Paul Soglin: Waxing America

There Will Be Picketing at the Office of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC)

There will be an informational picket at WMC headquarters, 501 E. Washington Avenue, Wednesday morning from 8:00am until 10:30am to coincide with their hosting a meeting designed to raise money to influence the Supreme Court race.

WMC is certainly the most influential lobbying organization in our state. It claims over 4,000 member businesses—and they make the biggest contributions, indirectly, to politicians’ campaigns through their issue ads they purchase at election time.

WMC, through its Issues Committee, has played a prominent role in a number of state-wide elections including the last campaigns for Governor, Attorney General, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court.  It does this by soliciting funds and then purchasing issues ads which do not support a specific candidate but which attack the candidate WMC opposes.

While WMC does not have to reveal its contributors, television stations are required to make public ad purchases. Last July the Democracy Campaign estimated that WMC spent $2.2 million on television and other advertising in an effort to defeat Annette Ziegler’s opponent in the Supreme Court race. (The Capital Times, July 24, 2007). Ziegler was subsequently found to have ruled in cases where she had a conflict of interest and now faces discipline from her colleagues on the Supreme Court.

Today WMC is hosting a seminar designed to enlist opposition to the candidacy of Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler.  It is estimated that WMC will attempt to raise between $2 and $4 million in an effort to defeat the distinguished jurist, Justice Butler. Those picketing today are making it clear that the people’s Wisconsin Supreme Court is not for sale.

Members of labor and professional organizations are opposed to these efforts. We do not have the legal means to find out which WMC members fund these attack ads. But we do have access to the WMC board of directors and can identify the people who are responsible for the decisions to raise the money and to buy the advertising.

We cannot name the individuals and corporations that contribute to the WMC Issues fund; that information is not available to the public. Only WMC can tell you who contributes to their political advertising. But today we identify just a handful of the companies that are represented on the WMC board.  They include Ariens Company, The Greenheck Fan Corporation, Marshall & Ilsley Corporation, InSinkErator Division, and The Manitowoc Company, Inc.

The board members from these companies have the power to either stop the ads or at least reveal who pays for them. If you want to see who makes up the entire WMC board simply look at their website.

The specific companies named were selected for one reason. They either refused or ignored my request to meet for the purpose of discussing these issues. Some of the companies will deflect their participation by saying they do not contribute money to the WMC Issues Committee and they do not pay for the ads. That may be true but it misses the point. 

Portions of the money may come from out of state corporate giants, or not. But WMC controls the issue ads.

Why Not Free Rent for All Public Employees?

Today the Wisconsin State Journal published an editorial, Let cops live free on Allied suggesting that the public benefits of encouraging police officers to live 'rent free' in high crime areas like Madison's Allied Drive were worth the cost:

Just one or two cops living in this high-crime area on the city's Southwest Side could act as a deterrent and add to the mix of residents with different backgrounds and incomes.

The premise is sound, and the logic goes far beyond Allied Drive, police officers, and crime. The principle is known as residency. There was a time when all of the union contracts covering city of Madison employees and most other municipal workers in Wisconsin required that local employees live in the community they served.

It was one of the few areas where I parted ways with my friends in the public employee unions. It should be understood that while everyone has a right to live where they please, there is no right to a public job. As a condition of employment, it was required that you live in the city. The benefits were obvious:

• The city pays your check; you should live with the people who hired you and spend that money you earned locally.
• The heart of the city is the middle class and there is no one more 'middle class' than public employees.
• In an emergency, the employee is close to work, whether it be a fire, a flood or a water main break.
• The presence of the middle class, particularly pubic safety employees such as firefighters and police officers, stabilized communities. As the article noted: "Many neighborhood residents, tired of drug-dealing and violent crime on Allied Drive, would undoubtedly welcome such neighbors."

The end of Madison residency requirements came after the bus drivers strike in 1980. At that time all city employees had a residency requirement and the bus drivers were not city employees - they were technically employees of a management company. As part of the new contract settlement, the Skornicka administration made them city employees.

The police union contract had a "me too" provision. If any other city employees were allowed to live outside the city, so could the police. With the bus drivers under a city contract, the police officers could now move out of the city.  And they did.

Over the years, residency disappeared from one contract after another.  My guess is that today less than half of all city employees live in the city of Madison.

Keeping residency was not made any easier as state legislators offered bills to outlaw municipal residency requirements. That was too bad. Last I looked there were some financial incentives for employees to remain in the city. In any case, the matter is subject to bargaining.

Airlines Plot Against Customers - Passengers Joyfully Share Airport Comforts

Passengers may grumble but they know that flight cancellations are the best outcome with conditions are not safe for air travel. Whether it is mechanical problems or inclement weather, it is best to stay on the ground.

