UWM noontime rally
State budget debate: Saturday
Budget battle 2/23
An hour after the state Capitol was officially closed at 4 p.m. Sunday, several hundred protesters remained on the first floor and vowed to continue their vigil against Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill.
Police stood by and watched as demonstrators chanted and sang, with some protesters providing an impromptu drum concert.
Protesters have said they were willing to face what they termed “peaceful arrests” as they tried to maintain their place inside the building.
“We delivered a message to Governor Walker. We’ll continue to be here to kill this bill,” said Peter Rickman, 28, of Neenah.
“This feels like it’s about shutting down the people’s demonstration,” Rabbi Renee Bauer, said in calling for demonstrations to continue.
The statehouse occupation began Feb. 15 when hundreds of people lined up to provide testimony to the Joint Finance Committee.
At around 3 a.m. Feb. 16, the committee stopped taking testimony but Democrats in the Legislature immediately started holding an informal listening session that went around the clock for days.
Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney said authorities were trying to work labor leaders to get people out of the building.
“There is no plan to become confrontational,” he said. “We haven’t seen that in over 40 years.
Police stood by and watched as demonstrators chanted and sang, with some protesters providing an impromptu drum concert.
Protesters have said they were willing to face what they termed “peaceful arrests” as they tried to maintain their place inside the building.
“We delivered a message to Governor Walker. We’ll continue to be here to kill this bill,” said Peter Rickman, 28, of Neenah.
“This feels like it’s about shutting down the people’s demonstration,” Rabbi Renee Bauer, said in calling for demonstrations to continue.
The statehouse occupation began Feb. 15 when hundreds of people lined up to provide testimony to the Joint Finance Committee.
At around 3 a.m. Feb. 16, the committee stopped taking testimony but Democrats in the Legislature immediately started holding an informal listening session that went around the clock for days.
Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney said authorities were trying to work labor leaders to get people out of the building.
“There is no plan to become confrontational,” he said. “We haven’t seen that in over 40 years.
Alex Hanna, 25, a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the protesters "feel strongly about this issue of worker rights."
"Some people will walk out, (when the building is closed)," Hanna said. "Some will be carried out."
Hanna said closing the building "was a politically-motivated decision."
Protesters have slept over in the Capitol since Feb. 15, in opposition to Gov. Walker's budget-repair bill.
Gwen Kelly, 30, a UW-Madison student, said she planned to "respectfully refuse" an order to leave the building.
"Police have been with us, polite and kind," she said. "They don't want to make this an unpleasant event and neither do I."
Meanwhile, on NBC's "Meet the Press," Gov. Scott Walker said Sunday that the quick passage of local union contracts around in the state in recent weeks shows public workers aren't committed to paying more for their retirement and health care.
"We've seen union local after union local … rush through contracts that had no pension contributions," Walker said.
Walker is seeking to have most state, local and school employees to pay half their pension costs - 5.8% of pay for state workers - and at least 12% of their health care costs. The plan is part of a sweeping budget-repair bill that also takes away most collective bargaining rights for all public workers except police, firefighters and state troopers.
Public workers have protested in the Capitol for two weeks, saying they could accept the financial concessions but not the loss of the bulk of their collective bargaining rights. Walker questioned their sincerity on accepting concessions in his appearance on "Meet the Press" because of local deals officials are trying to pass before the bill becomes law.
The changes Walker is seeking would take effect for communities based on when any labor contracts they have expire.
Work on the bill has been stalled because all 14 Democratic state senators have denied the majority a quorum since Feb. 17 by leaving the state. As he has every day since they left, Walker demanded Sunday that they quickly return and said if the bill doesn't pass by Tuesday he will be forced to layoff state workers.
"We're going to be forced to make layoffs, which to me is unacceptable," Walker said.
He insisted taking away most collective bargaining rights is necessary because he said it would give local governments a chance to save money in a host of ways. That will be necessary because the two-year budget he unveils Tuesday will include nearly $1.5 billion in cuts to schools and local governments, he said.
On "Upfront with Mike Gousha" that was broadcast Sunday morning on WISN-TV (Channel 12), Walker said his proposed budget would include more than $1 billion in funding cuts for public schools and local governments.
"More than a billion dollars, most of which is in the schools," the Republican governor said during the interview.
But Walker also said that the public-sector benefit concessions included in his budget-repair bill would more than compensate for those funding reductions. That bill remains stalled in the Legislature.
Gousha asked what the impact of the budget cuts would be on governmental bodies that already have agreements in place for the coming fiscal year that don't include the concessions. Milwaukee Public Schools has a four-year contract with its teachers that doesn't expire until 2013. The agreement was ratified last year before Walker came into office.
"It's the reason why we put the warning signs out early on," said Walker, who also criticized local governing bodies that have rushed through contracts in the last couple of weeks. "That was a really poor choice."
He recommended that entities that have contracts already in place seek to reopen and modify the agreements with their employee unions to get concessions that could avoid layoffs.
But, according to an analysis of the governor's budget-repair bill by the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, controversial provisions that strip most public-sector union's of their bargaining rights go into effect when an existing collective bargaining agreement expires or is extended, modified or renewed. That might make local unions reluctant to reopen their agreements, regardless of the possibility of layoffs, if the bill becomes law.
Rumors about what the governor would include in his 2011-'13 proposed budget have swirled around the Capitol over the last two weeks, amid continued protests over the budget-repair bill.
Education groups have warned their members that the governor's budget could include as much as a $900 million reduction in general school aid, which is the largest pool of money distributed by the state for K-12 education. They also have said the governor could recommend a decrease in state-imposed revenue caps of up to $500 per child.
Gousha asked Walker if the $900 million number was true.
"Yeah," Walker said. "Overall, there will be over a billion dollars cut when it comes to schools, local governments across the board."
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