In Wisconsin, the governor wants to gut
collective-bargaining rights for public employees. Not to be
outdone, the governor of Indiana is pushing two bills that would end
bargaining not just for public employees but also for the private
sector on construction projects (House Bills 1585 and 1216). In
Ohio, Senate Bill 5 would end collective bargaining for state
employees and take the heart out of bargaining for local government
workers.
The governors and the politicians supporting these bills
must be exposed for what they are doing. But even more, they should
be exposed for who they are serving. It is clear that they are
serving the interests of the rich and powerful who have always wanted
a world where workers have no rights. Many big-business groups and
corporations are actively pushing this agenda. But pulling back the
curtains on the process reveals that among those pushing the hardest
are some of the most reactionary, super-wealthy corporate interests.
When the president of Americans for Prosperity spoke at the Feb.
19 Tea Party rally in Madison Wis., he was representing more than his
tiny group. His group was founded by and is funded by some of the
richest men in the world, the Koch brothers. These billionaires,
Charles and David Koch, own Koch Industries, the second-largest
privately held company in the United States. It employs 70,000 people
in 60 countries.
Each of them is worth over $17 billion and they
are tied as the fifth richest men in the United States. Their wealth
is almost beyond comprehension, unless of course you are one of the
workers whose low-paid labor has created the wealth that the Koch
brothers have taken. Every cent of the wealth in the bank accounts of
the Koch brothers was created by workers. Most of their holdings are
in the oil industry, but many are in paper, pharmaceuticals and
countless other areas.
Koch Industries has a pipeline that
crosses Wisconsin and one of the companies they own, Georgia Pacific,
has six facilities in the state. Another subsidiary, C. Reiss Coal
Company, has operations in four more sites. They employ about 3,000
people in the state.
In Dec. 2009, Georgia Pacific announced that
they were laying off 25 percent of their workforce in Green Bay. The
company receives tax breaks for bringing in new machinery to replace
the workers who had given years of their labor to the company.
The
Koch brothers were among the largest contributors to Gov. Walker’s
2010 campaign and they contributed to 16 other key Republicans in the
state legislature. They are using their wealth, power and front
groups like Americans for Prosperity to get politicians to gut
collective bargaining and cut essential Wisconsin health care
programs while forcing public employees to pay much more for health
insurance and pensions.
Their purpose is not just to attack
public employees in Wisconsin, nor is it just to create the political
environment to for cutting the wages of other workers, including
their own employees. Their purpose is much larger. On their immediate
agenda are states of Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania where they are
pushing the same type of legislation. But in the longer range they
want to push back rights in every area for all poor and working
people—rights that were won long ago.
Not
just the Koch brothers
The Koch brothers are the sons of Fred
Koch, one of the founders in 1958 of the racist, anti-worker John
Birch Society. Other founders included Harry Bradley, who owned the
Allen-Bradley company in Wisconsin and who fought unions, and candy
manufacturer Robert Welch.
The Bradley Foundation is the organ of
the right-wing Bradley family empire. The CEO of the Bradley
Foundation, Michele Grebe, chaired Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s campaign
and headed up his transition team. It has been reported that between
2005 and 2009, the Bradley Foundation gave nearly $200,000 to
Americans for Prosperity (also called Fight Back Wisconsin), a
Koch-funded group. They also fund the Wisconsin Policy Research
Institute that runs ads supporting Gov. Walker’s fight against
unions.
The Bradley Foundation money supported
the racist Bell Curve book, and funded campaigns against welfare
rights. It has also pushed privatization.
Privatization
plan
Buried in Walker’s bill is a
provision that says, “Department may sell any state owned heating,
cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for
the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of
bids, for any amount.” This is a push to sell off state
assets, to give them to for-profit companies who can then charge the
highest price while paying their workers the least. It is a part of
the Koch and Bradley plan. Coincidently Koch is in the energy
business.
Politics
at the national level
On Jan. 5, 2011, new Republican
legislators walked into the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and met with
key people. David Koch was one of them. The Koch brothers are a
political force on the national scene. They were the biggest
contributors to the campaigns of members of that House Energy and
Commerce Committee that regulates some of the main industries in
which they are involved. Nine of the 12 new Republicans on that
House Committee signed an Americans for Prosperity pledge to oppose
regulation of greenhouse gases. The fact that the Koch Industries has
been charged with many violations of environmental laws did not
bother them at all.
But it is not only the Republicans who
follow the Koch directions. The Clinton administration dropped all 97
counts of covering up evidence of a 91-metric-ton benzene spill in
Texas. Prior to that, the Justice Department had pursued fines of
$350 million for endangering the public and violating the law.
Making
a killing off of misery
Koch Industries has a significant
financial stake in derivatives as do other wealthy people. The
top 10 hedge fund managers in the United States collectively made
$18.7 billion in 2009. That is an average of over $1.8 billion for
each of them for only one year’s “work.” The highest-paid
person was David Tepper of Appalossa Management. He brought home $4
billion in 2009. How did he do it? When people were losing their
homes and banks were going under, he bought bank stock on the cheap,
and then later cashed in after taxpayers bailed out the banks. His
company made $7 billion that year and he made $4 billion.
The
Koch brothers and others are blaming the financial crisis on public
employees—their wages, benefits and collective-bargaining rights.
In fact, the crisis faced by the states and local governments is
rooted in a system that puts bond ratings by banks and paying
interest on loans above the needs of the community. It is a
system that puts profits before people.
The Koch- and Bradley-funded group
Americans for Prosperity has operations running in Ohio and Indiana.
They have the backing of the big-moneyed interests.
But as the thousands of focused,
energized people in Madison, Indianapolis and Columbus have shown,
the rising power of the people has the ability to stop this
right-wing movement.
