Don't Back Down, Governor Walker

Scott Walker

Republican Governor Stan Walker of Wisconsin is facing quite a backlash for his efforts to balance the state budget and tame the power of public employee unions. To recap his efforts, not only is Walker requesting that public employee unions contribute more toward their health benefits and pensions, he wants to take away their collective bargaining rights.

In protest, public employees from all areas of civic responsibility have picketed the state capitol. Democratic legislators in the Senate have fled the legislature to prevent a quorum from passing the Governor's proposals.

I stand with Governor Walker. He has chosen a necessary and principled position. He has the legacy of progressive President Franklin Delano Roosevelt behind him: "The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service" (1937). He has the brave example set by then-Governor Calvin Coolidge against the Boston Police strike: "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, any time" (1919). How can we forget President Ronald Reagan's unilateral termination of air-traffic control workers who went on strike, breaking an oath not to engage in such activity (1981)?

Public workers enjoy the public trust, funded by public money. Their collective actions disrupt everyone, not just the particular managing firms that supervise them. Civil servants have no right to demand more money from the public coffers without being held more directly accountable to those who have hired them, and to those who compensate them.

Stand firm, Governor Walker. Don't give in to the unions. End collective bargaining in the public sector, restore fiscal sanity to your state, and set the example that other states need to follow.