BACK TO WORK

Why are we waiting and watching the recall challenge? Why are we not using these days registering voters? We should also be IDing likely voters who did not sign the recall petition at the doors and on the phone. That information can be shared between organizations now, but once the recalls are certified, that sharing must stop.

As a former campaign worker and officeholder I know that one rule of politics that is inviolate, “You can always raise more money, but you cannot buy another day for any price.”

Sure, it's been nice to have ten days off, more or less. Now is the time to climb back into the trenches and continue digging.

One day longer, one day stronger!

Our Future is a Lock

In the President’s State of the Union speech last night, he spoke about the competitiveness of unionized American workers. I was delighted to hear him mention not only a unionized plant, but one right here in Wisconsin – Master Lock in Milwaukee.

The Master Lock Company recently closed a plant in China and moved production back home. The next time you need a paddle lock remember the union workers of Master Lock in Milwaukee and through one of their locks in your shopping basket.

It is the buying power of American workers, spending their money supporting good union jobs that will rebuild the Nation. Together, we will build a stronger America. Our future is a lock, when we buy union products and services. BUY UNION, BUY LOCAL, BUY AMERICAN.

On January 26th, 285 workers at Cablevision in Brooklyn will vote to join the CWA.. Most of the Brooklyn workers are black and make an average of $12.85 an hour, while their white counterparts on Long Island make $2.00 an hour more. Labor Notes provides an excellent analysis of the current situation. For personal accounts of working conditions leading cable installers in Brooklyn to organize and the trials they faced trying to gain representation, check out the New York Times article. These guys work hard in dangerous conditions. They deserve to have a voice and bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions. Contact  CWA Local 1109 for more information about their struggle and how you can help organize a union where you work.

Dirty Big Secret

     There is a really big secret that evil republicans in Scott Walker’s administration and the state legislature don’t want you to know. A provision in the state budget passed last summer creates a commission to look at the performance of the current Wisconsin Retirement System and its pension plans. While its direct effects will be on the lives of public sector retirees, the ripple effects will land squarely on Wisconsin taxpayers.

     Most responsible adults are thinking about their retirement decades before it arrives. Conventional wisdom that is preached for workers preparing for retirement is dollar cost averaging, where the investor puts a set amount in every month, regardless of the current value of the fund. The logic is that when the price of the fund goes down, because the value of the underlying stocks and bonds has decreased, your dollars will buy more fund shares. When the value of the fund increases, the value of that larger number of shares means you make more money. The financial wunderkind assure us this is the best long-run investment strategy.

     Now here is the Big Dirty Secret. Defined contribution retirement plans have just the opposite effect once you retire. The corollary to dollar cost averaging during your working years is receiving a set amount from your retirement account each month after you retire. Most of us expect to get a retirement check to pay for utilities, groceries, insurance, taxes, healthcare costs, clothing and maybe even a little travel. The problem is when the value of your shares goes down, because the market slumps, that monthly check you receive requires the sale of more fund shares. That is your capital, or wealth, slipping away; and you will never get it back. Since the market tends to cycle about every 8-12 years, you can expect to take at least a couple of these big hits on your savings.
So what? For the first ten maybe twenty years, there is still money in the account. However, just as you head into your eighties and your healthcare costs really take off, your retirement fund is running out. When you need savings the most, your retirement fund is gone. Millions of Americans loss their homes and end up on Medicaid because their defined contribution retirement accounts failed them when they needed them most.

     You may not be a public employee but the explosion of Medicaid costs to care for indigent seniors will do the state budgets what Medicare threatens to do at the national level.

Lets Finish Fitz Right

Brothers and Sisters,

We are in the final two days ay of collecting signatures to recall Scott Fitzgerald, and we need your help to finish him off.  We’ve had a great showing the past week in the district and plenty of people are responding to signing the petition to recall the guy who helped Gov Walker strip away our collecting bargaining rights by violating the open meetings law.

Today and Saturday are the last days to collect signatures.  Please show up to ensure we bring down Gov Walker and his biggest supporter in the legislature.

LAUNCH TIMES 

Friday 8:00 AM - 2:00 PM Visibility
Friday 3:00 PM - Canvass

Friday 6:00 PM - Canvass 

Sat 9:00 AM - Canvass / Visibility 

Sat 12:00 PM - Canvass 
Sat 3:00 PM - Canvass 

LOCATIONS 

513 E. James street, Columbus, WI

Contact: Drew Proctor, WAW
(248) 707-9103


408 E. Main, Watertown, WI
Contact: (920) 248-1840

This is our chance to send a clear message that Scott Fitzgerald will hear loud and clear when he returns from winter break after MLK Day. Hope to see you there.

The Most Important Recall Weekend

Nobody thought last fall, when the big thinkers were planning recall strategy, that we could recall Scott Fitzgerald. The Senate Majority Leader was seen as untouchable in his own district. One woman in Fort Atkinson didn’t listen.

Lori Compas would not stand by and let this evil person get a pass; so she took action and filed herself. The word spread, and even though the Democratic Party, We Are Wisconsin and Wisconsin United did not back the effort. They all thought it was a doomed campaign.

Lori’s neighbors and others across the 13^th Senate district did not agree. Using many of the tactics born from the Occupy movement, they organized themselves. These citizen leaders combined their efforts to recall Walker and Kleefisch with a truly grassroots campaign to Recall Scott Fitzgerald.

Last night the Recall Scott Fitzgerald campaign announced that it had collected 13,600 of the 16,762 signatures needed to recall the arch bishop of Fitzwalkerstan. All that hard work was noticed by the other recall groups and this week, they are joining forces to back Recall Scott Fitzgerald.

This is the weekend to close the deal. Call (920) 675-9805 to volunteer for this incredible weekend of action. There are eight Recall Scott Walker sights spread across the district. Shifts at each location will be 9:00AM, Noon, 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM on Saturday and Sunday.

The weather will be great. The Packers have a bye, you won’t miss a moment of their march to the Superbowl. The reception has been great.

We can do this! All that is needed to close the deal this weekend is 12 volunteers per shift per site.

Your help right now will make Recall Scott Fitzgerald happen. Call Mark Horn at (608) 836-0054 for carpooling information from Madison. We have done an incredible job here in Dane County, now is the time to “Make Jefferson Blue.” Let’s head east to Jefferson and close the deal on Scott Fitzgerald.