Walker backs push on Wisconsin right-to-work vote

MADISON, Wis. – Gov. Scott Walker backed a surprise move Friday by Republican legislators to quickly vote on making Wisconsin a right-to-work state, an action the likely 2016 presidential candidate initially said should be delayed to avoid re-igniting massive pro-union protests.

Walker had expressed concerns to leaders in the GOP-controlled Legislature that rushing the divisive proposal could distract from his agenda, and in September – during the heat of his re-election campaign – he said he wouldn’t support it this session. But after a series of private meetings with lawmakers, followed by an announcement that the bill would be voted on next week, Walker’s spokeswoman said he would sign it.

“Governor Walker continues to focus on budget priorities to grow our economy and to streamline state government,” his spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said in an email. “With that said, Governor Walker co-sponsored right-to-work legislation as a lawmaker and supports the policy.”

Walker walked past reporters, declining to answer questions, at a National Governors Association meeting Friday in Washington.

Under right to work, unions are prohibited from reaching labor deals with businesses that require private-sector workers to pay fees to the union. Twenty-four other states already have the laws in place.

Walker rose to prominence in 2011, when he pushed through a law known as Act 10 that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers. That led to protests involving as many as 100,000 people at the state Capitol and a 2012 recall election that Walker won.

Unlike Act 10, which Walker proposed, the right-to-work push is coming from Republicans who control the Legislature.

“I think we can do this next week without it getting really ugly,” said Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald on WTMJ radio in Milwaukee. “We’ll see next week whether the Capitol blows up. I don’t know.”

Unions were quick to criticize but were silent about whether they planned to organize massive rallies like those that went on for weeks in 2011.

Right to work is a “false promise for Wisconsin,” said Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, in a prepared statement. “Right to Work will not create jobs and will lower wages for all workers,”

Dan Bukiewicz, president of the Milwaukee Building-Construction Trades Council, which represents union construction workers in the Milwaukee area, called right-to-work “an unneeded distraction.”

“I haven’t heard anybody come out from a business standpoint saying this is what they want,” he said. “The residual results of this will hurt the citizens of Wisconsin.”

Proponents of right-to-work argue it will make Wisconsin more competitive and that workers should have the freedom to decide whether to pay and join a union, rather than having dues automatically withdrawn.