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Conservative and Republican public employees across the state voiced opposition to a proposal by Gov. Scott Walker that would deny nurses, teachers, EMTs and other trusted public service providers the right to collectively bargain—a freedom that nearly every other Wisconsinite enjoys.
Calling Walker’s assault on middle-class jobs and public employees “anti-freedom” and a “big government power grab against individual rights,” the conservatives and Republicans make clear the opposition is not limited to progressives. Walker and Republican colleagues in the state legislature are attempting to rush through the measure this week.
In a press call Monday afternoon, public employees who said they are conservatives or Republicans weighed in. Here’s some of what they said:
“There is no bigger government than the one that takes away an individual’s rights and freedom—and that’s exactly what we’re seeing going on in Madison right now,” said Mike Recklies, a correctional officer in Elkhorn. “The legislature needs to think hard about what it means to be an American and stop this Big Government power grab against individual rights.”
Green Bay food service worker Brenda Klein said she voted in November “to protect our freedoms from government threat and to create jobs. I never dreamed that this would be the result. The bill being rammed through the legislature does the opposite and it must be stopped.”
Rose Wassenberg, another Green Bay service worker, said the legislation to deny “freedom to nurses, teachers, EMTs and other public employees like me is un-American. Not only that, it won’t do a single thing to create jobs, which is what I and millions of other Wisconsinites voted for in November.”
“I’m a proud conservative because I believe in limited government, especially when it comes to the government’s intrusion on individual rights,” said Green Lake highway employee Bob Jahn. “This anti-freedom scheme being rammed through the legislature goes against every core conservative principal there is, and I urge the legislature to stop it.”
According to Janice Bobholz, an employee with the Dodge County Sheriff’s Department and a resident of Beaver Dam, “The right to join a union and collectively bargain is a freedom that people have died to protect. To have anyone threaten to wipe it away with minimal public debate, deliberation or discussion is unconscionable.”
Meanwhile, the 100,000-member VoteVets.org organization called Walker’s threat to call in the National Guard if public employees strike or mount protests “inappropriate” and an attempt to “intimidate state workers as his administration moves forward with plans to break up workers’ unions.”
“Maybe the new governor doesn’t understand yet—but the National Guard is not his own personal intimidation force to be mobilized to quash political dissent,” said Robin Eckstein, a former Wisconsin National Guard member, Iraq War Veteran from Appleton, Wis., and a VoteVets.org member. “The Guard is to be used in case of true emergencies and disasters, to help the people of Wisconsin, not to bully political opponents. Considering many veterans and Guard members are union members, it’s even more inappropriate to use the Guard in this way. This is a very dangerous line the governor is about to cross.”
According to news reports last week and over the weekend, Governor Walker threatened to mobilize the Wisconsin National Guard to keep any state workers from protesting anti-worker, anti-union proposals he is pushing through the legislature. Included in that proposal is a plan to enact so-called “Right to Work” laws, which would weaken state unions’ ability to negotiate.
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