McHenry County Blog

When we went to the Kalahari Water Park in Wisconsin Dells a couple of weeks ago, I was on the lookout for posters about the bargaining rights dispute, the demonstration about which a Friend of McHenry County Blog sent me photos.

I had heard that union members wee going into retail establishments asking permission in a rather heavy-handed approach to put up “We support the union position” posters.

Admittedly, my sample was to small to reach a conclusion that merchants in the Dells wanted no part in the dispute, but my eyes did perk up when I saw the tee shirt below in Buffalo Phil’s:

Where did this high school student get her anti-Republican tee shirt, I wondered.

"Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins.

When I asked what the tee shirt’s message was all about, my hopes of having found something political were dashed.

The teen told me it was a tee shirt to promote a movie entitled, “Down with the Capitol.”

Something about a movie based on a Suzanne Collins’ book entitled, “Hunger Games.”

Below you see the front of the tee shirt, the symbolism of which escapes me

The front of the "Down with the Capitol" tee shirt has a sharp-beaked bird carrying an arrow.

Found a trailer of the movie. Only 1.5 million people have watched it. Good music.

Release date is March 23, 2012.

Maybe Illinois’ Tea Party folks should adopt the tee shirt.

This press release from We Ask America takes a look at political reactions in Wisconsin to the Republicans’ move to weaken collective bargaining for public employees.

We Ask America was the only firm known to have surveyed the 8th Congressional District in Illinois. It predicted that Joe Walsh had a chance of winning. Neither newspapers nor electronic media picked up on that aspect of the congressional race in which Joe Walsh just barely beat incumbent Melissa Bean.

Crossfire

Posted: 28 Mar 2011 05:35 AM PDT

We continue our series on the approval ratings of Midwest governors with Wisconsin’s Scott Walker.

As everyone who follows politics knows, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has been making some bold moves. His budget reforms that–among other things–targeted public unions exploded into a combination of street warfare and soap opera as pro-union forces took to the streets and Democratic state senators fled to hide in Illinois. (At the same time, Democratic state senators from Indiana were “vacationing” in the Land of Lincoln to avoid some issues in Hoosier-land. What’s next…Gadhafi in Peoria?)

As we’ve mentioned in a previous post, Wisconsin’s public opinion pendulum is in constant motion, and the state has historically embraced free-thinkers over the long run.

Earlier polls showed split decisions on many of the issues involved here, but how did all the hub-bub affect Gov. Walker’s general approval rating?

In addition to some basic demographic questions, we asked 1,693 Wisconsin residents the following simple question:

Here’s what they said:

Date of Poll: 3/27/2011
Participants: 1,693 Wisconsin residents
Margin of Error: ±2.38%

The most startling numbers are the extraordinarily low percentage of people who are uncertain or have no opinion.

This Madison demonstrator carries a sign saying, "No Child Left Behind Requires No Teacher Left Behind."

But that probably shouldn’t be a huge surprise since Walker’s agenda has galvanized the state and put it into the national spotlight.

Headlines on Walker’s actions have dominated the news from Superior to Beloit.

Walker–like other Midwest governors we’re polling–should have the advantage of time being on his side, and his numbers aren’t quite as bad as Ohio’s John Kasich or Illinois’ Pat Quinn.

But Democrats are eyeballing opportunities to challenge the new GOP domination through Wisconsin’s loosey-goosey recall election laws. (Click HERE for a great article on this from RealClearPolitics.com.)

And the low percentage of those with no opinion on Walker indicate an electorate that is refreshingly engaged in the political doings in Wisconsin, although Walker may feel caught in the crossfire.

Clearly, things aren’t going to settle down in America’s Dairyland for a long, long time.

FDR making a comment opposed to public employee unions in the cartoon: "The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted to the public service."

There was a cartoon in the Chicago Tribune in which a man wearing a red “Wisconsin Teachers Union” tee shirt says, “Must be some Nazi!”

He’s referring to Democratic Party President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1937 comment,

“The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted to the public service.”

Indeed most Federal employees are not in unions.  Those in the Post Office are and we know the problems that declining institution has.

In Crystal Lake, perhaps elsewhere, the clock in the service area disappeared a couple of years ago.  I note that if one came to the Post Office near closing time, one could tell if the doors were locked early with a clock on the wall.  Not so easy now that it is gone.

Is it postal union(s) inflexibility that leading to the decline of the Postal Service?  I’m not close enough to the situation to know.

There are two aspects of public employee unions that aren’t discussed much.