That said, it is clear that the airlines are largely responsible for this year's major delays and cancellations. In the rush to show profits the airlines took two flagrant steps which compound the problems created by weather and a congested system.

The first was to lay off a significant number of pilots and other crew members. Now when there are problems, there are not a sufficient number of pilots to fly equipment that is in position.

Then there are the mechanical problems and the availability of equipment. As another storm socks Denver, United airlines is flying planes to other airports so they will "Be in position" for weekend travel. Ten years ago, United had enough equipment so the airplanes could hang in Denver with the passengers. Now United skips town, leaving the passengers stranded.

Northwest Airlines already admitted that it was inadequately staffed.

The FAA may be a government agency, but the number of planes, pilots, and crew are industry decisions. Another example of better service to you through government deregulation.

Menatime, Ma, Pa and the kids are sleeping on the floor in the baggage area, dining at the fastfood resturant near gate B24, and shoplifting $2.78 candybars since they ran out of cash long ago.

Airlines Outsourcing Maintenance, Call Centers and Your Safety

A few weeks ago I had another battle with a United States airline. I made two calls to check on an existing reservation and accomplished nothing in over ninety minutes except to discover I was speaking to people in the Philippines who knew less about airline travel and airline management than me.

Whether buying automobiles, checking on my health, or making travel plans, I find it useful to work with people who know more than me -not a very high standard.

Finally I cheated.  Years ago I was a frequent flyer so I had the special phone number they can use. In five minutes I spoke to someone in Chicago and resolved the matter.

That prompted me to see just what was the airline outsourcing situation. I read that the Teamsters Union notified passengers that United Airlines is outsourcing heavy maintenance on equipment that goes to China. In fact,In the Beijing repair station, only five of 2,179 mechanics are certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Forbes Magazine recently reported that AAR Corp is a great investment. They are providing maintenance and repair services to US airlines at a reduced cost.  The article makes no mention about the quality of the work. The article tells me that AAR stock is good for my portfolio but it does not mention if it is good for my health.

Probably the most distressing is U.S. News & World Report, which published on December 20, 2007 that, The Transportation Department IGs (Inspector Generals), for example, have revealed potential safety risks posed by the airlines' outsourcing of maintenance work.

The story does not provide any more detailed information on the nature of those safety risks.

The Wall Street Journal was not shy to report that the failure of Boeing to complete its delivery schedule of the new Dreamliner,the Boeing 787, is a failure on the part of suppliers. The headline: Layers of Outsourcing Slow 787 Production;'Hostage to Suppliers'

Boeing figured it could save $10 Billion by outsourcing the supplies.

Today, the Dreamliner is at least six months late, and the goal of delivering 109 planes by the end of 2009 is threatened...Boeing said in September that it had set aside nearly $2 billion in additional research-and-development money for increasing costs associated with the delays.

That does not include future problems, delivery penalties, and the waste in fuel as the more efficient 787 goes into service two to three years late.

Disclosure: I am compensated by more than one labor union opposed to outsourcing. And I have a bazillion friends who don't pay me a damn thing that are just as vehemently opposed to outsourcing.

Cap Times: Veto "Video Competition" Bill and Naming Names

The Capital Times today called for the Governor to veto the "video competition" bill the Wisconsin Senate passed Thursday:

...Doyle should not hesitate to veto this corrupt legislation.

...If enacted, the quality of cable service in Wisconsin will
decline.  Cable bills will go up.

Rural areas and inner cities will be denied access to technological advances. The digital divide will grow wider.

And corporations will know that if they spread campaign money and lobbying influence around in the right way, they can game the system in Wisconsin.

The Cap Times also named names:

Madison-area state senators Fred Risser, Jon Erpenbach and Mark Miller all voted against the industry-promoted cable-television re-regulation bill. That put them on the losing end of the 23-9 vote to approve the measure.

Special credit goes to Monona Democrat Miller for his determined efforts to amend the measure.

Joining Risser, Erpenbach and Miller in voting to protect the rights of cable consumers was former Senate Majority Leader Judy Robson, D-Beloit.

On the side of the telecommunications conglomerates that want to create broad monopolies so that they can jack up prices while cutting the quality of service was new Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Schofield. Democrats joining him were Roger Breske of Eland, Spencer Coggs of Milwaukee, Dave Hansen of Green Bay, John Lehman of Racine, Jeff Plale of South Milwaukee, Jim Sullivan of Wauwatosa, Lena Taylor of Milwaukee and Robert Wirch of Kenosha. They all ought to hang their heads in shame.

