Labor unions in Wausau, Wisconsin aren't backing down from their angry opposition to allowing Republican lawmakers to walk in the city's annual Labor Day parade.

The unions are still angry over recent action by Wisconsin's GOP controlled legislature that made drastic changes in unions' collective bargaining rights.

loading...

The mayor of Wausau reminds the unions that the Labor Day parade is a public event paid for with taxpayer money, and if it's not open to every citizen regardless of political affiliation, the unions will get the bill.

Mayor Jim Tipple says the cost of the parade, including insurance, setting up and taking down a stage, and police personnel, runs anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 each year.

Tipple says the decision to exclude elected Republicans "flies in the face of public policy.  This is not a political rally, it's a parade, for God's sake."

The President of the County Labor Council in Wausau says they feel justified in barring "elected officials who have openly attacked workers' rights or stood idly by while their political party fought to strip public workers of their right to collectively bargain."

So far, the Labor Council hasn't responded to being told it will have to pay for the parade if Republicans are not invited to be in it.

And Big Labor wonders why unions are shrinking every year.

In 2010, the union membership rate—the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union—was 11.9 percent of the work force, down from 12.3 percent in 2009.  The number of union wage and salary workers declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million from 2009 to 2010.

In 1983, the first year this data became available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, and there were 17.7 million union workers.

Another interesting statistic:  The percentage of union membership in the public sector is more than five times the membership rate for private sector workers.

In 2010, 36 percent of all local, state and federal government employees were in a union.  Only seven percent of private sector workers belong to a union.

(Source:  U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

 

 

More From Newstalk 860