NBC/WSJ poll: 62% against stripping public employees’ bargaining rights
Another day and another poll comes out in support of unions and against the arrogant and dangerous new breed of Republican Governor’s like Scott Walker who want to strip away collective bargaining. And it’s in the WSJ: Americans strongly oppose efforts to strip unionized government workers of their rights to collectively bargain, even as they want public employees to contribute more money to their retirement and health-care benefits, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows. Eliminating collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers over health care, pensions or other benefits would be either “mostly unacceptable” or “totally unacceptable,” 62% of those surveyed said. Only 33% support such limits. The results don’t bode well for Wisconsin’s newly elected Republican governor, Scott Walker , who is locked in a standoff with statehouse Democrats and unionized state workers over these rights. Many of the Republicans gearing up to take on President Barack Obama in 2012 have seized on the budget battle in Wisconsin, a crucial swing state, as evidence the country wants to dramatically scale back government spending. And how does the Tea Party feel about all of this? More than seven in 10 tea party backers feared GOP lawmakers wouldn’t go far enough in cutting spending. But more than half of all respondents fear Republicans will go too far. Among those most fearing spending cuts are younger voters, independents, seniors and suburban women, all of them usually key swing voters in national elections who potentially could turn against the GOP. “It may be hard to understand why someone would try to jump off a cliff” to solve the debt crisis, Mr. McInturff said of his fellow Republicans, “unless you understand that they are being chased by a tiger, and that tiger is the tea party.” Ouch. This story resonates, and it doesn’t put the GOP in a good light. Greg Sargent is tallying up the polls and four polls all show solid support for public workers and comes to the right conclusion. Indeed, the verdict is clear: Americans support public employees in this standoff. Whether that will impact the outcome of the fight, of course, remains to be seen. But the bigger story here — one that will ripple far beyond what happens in Wisconsin — is that public employees are not proving the easy scapegoat many predicted they would be, and when faced with the question of whether their fundamental union rights should be taken away, Americans have stepped up and answered with a firm No.
NBC/WSJ poll: 62% against stripping public employees’ bargaining rights
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on March 3, 2011. Filed under News, Politics.
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NBC/WSJ poll: 62% against stripping public employees’ bargaining rights
Another day and another poll comes out in support of unions and against the arrogant and dangerous new breed of Republican Governor’s like Scott Walker who want to strip away collective bargaining. And it’s in the WSJ: Americans strongly oppose efforts to strip unionized government workers of their rights to collectively bargain, even as they want public employees to contribute more money to their retirement and health-care benefits, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows. Eliminating collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers over health care, pensions or other benefits would be either “mostly unacceptable” or “totally unacceptable,” 62% of those surveyed said. Only 33% support such limits. The results don’t bode well for Wisconsin’s newly elected Republican governor, Scott Walker , who is locked in a standoff with statehouse Democrats and unionized state workers over these rights. Many of the Republicans gearing up to take on President Barack Obama in 2012 have seized on the budget battle in Wisconsin, a crucial swing state, as evidence the country wants to dramatically scale back government spending. And how does the Tea Party feel about all of this? More than seven in 10 tea party backers feared GOP lawmakers wouldn’t go far enough in cutting spending. But more than half of all respondents fear Republicans will go too far. Among those most fearing spending cuts are younger voters, independents, seniors and suburban women, all of them usually key swing voters in national elections who potentially could turn against the GOP. “It may be hard to understand why someone would try to jump off a cliff” to solve the debt crisis, Mr. McInturff said of his fellow Republicans, “unless you understand that they are being chased by a tiger, and that tiger is the tea party.” Ouch. This story resonates, and it doesn’t put the GOP in a good light. Greg Sargent is tallying up the polls and four polls all show solid support for public workers and comes to the right conclusion. Indeed, the verdict is clear: Americans support public employees in this standoff. Whether that will impact the outcome of the fight, of course, remains to be seen. But the bigger story here — one that will ripple far beyond what happens in Wisconsin — is that public employees are not proving the easy scapegoat many predicted they would be, and when faced with the question of whether their fundamental union rights should be taken away, Americans have stepped up and answered with a firm No.
NBC/WSJ poll: 62% against stripping public employees’ bargaining rights
