With studies showing a continuing pay gap between the wages earned by men and women – legislators in Wisconsin are seeking to do something about it. Jesse Russell has more.

Legislators and supporters of a bill that would strengthen the state of Wisconsin’s law prohibiting discrimination in the workplace gathered at the Capital building in Madison on Tuesday. They cited a recent study showing women in Wisconsin earning 25 percent less than their male counterparts. State Senator Dave Hansen of Green Bay said the 2007 Equal Pay Bill musty be passed to send a message to children that if they work hard and apply themselves there are no limits to what they can accomplish:

By Doug Cunningham

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney stopped in for Janesville, Wisconsin’s Labor Day Parade Monday with some good things to say about Wisconsin Democratic Governor Jim Doyle.

[John Sweeney 1]: “When you hear a governor speak out in support of workers and their right to collectively bargain and when he expresses the concern that he has about health care and education and retirement security, this is a governor who knows what the issues are and is trying his damnedest to make sure that workers are on his agenda.”

Governor Doyle is in a race for reelection against a Republican congressman. Doyle said he’s proud that Sweeney was in Janesville on Labor Day.

By Doug Cunningham

Wisconsin’s American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees is working to defeat a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Wisconsin AFSCME People Conference Political Director Brian Weeks says such a ban could legally wipe out all domestic partner benefits negotiated by unions.

[Brian Weeks]: “It attacks workers’ rights. It attacks labor unions’ rights to collectively bargain.”

By Jesse Russell

It isn't time to toss back a cold one just yet for employees of City Brewing Company in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. The workers rejected a three-year contract offer from the company by 2-1 on Sunday. City Brewing is in the process of purchaing Pennsylvania-based Latrobe and those workers signed off on a two-year contract offer this weekend. The new contract for LaCrosse workers included changes in pension, wages and insurance. City Brewing workers are represented by the Teamsters Local 695. The union says part of the reason for the contract rejection could be do to uncertainty over the proposed Latrobe plant purchase. Their contract expired in May.

By Doug Cunningham

Madison Gas and Electric, a public power utility in Wisconsin’s capital, is out to destroy its workers defined benefit pensions. Dave Poklinkoski of IBEW Local 2304 says this is a highly profitable power company with no financial justification for trying to take workers’ pensions…

[Dave Poklincoski ] : “I think everybody needs to recognize that if workers working for a state-regulated monopoly with a well-funded defined benefit pension plan are not gonna be able to retain a pension plan, then everybody's pension is at stake."

Poklincoski says that defined benefit pensions are much better for workers than 401(k)'s and his union - IBEWE Local 2304 - will never agree to end defined benefit pensions.

By Jesse Russell

As more baby boomers move into retirement, they are learning that handling their pensions can be a confusing business. In a day and age where companies break up and merge on nearly a week by week basis, the chance for a pension getting lost in the shuffle increases. One Wisconsin nonprofit is working to help retirees find those lost pensions.

[Rendall 1]: We help track down, ‘what happened, where did that plan go’ and the challenge for us through the resources that we have is to find it for them and provide them with a good service.

Christopher Rendall is a pension rights attorney with the Upper Midwest Pension Rights Project. Rendell said in addition to finding lost pensions his organization helps with pension entitlement through divorce and deal with pension overpayments. Rendell explained why the Pension Rights Project is important:

By Jesse Russell

In what is seen as a major blow for the area in Wisconsin known as the Fox Valley, Kimberly Clark has announced plans to close a major factory and distribution center. More than 600 jobs are expected to be lost.

By Doug Cunningham

Wisconsin Republican state representative Steve Nass has killed the Fair Share Health Care bill , just days after Wisconsin Democratic Governor Jim Doyle called on the legislature to pass the bill. Doyle wants the GOP-controlled legislature to outlaw the practice of health care dumping, saying it's unfair and unethical, and ought to be illegal. Workers Independent News asked Nass whose side he's on.

WIN: Why take Wal-Mart's side at the expense of workers and taxpayers?

[Steve Nass] : "Well again isn't simply Wal-Mart's side, it is a business side. Because there is a question on the legal ramifications of this when you just selectively target a particular industry."

By Doug Cunningham

On the heels of Maryland's legislature overriding a governor's veto to force Wal-Mart to pay it's fair share for health care under the Fair Share Health Care act, Wisconsin's legislature has held a hearing on the bill. The state AFL-CIO testified in support of the bill as did the UFCW, Citizen Action and other groups. This is part of an effort in 31 states to get Wal-Mart to provide more money for its workers health care. Wisconsin's has a Democratic governor but it's legislature is Republican controlled, making it harder to get the law passed

By Doug Cunningham

University of Wisconsin academic employee Robert Stone is battling the University of Wisconsin over what he and the American Federation of teachers Local 223 says is discrimination against him for using the Family Medical Leave Act. More shocking, the AFT's David Nack says, is that supervisors at UW tampered with Stone's personnel records.

[David Nack] : "If the response to that is they go and alter your personnel file we're really living in really what amounts to a police state mentality anyway, because you can't be sure what is being manufactured about your record or what is being altered about your record. So that's pretty scary stuff."

