AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka reacted swiftly to the still unconfirmed reports Monday that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was dropping out of the 2016 Republican presidential primary. The president of the nation’s largest labor federation issued a one-sentence statement: “Scott Walker is still a disgrace, just no longer national.”
The line was a reference to Trumka’s six-word press release in July reacting to Walker’s official announcement that he was joining the race: “Scott Walker is a national disgrace.”
Labor leaders have detested Walker ever since he instituted major reforms to the Badger State’s public sector union laws in 2011 that allowed workers for the first time to opt out of union membership if they chose. The reforms also eliminated automatic union dues deduction from worker paychecks, required unions to get a majority of members to recertify it each year and limited collective bargaining to just wages. State public employee unions have seen major membership losses since then.
The reforms prompted a major outcry from labor leaders and massive protests at the state capitol as unions and their allies sought to prevent the reforms’ approval. After they passed, unions sponsored a gubernatorial recall election that Walker won in 2012. He also won re-election in 2014 and in March signed a law making Wisconsin a right-to-work state, in effect extending his public sector union reforms to private sector workers.
A President Walker would therefore have been a dismal prospect for labor leaders. The governor’s bid suffered from numerous missteps though such as several shifts in his position on immigration that did not seem to please people on either side of the issue. Walker also lost significant media exposure due to billionaire investor Donald Trump’s surprise rise to front-runner status.
