MADISON, WI (WTAQ) – The Wisconsin Assembly’s Democratic leader said Wednesday that Governor Scott Walker has misled the public about what he would do about a right-to-work bill.
Minority Leader Peter Barca played a video of the Republican Walker, in which he had pledged in 2012 that right-to-work was not a priority for him — because private sector unions were his “partners in economic development.”
Those same private unions are now decrying Walker’s promise to sign the right-to-work bill, after majority Republicans in the Senate said they had the votes to pass it.
The Senate’s Labor Committee approved it 3-1 Tuesday, and the full Senate meets at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday to debate and vote on the measure.
In Barca’s words, “The governor has deceived the people of this great state time and time again.”
Walker denied changing stripes Tuesday, telling reporters in Green Bay he has always supported the right of workers not to join a company’s union or pay union dues if they don’t want to. He said in 2012 that the bill wouldn’t get to his desk. It didn’t — and Tuesday, Walker said for the first time that his vow to prevent a right-to-work law only applied to his first term.
Still, Walker said he has never out and out promised to sign or veto a right-to-work bill until now. He co-sponsored a similar proposal when he was in the Assembly in the mid-1990’s, and Walker says he has never denounced his previous support for it.
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)