Wisconsin Senate passes bill stripping collective bargaining rights

Wisconsin Senate Republicans have passed a bill stripping collective bargaining rights for state workers. This was done by removing everything except the portions concerning collective bargaining rights from the "budget repair bill." The bill passed 18-1, with all Democrats absent, and only Senator Dale Schultz voting no.

In one of the most anti-democratic procedural moves of all times, it passed out of committee only 14 minutes before it passed on the floor of the Senate. The way it was done was possibly illegal, too.

As I wrote earlier tonight, changing the bill in this way has laid bare the Republican lie that the bill could no longer be changed. It revealed Republicans were lying all along when they said collective bargaining rights were a budgetary matter, and as such had to be passed through a budget bill that required 20 Senators to be present.

Here is how the crowd reacted:

There is now only way way forward--recall. If we fail to recall at least three Republican state Senators this summer, and then recall Scott Walker next year, unions and workers' rights will be gutted in Wisconsin. Republicans will have achieved their goal of defanging anything that stands in the way of unabashed corporate power.

Please, contribute $5 to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which is leading the effort to recall Republican senators.