The Wisconsin State Senate passed so-called ‘right-to-work’ legislation late Wednesday night, against a backdrop of protests from those saying the bill represents pay cuts for working people and a direct attack on organized labor.
After nearly eight hours of debate, the bill passed the Senate 17 to 15, with all Democrats and one Republican voting against it. Onlookers in the Senate gallery shouted “Shame! Shame!” as legislators filed out after the vote.
The proposal would make it a crime punishable up to nine months in jail to require private-sector workers who aren’t in a union to pay dues. The bill now goes to the State Assembly, where majority Republicans are expected to approve it next week. Anti-union Gov. Scott Walker, a likely Republican presidential candidate, has said he would sign it if it reaches his desk.
“While Gov. Walker has left us unemployed and mired in billion of dollars in debt, he wants onerous new restrictions on workers while he enjoys the freedom to fly around the country campaigning for a new job instead of doing the one here he was elected to do,” said Scot Ross, executive director of the progressive advocacy group One Wisconsin Now. “That’s worse than wrong. It’s outrageous.”
The Center for Media and Democracy, a Madison-based watchdog organization, has revealed that the state measure is taken verbatim from model legislation crafted by the right-wing, corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
“With out-of-state special interests calling the shots, Wisconsin citizens get left behind,” Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO said in a statement Wednesday. “Right-to-Work is a continuation of the destructive policies of the Scott Walker administration that have cost Wisconsin jobs and economic opportunity.”
Rallies and demonstrations leading up to the vote drew thousands to the State Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel set the scene:
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