Scott Fitzgerald (doing a mini face palm) along with Wisconsin's newest Congressional Crazy, Glenn Grothman
It didn't take long for Wisconsin Republicans to
perform a U-turn on their claims that they were uninterested in extending their public employee union busting to the private sector.
But this time, there's a twist. They plan on excluding those private-sector unions that support the GOP the same way they excluded GOP-endorsing police and firefighter unions in 2011.
After years of seeking to change the subject, the top leader in the state Senate made clear Thursday that lawmakers in his house would debate the issue of so-called "right-to-work" legislation within weeks and bring the volatile issue of union law back into the statehouse.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) told conservative talk radio host Charlie Sykes of WTMJ-AM (620) that he was considering so-called "open shop" legislation to prohibit employers from striking deals with private-sector unions to require workers to pay dues. He said he was considering making Wisconsin the first state in the nation to attempt to exempt certain private workers such as the operators of earthmovers who have supported Wisconsin Republicans in recent years.
It was a complete shift from the general election rhetoric of Republicans in recent months who have said that the issue is a distraction and not a priority.
"We can't tiptoe through this session without addressing this. We're not tackling this six months from now. We're not tackling this a year from now...there's no way we avoid this issue. We have to deal with this issue right now," Fitzgerald said.
...
"If you have a bill and you carve out the trades unions, is that something you could get the votes for? The changes you make would certainly bring people on or get people off the bill," Fitzgerald said. "That's my point, there's a lot of different ways of doing that."
(bolding is mine)
Breathtakingly naked in continuing the Walker policy of rewarding friends and severely punishing opponents (real or imagined), I'm wondering how they'll try to "sell" their exclusions to a shiny new union busting law. It was a pretty easy "sell" to exclude police and firefighters from Act 10 by saying that they were concerned about "public safety" until you noticed that prison guards, the State Capitol Police, and other "public safety" unions were affected by the same law that destroyed public employee unions for other civil servants. The only unions unaffected represented Walker-endorsers and loyalists.
It's interesting that even yesterday, the always micro-managing Walker was denying that Right to Work (for less) legislation was even being considered.
As recently as Wednesday, Walker said in a stop in Milwaukee that he did not want to take up a right-to-work bill at this time.
"As I said before the election and have said repeatedly over the last few years, I just think right-to-work legislation right now, as well as reopening Act 10 to make any other adjustments, would be a distraction from the work that we're trying to do," Walker said, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.
It seems clear that either their wires got crossed or Walker is going to pretend he's not behind what will be a swift legislative victory for the majority holding Republicans. Walker himself introduced Right to Work legislation when he was a member of the State Assembly in the 1990s.
Even during the massive 2011 protests in Madison, Walker claimed that full Right to Work was something he was not pursuing. He has repeated those claims every time he's been asked abut expanding union busting, however video did surface of him promising Right to Work to Wisconsin billionaire Diane Hendricks by using "divide and conquer".
Instead of the usual video you've seen, I'll post a more interesting one:
Looks like things are about to get interesting again....
Solidarity.
.