Organized labor denounced Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal Monday for sweeping reforms to limit union power, including abolishing public-sector unions altogether. Union leaders called it a desperate bid to revive his sagging Republican presidential campaign.
The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, said it was “an attack on working people.”
“Scott Walker can now add one-trick pony to his resume right underneath national disgrace. His campaign is floundering and so he does what he always does when he can’t think of real solutions, he attacks workers. Working people want leaders who will protect their freedom to speak up on the job — not demagogues like Walker who will do and say anything to get ahead,” said spokesman Eric Hauser.
Edward Wytkind, president of the federation’s transportation trades department, tweeted, “The #ScottWalker ‘destroy the middle class’ plan is really a war for (not on) poverty.”
Wytkind followed that with, “Funny, nothing in #ScottWalker’s ‘destroy the middle class’ plan stops perverse spending by the #KochBrothers to steal our democracy.”
The transportation trade department’s official account tweeted, “If #ScottWalker actually thinks he’ll win over the hearts and minds of Americans by further destroying unions, he has a lot to learn.”
The American Federation of Teachers, through its @yougotschooled Twitter account, chose mockery. It pointed to an August Gallup poll showing that 42 percent of Republicans approve of unions and compared that with Walker’s current low single-digit support in the 2016 GOP primary race.
“While you listen to @ScottWalker bashing unions today, remember unions are 14x more popular w/ Republicans than he is,” the teachers union said.
Walker’s proposals, if enacted, would sharply curtail union political and economic power by removing most of the advantages they enjoy under federal law. Ending public-sector collective bargaining alone would eliminate about half of the unions in the nation, reducing the movement’s total membership to seven million.
Other proposed changes include eliminating the National Labor Relations Board, making right-to-work laws that prohibit workers from being forced to support a union the national norm, and allowing workers to prohibit their employers from being required to turn over worker contact information to unions.
“I believe that fairness and opportunity for workers results from freedom. Freedom that allows workers and employers to create flexibility, choice, and innovation in the workplace. Unfortunately, many of the nation’s federal labor laws and regulations have stood as a roadblock to fairness and opportunity, and instead have created rigid, top-down workplaces that don’t really work for Americans,” Walker said in his announcement.
