As karoli noted the other day, Scott Walker and his Teapublican allies in the Wisconsin legislature have announced their full scale war on Wisconsin workers.
Walker, who pretended he did not want the bill has come out in full support of it, not that this came as a surprise to any of us who have been paying attention. After all, as the video above shows, Walker was talking about this back in 2011, just before he did his wage theft bill on public sector workers.
But taking away workers rights isn't enough for Walker and his cadre of corporate cretins. They want to criminalize our rights:
Requiring anyone to join a union or pay dues to one as a condition of employment would be guilty of a class A misdemeanor under the right-to-work bill draft released this afternoon by Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald's office.
Here is the Legislative Reference Bureau's summary of the bill:
"This bill creates a state right to work law. This bill generally prohibits a person from requiring, as a condition of obtaining or continuing employment, an individual to refrain or resign from membership in a labor organization, to become or remain a member of a labor organization, to pay dues or other charges to a labor organization, or to pay any other person an amount that is in place of dues or charges required of members of a labor organization. Any person who violates this prohibition is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor."
And even this is not enough for them. State Senator Scott Fitzgerald, who is as much a corporate servant as any of these damn fools, wants to insult our intelligence. On Friday, Fitzgerald announced that they are fast tracking this piece of offal, having a hearing on Tuesday and a vote on Wednesday. Then he pulls this stunt (emphasis mine):
"My experience, as leader, is when you have the votes, you go to the floor," Fitzgerald continued. "You don't wait around."
Asked whether he was worried senators might change their minds given more time to consider a vote, Fitzgerald said he worries about that "all the time." He mentioned rumors that some Republican senators would have been targeted with ads in an effort to pressure them not to support right-to-work.
Fitzgerald said he called Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, Friday morning to go over plans for the extraordinary session with her and to ensure there is no perception that the GOP majority is "rushing this bill through."
Who the hell does he think he is kidding?
The reason for them rushing this through now is because there was about to be a ad run educating people about the damage that this wage theft bill will cause. Even without the ads, the unions' efforts to educate the people were having was already quickly cutting through the fascists' propaganda and eroding the bills popularity every day.
karoli was also partially correct in that Walker's desire for this bill was to elevate him in the standings among the fringe extremists on the right. In other words, he wants to sell our rights to his corporate and big money overlords.
There is, however, a second motivation for Walker to do this. When they attacked the public sector workers four years ago, Fitzgerald admitted that it had nothing to do with repairing the budget or saving money (especially since it did neither!):
The only reason Walker tried to kill the public sector unions was a futile effort to keep Obama from winning in Wisconsin. The only reason that they are attacking the private sector unions now is another futile effort in helping Walker try to win his own state.
It won't help though. Polling shows that Hillary Clinton has a commanding lead over Walker in Wisconsin.
Hell, Walker can't even win with his own party. The same polling shows that Paul "Lyin'" Ryan fared better than Walker even after Ryan said he wasn't going to run.
If you are a fellow Wisconsinite, please call your state senator at 1-844-334-3438 or email them or sign the petition. Better yet, do all three!