The titleWisconsin cops & firemen break their oaths.
The reasoning
That there is anyway merely confirms why the notorious small-government conservative FDR was entirely correct in opposing public sector unions in the first place.
The conclusion
If I lived in Wisconsin, I would be pounding the table right now and demanding that every signatory to that letter hand in their badges. Since I don’t, it’s incumbent on Wisconsin citizens to make an answer to this.
What the unions actually signed
In the event that you cannot support this effort to save collective bargaining,
please be advised that the undersigned will publicly and formally boycott the
goods and services provided by your company. However, if you join us, we will do everything in our power to publicly celebrate your partnership in the fight to preserve the right of public employees to be heard at the bargaining table.
No mention of strikes, hence the FDR quote has no sense whatsoever.
Reading your letter of July 14, 1937, I was especially interested in the timeliness of your remark that the manner in which the activities of your organization have been carried on during the past two decades "has been in complete consonance with the best traditions of public employee relationships."Organizations of Government employees have a logical place in Government affairs.
He then concludes
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that "under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government."
He is congratulating the Federation of Federal Employees in his letter and apologizing that he could not be at their convention.
Now what did the unions say in their letter to Mr. Tom Ellis, President Marshall & Ilsley Corporation? As I understand this:
1] Marshall & Ilsley Corporation is not the government, well not yet anyway
2] No strikes were threatened against the State.
3] Boycotting goods and services is perfectly legal.
4] There was no warning from FDR that unions are bad.
It is fairly droll of the right wing to reach for Franklin D Roosevelt quotes in defense of the crushing of the American worker when it was FDR that did so much to support them in the first place.
“It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that is have free and independent labor unions.”Franklin D Roosevelt
One can only conclude:
A] No oaths have been broken.
B] RedState are a pack of idiots.
C] By extension of [B] so are most conservatives.
Cheers.