Scott Walker: “Divide and Conquer” Organized Labor

Uh oh, the cat’s out of the bag.  If you live in Wisconsin, work for a living, and you’re still planning to vote for Scott Walker this June — you’re either a masochist or dumber than dirt.

When he ran for governor in 2010, Walker convinced gullible voters that he only wanted to curtail GOVERNMENT unions‘ excessive pay and benefits; not private sector unions.  And the only reason he wanted to do this was because, well, he HAD to.  Wisconsin had an emergency budget crisis and he had to cut expenses any way he could.  There were painful decisions to make.

BUSTED!

A newly-released video from January 2011 shows Walker discussing his union-busting strategy with his largest campaign donor, billionaire Diane Hendricks.  In the video, Hendricks asks Walker if he would turn Wisconsin into a “completely red state, and work on these unions, and become a right-to-work?”

Walker replies:  “Oh, yeah.  Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employees, use divide and conquer.”

In return for this promise, Diane Hendricks donated $510,000 to Walker’s campaign.  This makes her not only Walker’s largest donor; it makes her the largest campaign donor in Wisconsin history.

Remember now:  when Scott Walker was running for governor in 2010, he never ever said one word about collective bargaining for unions.  He said he was going to reduce government employees’ wages and benefits, but this was only because of Wisconsin’s huge budget deficit.  Walker had been in office for a month before he ever said anything — publicly — about collective bargaining.  And he promised that this only applied to public unions.

And now the lying sack of shit has been outed.  A business manager from Operating Engineers Local 139 recalled his conversation with Walker:

“Scott Walker told me directly that he believed in prevailing wage.  I tried to hold some dialogue with him when the collective-bargaining issue went down. I am a union man. I believe in collective bargaining. The one thing he assured me, time and again, is that he believes in private sector unions. I don’t know whatever beef he had with public sector unions. But he said he believed in private sector unions, and that’s why I believe I have no reason to believe that right to work would be a threat from his office.”

Fool me once…

Working people of Wisconsin — no more excuses.  You can’t plead ignorance this time.  On June 5th, go to your voting booth and scrub that shitstain out of the Governor’s Mansion.