Scott Walker Quits, Wisconsin Employees Celebrate
Latest polls show more people support unions
Back in July, when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination, AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka issued a one-sentence statement: “Scott Walker is a national disgrace.” On Monday, after hearing that Walker’s candidacy had ended, Trumka said in a written statement: “Scott Walker is still a disgrace, just no longer national.”
According to a story by Timothy Noah and Brian Mahoney on the website Politico, Walker’s failure as a presidential candidate is especially sweet for Wisconsin employees given the losses they have suffered since Walker was elected governor. A labor-backed effort to recall Walker failed in 2012 after Walker pushed through a bill drastically reducing public employees’ bargaining rights.
Then, in 2014, Walker won re-election after Trumka declared Walker’s defeat organized labor’s top priority. Earlier this year, Walker had made Wisconsin the country’s 25th right-to-work state, freeing public and private workers from any legal requirement to pay dues or their equivalent to a union that bargains collectively on their behalf.
But Walker was never able to gain traction with his anti-union message in the pre-primary contest for the White House—in part, possibly, because unions have been gaining greater public approval in recent years, even among Republicans. Since 2009, Gallup found, union approval has risen from 48 percent to 58 percent for all voters, and from 29 percent to 42 percent for Republican voters.
“As Gov. Scott Walker leaves this race,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said Monday, “This is much clear: you can’t build a campaign by tearing working people down and attacking their aspirations for a better life. Real change starts with bringing people together to find common ground and boost everyone’s American Dream, not to ‘divide and conquer’ or make a reputation by stripping workers’ rights, as Walker so often boasted.”
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