It's A Mad, Mad Madison World

Labor: Unionized Wisconsin teachers should be ashamed of their response to legislation that would end their privilege to bargain collectively. And if such lousy behavior continues, they should be relieved of their duties.

The Wisconsin government is in a financial hole, operating with a $137 million deficit for the current fiscal year ending June 30. Its future is filled with bigger deficits, projected to be as large as $3.6 billion.

One way to cut into the shortfall is to end the public employee unions' collective bargaining privilege that has landed them the generous salaries and benefits the taxpayers are struggling to pay.

Doing what voters elected him to do, new Republican Gov. Scott Walker introduced a bill last week that would strip nonfederal government workers in Wisconsin of their collective bargaining license and require them to contribute more to their benefits package.

Public school teachers, who would not be the only public employees affected, responded as if they took their cues from their students. They marched like spoiled entitlement queens on the Capitol in Madison and threw a tantrum, leaving behind trash and tarnished images that someone else has to clean up.

The teachers are so incensed that 40% of the 2,600 of them who are in the Madison collective bargaining unit cut class Wednesday to demonstrate.

This prompted school officials to cancel classes Wednesday and again Thursday, which is cheating students — and taxpayers — out of two days of learning.

But this is all about the kids, right? Isn't that why some teachers even took students with them to protest, as one student so eloquently put it, "whatever this dude is doing"?

The media are labeling Walker's plan to cut costs bold and aggressive, which it is. It is also overdue.

But it is not extreme, as one poorly informed college-student protester claimed.

If the governor's proposal becomes law, public employees would have to pay half of their pension contributions and at least 12.6% of their health care insurance premiums. Overall, their costs would go up by 8%.

Considering that private-sector workers who aren't protected by favorable laws have been hit much harder, that's a modest impact. It is not, as Barack Obama, president of the United States — not president of the local union hall — has suggested, "an assault on unions."

And it's a much better outcome than layoffs, which will come in the thousands if not tens of thousands if the legislation doesn't become law.

Teachers belong in classrooms, not in mass protests. The only teaching they can do at demonstrations is to show their students how not to act.

Some protesters have chanted "Recall Walker now," but it's the teachers, not the governor, who should be losing their jobs if they refuse to perform them.