By Doug Cunningham

Wisconsin AFL-CIO President David Newby says though the fight against the Central American Free Trade Agreement isn't over, a powerful coalition of labor, progressive and faith groups is finally getting many in Congress to realize that trade agreements like CAFTA aren't good for the U.S. economy.

[David Newby 1] : "Legislators, more members of Congress, are becoming aware that the NAFTA/WTO model simply doesn’t work and it's failed the American economy and American workers."

The vote on CAFTA is Congress is expected within a couple of weeks and while organized labor has taken a prominent public position against CAFTA, Newby says this is really an issue that all working families in America should unite around.

As gay marriage bans sweep the nation, Wisconsin considers its own constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships. Last June, the Service Employees International Union passed a resolution in support of gay marriage. Sasha Gorman, Communications Coordinator of the Wisconsin SEIU Council says the ban would affect unmarried couples, gay or straight.

[Gorman 1] "I have four children. The mother of my children and I live together, we're not married. We get benefits that would be impacted by this constitutional change in Wisconsin."

In Wisconsin a coalition of labor and progressive groups is calling on the state to charge Walmart for the health care costs taxpayers are paying for
Walmart employees. Darcy Haber of Wisconsin Citizen Action says Wisconsin taxpayers are paying millions of dollars a year because Walmart won't pay for adequate health insurance overage for its workers.

[Darcy Haber 1]: "It's close to two million dollars of taxpayer money here in Wisconsin, but it's also another three million dollars of our federal tax dollars. It's about five million dollars that taxpayers are paying every year to subsidize the health insurance of Walmart workers."

Wisconsin state employees without a contract after two years of attempted negotiations rallied at the state capitol demanding justice for public employees as the state decides its two year budget. Gerald McEntee, national President of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, gave Wisconsin state workers a $100,000 check at the rally as he vowed solidarity with state workers under attack in Wisconsin and across the nation.

[Gerald McEntee ]: "When they're all gone - and we have seen it in state after state - whenever they have battled us, when they have challenged us by God they're gone, by God we will be back time after time after time!"

A minimum wage bill that could cut the wages of Wisconsin home care providers passed that state's Senate last week. The bill, written to prevent cities and towns from having a minimum or living wage higher then the state, would also affect contracts and private workers paid through public funds. Robert Kraig, political director for SEIU 1199W says home care workers who currently make $8 or $9 an hour because of living wage laws, could see their pay cut.

[Kraig]: "It could be a huge pay cut for a lot of low income workers who do a vital public service. There is already a workforce crisis in that area and if you didn't require a living wage it could get substantially worse."

Madison, Wisconsin is preparing to get the sweat out. The city council is set to weigh a bill that would prevent taxpayer money from being used to purchase goods made in sweatshops. City Alderman Austin King says he introduced the legislation because he felt it was time for the progressive city to adopt an ethical policy:

[King]: We're going to have an ethical standard for the way we spend our tax dollars and we're not going to use it on goods and services that were produced under really disgusting, inhumane conditions.

Ever since Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union called for a restructuring of labor, a great deal of attention has been focused on what it means on a national level. Tracy Suprise, organizing director of SEIU1199-Wisconsin, told WIN on Thursday that restructuring is important on the local level because many states are watching their union membership numbers drop.

[Suprise1]:That tells me that no matter how good we are at collective bargaining, no matter how good we are in terms of being a player in the political action arena, we're not organizing to even stay with a percentage of the workforce - we're losing ground. That to me is a clear cut message as to why we need to step out of the box and we've got to do things differently.

A judge in Wisconsin ruled that prison inmates are not entitled to minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The suit was filed on behalf of inmates at the Whiteville Correctional Facility in Tennessee. Wisconsin has a contract to send prisoners to that facility. The cafeteria at Whiteville is managed by a private corporation and lawyers for the inmates argued that because they were being managed by a private company they should be paid a minimum wage. Judge Kanne Posner argued that because inmates are not employees of a prison, they are not protected. Posner wrote that people are not imprisoned for the purpose of enabling them to earn a living.

Marty Beil, Executive Director of AFSCME Council 24 representing 24,000 state workers in Wisconsin, says Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle is refusing to allow mediation to resolve new state employee contracts.

[Marty Beil] : "Apparently the governor has been having tea with the governors in Missouri and Indiana because he's taken a very anti-union, anti-state employee position. It's pretty callous on his part."

That's a reference to newly elected GOP governors in Indiana and Missouri wiping out collective bargaining for state employees. Gov. Doyle, a Democrat, isn¹t moving against collective bargaining but Beil says there are serious unresolved issues and a mediator could help break the impasse.

The Service Employees International Union is fighting efforts by the state of Wisconsin to create tax credits for individual health insurance savings accounts. SEIU Wisconsin Political Director Robert Kraig says the union opposes them because they will seriously undermine good employer provided health insurance for workers.

[Robert Kraig 1]: "What they're designed to do is completely change the health insurance landscape in this country. In order to have the account be tax-deductible it has to connected to an insurance plan - either a family plan or an individual plan with a high deductible - $1,000 to $2,000. And so, your employer would have to provide that. And therefore it literally encourages the creation of very high deductible health insurance plans."