Mike McCabe has the list of how much AT&T money each Democratic Senator took.

The Cap Times missed naming the few other Democrats who ought to be commended as voting against this mess: Senators Tim Carpenter, Pat Kreitlow, Julie Lassa, Robert Jauch, and Kathleen Vinehout.

Senators Jauch and Vinehout spent a lot of energy pointing out that their rural constituents would get screwed because wired video competition would never reach them and the current cable providers would then be unregulated. Their amendments all failed. The cable operators and their lobbyists sitting near me in the gallery (largely) kept their glee muffled.

Vinehout also defended the PEG interests with energy and heart.  She and her staff gained a lot of respect all through this process.

I've also new respect for Senators Risser and Miller, who both showed real leadership on this bill for many months.

For the record, I'm  proud of all of our local legislators for their votes on this one. Representatives Mark Pocan and Gary Hebl and their staffs worked especially hard for consumers, local governments, and PEG channels.

- Barry Orton

Wisconsin Senate Passes "Video Competition" Bill; Defeats Amendments To Make It More Consumer-Friendly

I just consumed another entire day watching the "Video Competition" bill progress towards becoming law in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Senate debated and defeated a long series of amendments that would make the bill more consumer-friendly, more responsive to rural needs, more supportive of local PEG channels, more limiting in its terms and conditions and less of a giveaway to the cable and phone companies, and more responsive to the future importance of broadband infrastructure to our economy.  Instead, the bill passed almost entirely as introduced in the Senate, and will need minimum adjusting to conform to the Assembly's version.  It's a triumph for Senator Jeff Plale (D- Milwaukee), the chief Senate sponsor, and newly elected Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Weston), who made passage his first priority.

Recognition for their efforts to amend and improve a bad bill must go to Senators Mark Miller (D-Monona), Kathleen Vinhout (D-Alma), and Judy Robson (D-Beloit), who worked hard to convince their colleagues that they were being sold a bill of goods. Almost all the Republicans voted as a bloc against their amendments, as did several Democrats.  It was a depressing process to witness, especially seeing many cable and phone company staffers and lobbyists watching their dollars at work.

Senate President Fred Risser (D-Madison) patiently and fairly presided over the session, and should be thanked for his many efforts to improve the bill in the last few months.

Senator Mike Ellis (R-Neenah) kept straying off the GOP reservation, as he is wont to do.  He kept pointing out the contradictions between what Sen. Plale was saying the bill would do, and the bill's actual language. At one point he said "Senator Decker is laughing all the way to I better not say where..." as Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) glared at him.

Special mention and a medal should go to Mary Cardona, head of the Wisconsin Association of PEG Channels, who pulled off a lobbying loaves and fishes act with meager resources and a real grass-roots coalition.  Most of the PEG-related improvements from the original bill and many of the other improvements resulted from her efforts, which included a great last-minute op-ed piece in the Capital Times:

AT&T wants a license to turn a quick buck and is about to get it.

Cable wants to extract greater profits from Wisconsin by getting rid of community investment and is about to get it.

Residents should be hopping mad.

- Barry Orton

Americans For Prosperity: Out With A Whimper

Frankly,it was like listening to a child whine. And I am not talking just about the shrill sound. It is also the lack of content.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) held their rally at the Wisconsin State Capital on Wednesday and proved once again that they have marginalized themselves into irrelevancy. The only ones still listening to them are the Wisconsin Assembly (and Senate) Republicans, and they will be dispersed and defeated in another year.

The challenge is for the Wisconsin business community. There is not one responsible entrepreneur who would run a company the way these folks from AFP tackle the complicated problems of governance.

Their world is limited to a primeval notion that spending less money is good and taxes are bad. Think about that. Imagine a business that thought that it could grow and compete by only looking at limiting its expenditures.

• M&I Bank would never invest in software to make it a leader in financial services.
• Wisconsin utilities would never invest in greater capacity to produce and transmit safe and efficient power so that their customers could prosper and they could make more money.
• The successful graphics industry in Wisconsin would not be expanding if it were not for entrepreneurs who committed to spending more money, even borrowing to invest in plants. And then they paid some higher than normal salaries to attract the best and the brightest so they could best the competition.
• The Milwaukee Brewers invested in young talent, who spent years in the minors producing no income for the team, and now they fill their ball park.
• Meantime, Wisconsin's roads, our police, firefighters, corrections officers and public health nurses who protect us, building inspectors who ensure we live and work in safe places, environmental officers who work to keep our most valuable assets, our natural resources safe, teachers who educate our children, all contribute to this prosperity.

UW Faculty Need to Unionize; March on Capitol

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has it right:

State employees do it. Teachers do it. Even cops who have beats do it. "It" is collective bargaining, negotiating with employers with the power of numbers behind them.