Let’s categorize them as

• Two bites at the apple and
• Sitting on both sides of the bargaining table

State employee unions negotiate with those representing the Governor.

What happens when they don’t get what they want?

They can make another pitch to the legislative branch.

If the bill passes, then they have their collective bargaining accomplishments, plus the additional benefits conferred by a new state law.

Let’s move down to the school board level.

The teacher unions do their best to make sure that local school boards are controlled by those favoring raising teachers’ salaries and benefits.

Consider the Grayslake Elementary School District 46 School Board.

Mary Garcia is its President.

Mary Garcia is also President of the Northbrook/Glenview Elementary District 30 teachers union.

No conflict of interest, of course.

Perhaps a convergence of interest, but you can comment on that below.

She complained to the Daily Herald after three Tea Party opponents had their web site links sent out via Twitter that, according to the reporter,

“she follows the Illinois Education Association union philosophy of doing what’s best for students in a financially responsible way. Garcia said she isn’t political in her union role and remains nonpartisan on the District 46 board.”

From this example, you can see how the Grayslake IEA local union has a rather powerful ally on the other side of the collective bargaining table.

Don’t think similar teacher union allies don’t serve on local school boards.

The goal of the Illinois Education Association is to control both sides of the bargaining table.

And when reading some union contracts, one might guess a couple of them.

Rest assured there are others.

After activist Pat Quinn got his Cutback Amendment to the Illinois Constitution passed in 1980, Johnsburg Democratic Party State Rep. Thomas J. Hanahan didn’t stick around McHenry County.

He moved to Park Ridge. I don’t know if that happened before or after his term ended in January 1983, but that’s the address I remember when he was on the payroll of Chicago Democrat Bill Laurino, one of his legislative contemporaries not negatively affected by the imposition of single member districts.

Hanahan knew he couldn’t get elected in McHenry County running one-on-one with a Republican so he abandoned his residence of convenience. (And, no one did until Jack Franks defeated appointed State Rep. Mike Brown after a bitter 1998 primary election with Steve Verr.)

The son of a carpenters union official, Hanahan had been told to move to McHenry County in preparation for the 1996 election cycle.

Rural Union’s Billy Giblin and he represented McHenry County after the 1964 bed sheet ballot, when reapportionment was not accomplished and all candidates ran statewide.

Both Republicans and Democrats slated candidates for two-thirds of the seats. The Democrats won the legislative contest with a slate headed by untested Adlai Stevenson III.

Republican A.B. McConnell of Woodstock was the odd man out in that 1964 election, not having had enough clout to be listed in the top half of his party’s candidates.

In 1966, when three-member districts again were drawn, Hanahan beat out Giblin, who served only one term, to become McHenry County’s Democrat.

His trade union buddies helped him build the house he lived in while serving in the Illinois General Assembly.

The district was composed of all of the county and points south, west and southwest into DeKalb. The other district included Grafton and Algonquin Township and everything straight east to Lake Michigan. I can’t remember if it was one or two township high.

One of the big issues in the 1971 General Assembly was the authorization of the unionization of teachers.

It was a key issue in 1972campaign, when I ran for the GOP nomination for state representative against former Belvidere Mayor (“Get More with Les”—really; that was what his cartop said) Les Cunningham and northern Dundee Township’s R. Bruce Waddell.

Waddell had won a special election when Dundee nursery owner Jack Hill was killed zipping his motorcycle around his business property at the northeast intersection of Routes 31 and 72 and hit his head on a pipe sticking off the back end of a truck. There was a closed casket.

One of Hill’s great admirers and supporters, McHenry’s Goldwater-inspired Tom Davis ran to replace him, but Waddell won.

At any rate, in the teacher unionization fight, Hanahan was on the side of the Chicago Teachers Union and its statewide affiliate, the Illinois Federation of Teachers. After all, those unionized teachers were connected with the AFL-CIO and the Illinois Education Association wasn’t.

Only the Woodstock High School District was composed of IFT members. All the other area district’s teachers were members of the IEA.

The IEA found an Algonquin attorney named Joseph Coleman. The IEA used him to “teach Tommy a lesson.” They put a precinct worker in every precinct and gave Hanahan the scare of his life.

The election turned out this way:

Cal Skinner – 72,395 1/2
Bruce Waddell – 66,395 1/2
Tom Hanahan – 53,848 1/2
Joe Coleman – 32,226 1/2

After that, Hanahan was much more responsive to the IEA’s desires and, while I don’t know this for a fact, probably was the bridge between the IFT and the IEA for the collective bargaining bill that eventually passed.

Part 2 Tomorrow