A mighty coalition came together to fight the Republican
effort to weaken collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin. Now a
Republican effort to void one result of collective bargaining in Milwaukee –
the requirement that teachers and police officers live in the city – has the
potential of driving a wedge through that coalition.
Bargaining rights for public employees enjoy widespread
support among Milwaukee residents, but so does the residency rule for public
employees – a rule some public-sector unions hate. Thus, as the proposal to do
away with that rule sails through the Legislature, many Milwaukee residents will
find themselves at odds with government workers the residents are now backing.
The residency rule is a vital self-help tool for cities, which
find themselves assailed on all borders. An unspoken but real struggle over
class and race has raged for untold decades in metropolitan America. The metro
area is the organic whole. Suburbs are artificial communities that cropped up
primarily to wall out poor people (and non-whites) while sucking in the wealth
of cities. The result is that the hub city shoulders the metro area’s burden of
poverty and its related ills with fewer and fewer resources. One resource the
city does have is its own jobs. By reserving them for its own residents, the
city fights poverty, boosts local commerce and stabilizes neighborhoods.
The residency requirement is a big reason why, as bad as
poverty and unemployment are in Milwaukee, the city is not quite Detroit, whose
decline sped up after the requirement was outlawed there.
Getting rid of the residency rule was long a top agenda item
of Milwaukee teacher and police unions. They failed to reach that objective at
the bargaining table or in court. So they resorted to political wheeling and
dealing.
The Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, however, dropped
that effort about 15 years ago, when the reform faction took over. One reform
leader told me she personally backed the residency rule, but the union never took the rule’s repeal off its agenda; it just stopped pushing repeal. Notably, MTEA
President Mike Langyel has not voiced enthusiasm about the current repeal drive.
The Milwaukee Police Association never lost enthusiasm. The historically
anti-black union, which gives aid and comfort to Republican politicians, has
abstained from the coalition backing bargaining rights. In a transparent effort
to reward the MPA, Gov. Scott Walker exempted police and fire unions from the bill
to curb those rights, although several such unions have nonetheless joined the
coalition.
A recent Milwaukee rally showed support for public employees
After it started downplaying the residency rule, the MTEA
became more community-friendly – doubtless one reason it enjoys broad
residential support in its battle for bargaining rights. In contrast, the MPA is
still widely perceived as hostile to the community.
Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans have tried to stoke
resentment among taxpayers against public employees, saying they get the generous
pay and benefits that average workers don’t enjoy. That rhetoric has thus far
had only limited success. But lifting the residency rule could make the ground
more fertile for such thinking in Milwaukee. Not only are public employees more generously paid than the average
Milwaukee worker, but many don’t think enough of the city to live here. These
suburbanites are taking away jobs that could go to city residents and our
hard-earned taxes are supporting their comfortable lifestyles outside the city.
The racial implications of repealing the residency rule are
obvious in a city whose suburbs are among the whitest in America. Also, the
city’s decline, which repeal of the residency rule will accelerate, will hurt city
employment in the long run due to a withering tax base. Public employee unions
could and should head off fractures in the labor rights coalition by doing an
about face and endorsing Milwaukee’s residency rule.
Further reading:
“Why city needs residency rule”
by Gregory Stanford
“The residency rule
helps keep Milwaukee strong” by Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines
“The Barrett Report” (3/18/11)
by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett
“The suburbs are killing Detroit – and themselves” by Gregory Stanford
