AFSCME

One of the key arguments in the continuing legal battles to overturn Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union law is that citizens of this state and country have the right to associate freely. By arbitrarily "decertifying" public employee unions that refuse to jump through Walker's expensive, time-consuming legal hoops in order to gain virtually nothing, Wisconsin Republicans want to pretend that those unions and the employees they continue to represent are somehow now "illegals," just like many of those lawmakers regard undocumented immigrants brought in by businesses to work on the cheap.

This shouldn't even be news, but with all of the machinations going on, it comes as a relief. WisPolitics reports:

[AFSCME's Rich Abelson] said unions hope the primary winner will have the best chance of beating Gov. Scott Walker adding unions will support that candidate -- even if it’s Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett...

“I’ve had my differences with Mayor Barrett, some of them public, some of them private,” Abelson said. “But the fact of the matter is Gov. Walker and Mayor Barrett are nothing alike.”

Now all we need is an agreement from the candidates and the unions not to trash each other in the primary. 

Will Scott Walker and the new Republican legislature declare all-out war on organized labor in Wisconsin?

Those are the signals they're sending. Walker & Co. seem determined to roll back, if not entirely repeal, the rights of public employees to bargain their contracts -- a law that has been on the books for 50 years.

Walker has demonized public employees during his tenure as Milwaukee County executive, and during his campaign for governor portrayed them as living high off the hog with too-generous wages and benefits. When he discusses how to repair the state's huge budget deficit, public employees are always the first target for cuts -- layoffs, furloughs, privatization, cuts in pension and health care benefits.

And the conservatives' crusade against organized labor isn't limited to public employee unions.