Walker proposes restrictions on national unions

Walker also pledged to do away with unions for federal workers.

J. David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, representing about 750,000 people, said it’s a last-ditch effort by a failing candidate. “While the IRS was busy harassing conservative organizations they also had more than 200 federal employees whose only work was for the big government union bosses”.

Marquette University Law School Poll Director Charles Franklin has kept a close eye on the Governor’s campaign – and he joins Wisconsin’s Morning News to dicuss how Walker’s campaign is playing here in the Badger State, and what Walker can do to surge ahead in the crowded field. His first was Monday, on unions.

Walker, who rose to prominence as governor in 2011 by slashing taxes and clashing with state employees over collective bargaining rights, has stressed his anti-union credentials since launching his presidential campaign in July. “He was nothing like the candidate that some national reporters had warned us about before making his big debut”, Robinson recalled.

The national Democratic Party is already lacing into Walker before his speech.

Democratic National Committee spokesman TJ Helmstetter described Wisconsin under Walker as “an emblem of his anti-middle class agenda: broken jobs promises and a lagging economy“.

“Scott Walker is saying he’s anti-worker and anti-middle class”, Cox said.

Bill Steffin, 70, who said he’s been enjoying all the political attention the city has been getting from presidential hopefuls, said it was just nice to see someone with a plan and not mere platitudes.

“The language [in the white paper] about freedom of contract strikes me as a callback to the pre-1937 Supreme Court’s view of substantive due process”, said Garden. “On Day One, I will hold unions accountable and require transparency of union expenditures“.

Mandating that federal employee unions disclose the amount of dues used for political activity. “Walker did fine, but as I watched the event I felt that Walker missed an opportunity to put these hard-core Republicans firmly in his column”, Robinson said.

Walker argued that the labor board, especially under President Obama, has become an advocate for unions rather than a neutral arbiter. For example, the NLRB’s actions initially stood in the way of Boeing bringing good jobs into South Carolina. But with Nevada’s critical role as a swing state and its diverse demographics, many Republicans think Walker can win here – and he may have to.

Having survived three elections in four years, Walker is not hesitant to take on union bosses. They have the right to collectively bargain, but only with respect to conditions of employment. Walker would turn that around, requiring states to pass laws specifying that they are not right to work.

Those efforts would include dismantling the National Labor Relations Board that was created during the New Deal in 1934, and passage of a national “right to work” law among federal workers. An estimated seven million state, local and federal workers belong to public-sector unions, accounting for about half of all union members nationally. He referred to the practice as “government union lobbying”, though the term refers to some union officials’ ability to spend part or all of their time earning a federal salary and working at federal office while conducting union business. “Wouldn’t be nice if they were working to help our veterans?” excerpts continue.

“Big-government unions should have no place in the federal workplace, and I will reform the law to prohibit them”, Walker said.