Historic Loss For Milwaukee Teachers Union

In a stunning development on the day that Milwaukee teachers returned to school last week Milwaukee teachers, retirees and other staff in the public school system were forced, without a vote, to accept significant changes in their health care benefits including a monthly payment, increased visit fees, a loss of the "hold harmless clause", and many other give backs. This significant defeat for thousands of workers in Milwaukee comes at a time of wage stagnation and shift in the cities property values to the suburbs and betond that will make even worse the lack of support for the system given the minority status of most the school systems population in a city that is 50% white. The Milwaukee Teachers' Union leadership has taken a "lets not look to the past" approach with this decision. Telling memebers that "it could have been worse."