigan, they were able to, what happened is that their state was very gerrymandered as well.

And so in 2018, they had a ballot initiative that changed the way Michigan drew its legislative maps.

And they instituted, they took it away from the legislators to make those maps and they instituted the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.

And that measure required a 13 member panel and they instituted partisan fairness.

And so when they did that, they were able to institute new maps, pro-working candidates ran for election, they were able to win.

a trifecta in Michigan, the governor and the assembly and the Senate.

And one of the first things that they did, because we know that the Michigan AFL-CIO and labor unions throughout Michigan were part of this process of making sure that pro-worker candidates were elected to office.

And they pushed very hard and they really demanded that

right to work would be one of the first items on the agenda.

So as soon as this new legislature got in, they were able to repeal the so-called right to work.

They were able to restore prevailing wages, project labor agreements, extending collective bargaining rights to educational workers in schools.

And so they were able to do that.

And that really provides inspiration to us in Wisconsin about how they took that ability to restore worker rights, uh, step by step, right, right to the place of, of restore, of repealing right to work and restoring those other, other, um, important protections.

You know, I think, I think what several things that you touched on are really, really important.

You know, Michigan, their laws set up differently than Wisconsin.

They had under their system, they had the right to a ballot initiative, which, which meant right.

The majority in the state could say, look, we do not like these gerrymandered maps.

Now, Wisconsin, we didn't have, we don't have the ballot initiative.

So in Wisconsin, we actually had to go out and win enough seats on the Wisconsin Supreme court.

to say, look, we're going to have constitutional maps, not these unconstitutional gerrymandered maps that only favor the very, very wealthy, very, very powerful at the expense of everybody else.

And, you know, I think we saw that when Justice Proto-Away, Proto-Away was one, but I think it was 11 points, right?

11 points.

I mean,

That was like a shout out of everybody across the state, you know, working people, middle-class folks.

I mean, you had much more than just working people.

There were a lot of business folks, right, that came out and said, we want fairness.

And that's a big, big number.

That's a big number in Wisconsin.

11 points.

That's a landslide.

Yeah.

You know, when you talk about the last elections when.

the difference between, between President Biden and the, you know, the, the manga guy was, you know, 20,000 votes, right?

Yeah.

20,500 votes.

Approximately.

Yeah.

I wasn't going to be so specific, but, you know, but, but I think it tells us that momentum people in this state are like tired to just like the folks in Michigan of being bullied all the time.

And so.

in this news, as it's structured with these new maps, is labor out there talking to all sorts of folks and whoever's running that right to work, the abolition of Act 10, you know, that we need to get the prevailing wage.

Is that on the agenda?

That absolutely is on the agenda.

And we want to make it loud and clear that that is our expectation, that we want to

Restore these these rights to working people and we don't want it to be put on the back burner We want it to be like Michigan where it is first up on the agenda when we are able to to secure those Reconstitution of our rights and you know, I was just on the phone with minority leader Greta Neubauer just before I came to the show and to your showmark and you know, she really made a point that

They are making sure that all of their candidates, they have strong candidates, that they understand the importance of supporting labor and working people and committing to repealing right to work and restoring collective bargaining rights and restoring prevailing wage and fighting for important pieces of legislation for working people.

So that certainly will be something that we will continue to push

Um, and, uh, you know, the first step is, uh, this election that's coming up this year in 2024.

Big time, big time, you know, the, it's good to hear that, uh, the Dems are out there actively saying we are going to go back to a people's agenda, right?

Across the board.

Uh, I think that's crucial.

It's hopeful.

When you're traveling around the state talking to folks, how do they see this year?

How do they see playing this out this year?

Well, certainly everyone is very aware that Wisconsin is going to be a pivotal state in the nation for our election.

you know, throughout the state and indeed people, really people from other states, they like to talk to me when I'm traveling and they say, Stephanie, do you understand that Wisconsin is going to be really important in this next election?

And I said, really, I heard that.

But we do understand the weight that is on our shoulders and we're ready to carry it forward and do our bed, do our responsibility.

We need to elect, reelect Joe Biden.

And he has done enormous things for working people in terms of the infrastructure projects and the legislation that he's put forth.

And we need to make sure that we elect, reelect Joe Biden.

And we also need to make sure that we reelect Senator Tammy Baldwin.

And she's always had our backs in terms of working people.

restoring manufacturing and buying Wisconsin policies.

So we've got that, and then we have this tremendous opportunity to pick up additional seats in the Wisconsin State Assembly.

And if we get a good margin, if we were able to win with Tony Evers' numbers that he won in 2022, we would be able to

possibly get to 53 members in the state assembly.

So that would be a very, very good year for us.

If we come in with sort of the numbers that we had that you talked about before in the 2020 election, we would just be hovering right around, right around half.

So there is an opportunity to get to a majority in the state assembly, in the state Senate.

It may take another session in order to get to that majority, but certainly it's a step in the right direction.

You know, before we get into in terms of more of what are the opportunities, have you seen any change from any Republicans in terms of how they're talking to labor around the state with the new maps?

has anybody on that side blinked at all?

I think that they're going to try to carry on and carry on just the way in which they have been carrying on, which is to put legislation forward that really is shocking, like the bill to take away child labor permits for 14 and 15-year-old kids.

So that means that they voted

to take away parental rights, to take away the right of mom and dad to do a simple sign-off on their kids going to work so that they can understand what those hours of work are, what kinds of work the kids about to do, and to have some say so.

So they voted for things like that.

They're voting for a bill to take away the employee status for gig workers.

Now, this is a major new field.

out there that really the giant employers want us to get rid of our employee status altogether and want us to just be all gig workers.

If they could have their way, that's what they would like.

And there was a bill that went forward and these legislators continue to support that.

They continue to support bills like this universal or reciprocal licensing, which would allow

anyone with a license or a credential anywhere in the country to do the same work here in Wisconsin.

Folks, you're listening to the president of the Wisconsin EVIL CIO, Stephanie Bloomingdale, talking about the opportunities we all have with these new maps.