Striking a balance in Wisconsin

Throngs gather around the center of government. Electrified with emotion. Chanting slogans. Demanding change. Refusing to leave.

A scene from Cairo or Tunisia or Tripoli?

Hardly. It's the scene playing itself out two and a half hours north of the Chicago suburbs in the Wisconsin capital, and it's hard not to see some similarities to the freedom movements roiling the dictatorships of the Middle East.

But there are some important differences here, both in style and substance, that also need to be considered. For one thing, the demonstrators in Wisconsin have no fear of being shot by bullets either rubber or real. They already live in a democracy where marching in the streets is a fundamental and protected means of expression.

For another, they are not all of one mind. Some of the 70,000 protesters who have converged on Madison are crying out for dramatic and fundamental changes in the way government does business. Some are shouting with equal passion in protest. Hopefully, both will be heard, especially here in Illinois.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has struck a raw nerve with dramatic plans to scale back benefits paid to state workers and all but eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees. In an era when most private employees have endured years of salary reductions, benefit cutbacks and job losses, government seems insistent upon proceeding as though it is immune from all this, and the unions representing public employees, far from sounding an understanding tone of negotiation, too often have responded to calls for change with defiance — such as the Schaumburg teachers union president who vowed last August, without even reacting to a specific proposal, that his union would never tolerate merit-based pay.

Confrontations like the Madison stalemate are a natural product of such an atmosphere, and regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats are in control, they are inevitable in Illinois, too, if lawmakers and the powerful public unions don't begin putting on the table the kinds of changes to pensions, health care, salary and reduction in force that the rest of the public has been living with for several years.

Thankfully, and perhaps a bit oddly, this does not seem out of the question here, even with Democrats still in charge. House Speaker Michael Madigan himself, after all, has warned government workers that painful times lie ahead. But those times cannot come too soon. Illinois' financial condition is much worse than that of Wisconsin — indeed than that of all but one other state — and all parties need to come to the budget table with more urgency.

As much as we have urged change and cuts in the size and scope of government, we have shared in the remorse and sadness described by Cook County department heads beset by significant layoffs in recent weeks, as at least one local government seems to be taking seriously the responsibility of living within its means. We know those feelings, and too many suburban industries and businesses have experienced them firsthand.

What disturbs us is that public employees have for so long considered themselves immune from the recession's ravages. Wisconsin is the public's reminder that they are not, and that state's overreaching efforts to cripple rather than cooperate with unions is a natural, albeit inappropriate, reaction to a factional mindset that seems unwilling to acknowledge its own responsibilities.

Illinois' public unions would do well to pay attention to Wisconsin. With reason and a true sense of cooperation, they may be able to save a system that has done much to improve employees' working conditions and quality of life.