The state budget conference committee is considering a proposal that would extend this right to University of Wisconsin faculty and academic staff...

Having granted even police officers and firefighters the right to organize, it cannot reasonably be denied to UW faculty and academic staff, groups that include far more folks than tenured professors in any case.

If you go in the Capitol on any weekday in this no-budget season, you'll see a group of public employees circling inside the dome.  They are members of AFSCME and the AFT, wearing their union T-shirts and carrying signs.  The UW faculty should be there also, and our representatives should be working the offices and hearing rooms.  If only it were legal.

- Barry Orton

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) Survey Missing

Each year WMC conducts a survey of its members. Last year we analyzed the survey WMC Membership Survey An Eyeopener: Outright Liars which was linked here   WMC Survey 2006:

WMC has reached new heights (or is that depths?) in disingenuous press releases. With their own survey in tow showing that their business members rank taxes at the bottom, they publish the document with an introduction that is simply false.

This past month I waited for the 2007 WMC survey. While links to previous years' surveys are here, all WMC reveals about this year's survey is a press release on May 1, 2007, Wisconsin Manufacturers Confident About Economy .

Unable to examine the survey to provide you with the usual sound analysis and insight you expect from Waxingamerica, the best I can do is provide excerpts from their press release along with my pithy comments:

• Wisconsin manufacturers are expressing confidence in the state’s economy . Pithy comment: After years of bashing the Doyle Administration, we finally get a shred of honesty from an organization that delights in attacking hard working people who are making the economy better for everyone, not just a few.
• WMC conducted the online survey of 400 manufacturing CEOs from among its 4,000 members to celebrate May is Manufacturing Month, with 68 completing the survey at www.wmc.org. Pithy comment:  68 out of 4,000 members participated in this survey.  That represents less than two percent of their membership and certainly less than 1% of all Wisconsin's employers. Maybe we ought not to take this survey so seriously.
• Over 55 percent report involvement in education and training partnerships in their communities. Pithy comment: I hope that includes supporting both worker training and development as well as public education.

Wal-Mart: Is The World Ending?

Wal-mart's first week Christmas sales were as welcome as a Borat arrival in Kazakhstan.The retailer is now down 18% over five years while all of the major indexes, the Dow, S&P 500, and the NASDAQ are up over 20%.

In the November 28, 2006 New York Magazine, Attention, Wal-Mart Shoppers James J. Cramer, co-founder of TheStreet.com writes:

Despite the dismal financial performance, which has produced a horridly underperforming stock that has flatlined for seven years now, Wal-Mart’s management is in total denial...

What’s ailing Wal-Mart? People don’t mind shopping at a down-market, politically incorrect store, if the prices are low enough. That was always Wal-Mart’s game. But now the other guys have figured it out. A number of Wal-Mart’s competitors now offer similarly low prices and a better shopping experience. Take Target. Wal-Mart’s sloppy aisles, dowdy clothing, and junky presentation have all the charm of GUM, the grim old monopolistic chain of the former Soviet Union. Target, meanwhile, is a joy. And its in-house merchandise, the key to its bountiful profit margins, rivals the stuff you can find in much more expensive stores—at price points that still make you feel like you’re getting the deal of the century. We live in an era when consumers, more than ever, want to feel rich. Wal-Mart may still be competitive on the price front, but it’s losing the quality game. In the most recent quarter, same-store sales for Target grew 4.6 percent, compared with 1.5 percent for Wal-Mart.

This raises the critical issue:   there may be a saturation point for discount sales in this country.  As Target, some governments, Nordstroms', health care providers, and even the food cart vendors know,  there is a point where consumers demand service.

That service does not have to be exquisite, just commensurate with the product and the price. I don't need much service for finding cat food, kitty litter, water softener salt, and soda. When it comes to electronics, tools, and garden supplies, an informed, intelligent sales person (or is that associate) is required.

Funny that Cramer mentions GUM. While two decades ago we ridiculed the ineptness of Soviet enterprises, we only need to look at the nearest airplane to see America come to grips with ineptness and bad service:

• Flying in an airplane with a family these days reminds us of our ancestors' passage in steerage to these bountiful shores.
• American-made automobiles rival the Yugo, not the best of German or Japanese engineering.
• I had fresh chicken last week.  I forgot how it tasted.
• My life insurance company, AGI, screwed up my payments for the third time in ten years and had the nerve to blame it on me.*
• More and more shopping experiences give the consumer the impression that they should be thankful that they get to 'work' for the retailer and are allowed to purchase the product.

Unions may have their day yet.

*That is fodder for an entire post.