WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) — Local labor leaders are continuing to rally against Wisconsin’s Right to Work bill, which is being debated in the Assembly today.
Several union members from north central Wisconsin met at the Wausau Labor Temple to coordinate another attempt to stop the bill.
Dale Burazin is with United Steel Workers #224, and works at Graphic Packaging in Wausau. He says they’re trying to make sure the union members know how important their calls to Madison are right now. “We want everybody to be aware that Right to Work legislation is out there, and that we oppose it, and we would like them to call their legislators and voice their opinion.”
Burazin knows fighting Right to Work will likely be an exercise in futility, because there’s already enough Republican votes to pass the bill and Governor Scott Walker has promised to sign it. “That’s the problem. Everybody at the plant says, ‘How do we stop this?’ and I said we still have to give them our voice. We have to voice our opinion and tell them what our feelings are, that we want to keep our unions. We want to keep our voice in the workplace. And, as of right now, it’s just a hurdle that we are probably not going to be able to jump over because of the Republican controlled legislation.”
Burazin and others in the Wausau area would like to be at the Capitol Thursday for a large union rally, but work comes first. “The problem I have is everybody’s working, and it’s hard for individuals to get off, like I’m on day shift this week, so it’s hard for me to get down to Madison. I would love to be there, but I just can’t take off of work to do that.”
Randy Radtke is the President of the Marathon County Labor Council. He also has to stay at work Thursday. Radtke says many people don’t understand why they believe Right to Work is bad for workers and companies. “Right to Work is wrong because (in) a union (shop), their workers don’t have to pay union dues, but yet the union has to pay to represent them if they need it, and they’re gaining the same benefits without paying. It costs money to represent you workers, so if someday, you had a store and consumers had a choice to not pay for the product, eventually, the business would go out of business.”
Supporters of Right to Work say it gives employees the freedom to associate with the union if they choose to, and does not eliminate unions.24-hours of debate starts at 9:00 a.m. in the full Assembly. A Friday morning Assembly vote is expected to fall along party lines, before sending the bill to Governor Walker for a Monday signing ceremony. That schedule will be slowed down if even one amendment is accepted, because the amended bill would have to return to the Senate before the Governor could sign it.
(Listen to our interviews with Randy Radtke and Dale Burazin at our website. Click their names for the link.)
