Wisconsin governor seeks to strip worker rights, threatens to use Guard

Wisconsin governor seeks to strip worker rights, threatens to use Guard

14 February 2011

MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin activists are answering Gov. Scott Walker’s assault on middle-class jobs and collective bargaining with neighborhood canvasses, a two-day lobbying and rally blitz at the state capital, television ads and social media campaigns.
Last week, Walker, a Republican, announced a state budget plan that strips state workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights, cuts pay and benefits and said there will be no negotiations. He also announced he had alerted the National Guard to be ready in case state workers strike or rise in protest. He told the Associated Press he’d been working on contingency plans for months.

The last time the National Guard was used against public workers was the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968, just before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. The last time the Guard was called out in Wisconsin to quell a labor-management dispute was the 1934 Kohler strike by the United Auto Workers.

Backers of Walker’s proposal to strip away almost all collective bargaining rights from public employees in the state are trying to push the legislation through this week “with almost no public input or discussion,” according to the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.

But union activists and allied organizations are joining together to stop the assault they say would undermine middle-class jobs by lowering wages, shrinking benefits, weakening unions and destroying collective bargaining.

This assault on middle-class jobs in Wisconsin is one of many efforts in states where Republican governors and legislators won majorities in the 2010 elections. They are widely considered political payback to CEOs that poured millions into state election campaigns.

Veterans are strongly objecting to Walker’s “inappropriate threat to activate the National Guard to intimidate state workers, as his administration moves forward with plans to break up workers’ unions,” according Vote Vets.org.

“Maybe the new governor doesn’t understand yet – but the National Guard is not his own personal intimidation force to be mobilized to quash political dissent,” said Robin Eckstein, a former Wisconsin National Guard member, Iraq War Veteran from Appleton, Wis., and member of VoteVets.org.

“The Guard is to be used in case of true emergencies and disasters, to help the people of Wisconsin, not to bully political opponents. Considering many veterans and Guard members are union members, it’s even more inappropriate to use the Guard in this way. This is a very dangerous line the Governor is about to cross.”

Adapted from articles on the AFL-CIO’s national news site.