The Future of Public Employee Unions

Air Date: February 28, 2011

Protestors to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to eliminate collective bargaining rights for many state workers demonstrate at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Andy Manis)

Hour 1

For more than a week, public employee union members have been protesting in Wisconsin over Republican Governor Scott Walker’s budget bill that would increase their benefit contribution and cut their collective bargaining power. The labor protests have spread to other states like Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio and mobilized union supporters and opponents around the nation. This hour, we’ll look at the standoff in Wisconsin and the national implications. Our guests are NANCY MACLEAN, an historian of labor and public policy at Duke University and CHRIS EDWARDS, the director of tax policy studies at The Cato Institute.

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[audio: 022811_100630.mp3]

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