Labor & Employment Law

Wisconsin Republicans Getting Nervous About Losing Senate Votes

By James Parks

Opponents of the right of public employees to bargain for middle-class jobs in Wisconsin are getting nervous that three Republican state senators may switch their votes and support public employees. Stephen Moore writes in the Wall Street Journal that with a 19-14 majority in the state Senate, Republicans cannot lose more than two votes if they want to ram through Gov. Scott Walker?s anti-worker agenda.

The pressure is building on the Republicans. Consider, 14 Democratic senators have been out of state since Feb. 17 and the public response to their action has been overwhelmingly positive.   

Now a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that 62 percent of respondents oppose eliminating collective-bargaining rights for public-sector workers over health care, pensions or other benefits. And working people have launched recall efforts against eight of the GOP senators.

Maybe as they look over their shoulders, the Republican senators may hear the words of Wisconsin voters like Roy Vandenberg, a member of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 2-144, who said:

Gov. Walker and Senate Republicans are refusing to listen to the hundreds of thousands of working families who traveled to Madison to make their voices heard. He has refused to listen to the majority of the people of this state who disagree with them. So now it is time for us to make our voices heard in their districts. If they will not listen to ?we the people? then the ?we the people? are going to take our government back.  

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on March 04, 2011 (boomark / email).