A neighbor came by last Sunday with a petition for me to sign. It was for the recall of Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker. I told her that I wasn't interested. She was aghast and scuttled off my porch. I was nice about it. Really.

You might recall that earlier this year Walker made a national name for himself by passing legislation that curbed the collective bargaining powers of unions.

Before I go on, I want to remind you of my stand on unions, to wit, I believe that at one time they were not only necessary and important, but heroic. But as the tendency of humans is to grab power when power is there to be grabbed, most unions ultimately became that which they protested against. To be clear, however, I believe their right to organize needs to be protected as a check to abusive power.

The state of Wisconsin went up for grabs when Walker made his move. There were protests in Madison, hyperbole and grandstanding by politicians and venom in the media. Some Wisconsin democrats ran to Illinois to avoid the vote they would ultimately lose. ("The Daily Show" found them there...their piece was pretty funny.)

My son Ben lives and works in Milwaukee and he sent me an article that I found inconclusive (it's too soon), but very interesting nonetheless. It's written by Byron York of the Washington Examiner, an admittedly conservative newspaper.

The Kaukauna School District in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin has about 4200 students and 400 employees. According to York, they were facing a $400,000 deficit this year. But when the new law went into effect, school officials implemented new policies that are estimated to leave them with a $1.5 million surplus instead.

"In the past, teachers and other staff at Kaukauna were required to pay 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance coverage and none of their pension costs," states York. "Now they'll pay 12.6 percent of their coverage (still well below the rates of the private sector) and also contribute 5.8 percent of salary to their pensions. The changes will save the school board an estimated $1.2 million this year, according to school board President Todd Arnoldussen."

Interestingly, the union had offered concessions too, but it seems some of the main improvements in the district's outlook are because of the new limits to collective bargaining.

For example: "In the past," writes York, "Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required them to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust-a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union."

Of course, when a company knows you can buy only from them, they will top out their price to maximize their profits. Indeed, WEA Trust said that the premiums this year were about to go up significantly. When the coverage was thrown open to competitors, though, WEA Trust suddenly said that they could match the lowest bid. Shocking.

Also, according to the collective bargaining agreement, teachers only had to teach five of seven periods per day and work 37.5 hours per week. Now they have to teach six of seven periods and work forty hours per week. This means class sizes have been reduced from an average of 31 kids to 26. Plus teachers will have more time to spend helping kids one on one.

All of this and the teachers' salaries remained relatively the same. It is projected that money will be left over to hire a few more teachers and to institute merit pay.

We'll see how this pans out over the long haul, but it's an interesting start. No legislation works for everybody. We need legislation that works for most.

What I found amazing is that it was clear my neighbor assumed that any red-blooded American would, of course, stand with the unions.