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59. Republican Sen. Stephan *ass says unions are a ‘Credible Threat’ Editorial-NYTimes

@WisIdea: Republican Sen. Stephan Nass says unions are a ‘Credible Threat’ Editorial-NYTimes http://nyti.ms/17ZkxMJ #wipolitics #p2



NYTimes Ediitorial: @GOP #Wisconsin Sen. Stephan Nass says unions are a ‘Credible Threat’ http://nyti.ms/17ZkxMJ #wipolitics #p2 #wiunion
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What’s a ‘Credible Threat’ in Wisconsin? Unions.

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/?module=BlogMain&action=Click&region=Header&pgtype=Blogs&version=Blog%20Post

By Teresa Tritch
February 25, 2015 5:51 pm



A crowd outside the Wisconsin State Capitol.Credit Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal, via Associated Press


What’s a ‘Credible Threat’ in Wisconsin? Unions.

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/?module=BlogMain&action=Click&region=Header&pgtype=Blogs&version=Blog%20Post


On Tuesday evening, a Republican committee chairman in the Wisconsin state senate, Stephen Nass, cut short a hearing on an anti-union bill, citing a “credible threat” that union members were about to disrupt the proceedings.

Credible threat? That’s the phrase used in terrorist warnings. But the only union members in Madison were the estimated 1,800 to 2,000 workers, many of them wearing hard hats and heavy coats, who’d gathered peacefully in and around the Capitol during the day to oppose the bill. They believe it’s an attack on working families designed to weaken organized labor – which it is.

So who was credibly threatening whom?....................

.....Mr. Nass later said he didn’t want protestors to disrupt the meeting the way they did hearings on Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s measure in 2011 to strip public unions of collective bargaining rights. Leaving aside the fact that those rallies lasted for weeks and drew up to 100,000, Mr. Nass said the protestors were trying to “take over the process of representing all of the people of this great state.”

Where does one start to unpack that? The protestors are the people of the great state. The bill in question threatens their pay, their jobs and their values. They were trying to participate in the process. Democracy, anyone?