Scott Walker and Right to Work
Wisconsin’s Governor bobs and weaves on another labor reform.
Scott Walker is heading to Iowa this month as part of his consideration of a run for the White House, but in the meantime he’s starting a second term as Governor in which he presumably wants to accomplish something. So it’s unfortunate that he’s ducking a chance to make Wisconsin the country’s 25th right-to-work state.
At his second inauguration last week, Mr. Walker told voters that prosperity comes “from empowering people to control their own lives and their own destinies through the dignity born from work.” In the Badger State, he added, “we understand people create jobs, not the government.”
He’s right, which makes it that much stranger to watch Mr. Walker dodging the right-to-work challenge. In December, after Wisconsin Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald said he was interested in taking up a right-to-work bill, the Governor called it a “distraction.” Then he told WKOW-TV “Capitol City Sunday” that despite the chatter about right-to-work momentum, “there’s a lot of things that are going to keep the legislature preoccupied for a while,” like taxes and education.
That may be, but Wisconsin needs an economic lift and right to work can help. Big Labor spins right to work as radical, but it merely gives workers a choice to join a union. Many workers decide to drop their union affiliation once government coercion is repealed, and union political clout tends to fall.