If you own a business in southern Wisconsin, you might have received a letter from the Wisconsin State Employees Union, Council 24 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Union leaders want you to join them in opposing Gov. Scott Walker's budget plan, with its limits on collective bargaining for public workers. To show you're on labor's team, the letter asks you to display a sign in your business saying you "support workers rights."
The letter puts you in a difficult spot. Even if you support the unions, you have some customers who don't. Why alienate them? And if you support Walker, you have some customers who agree with the unions. Why alienate them, either? In short, the last thing you want to do is to get involved in the most contentious political issue in the state.
The people at the State Employees Union know how you feel. That's why they've added a little threat to help you see things their way. Failure to display a pro-union sign, the letter says, "will leave us no choice but [to] do a public boycott of your business." And if you want to remain neutral -- well, that's not good enough. "Sorry, neutral means 'no' to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members," the letter says.
Weeks after Gov. Walker signed the budget bill into law, the battle over union prerogatives is not only not subsiding -- it's spreading to new fronts. There are the recall efforts going on in which Democrats and Republicans are each targeting the other party's state senators. There is a court battle over whether the new law can be implemented. There is a campaign for the state supreme court that has become an extension of the union fight. And now there is the intimidation campaign -- join us or else -- aimed at business owners.
"We're in uncharted territory here," says Republican Sen. Leah Vukmir. "We've never seen anything like it."
So far, Democrats seem to have the edge. In the recall campaigns, the unions appear to have gathered more signatures on petitions to recall the Republicans who passed the budget bill than the Tea Party has collected to recall Democratic lawmakers who fled the state in an attempt to bring the legislature to a halt.
"They are far more organized, and they understand that the stakes are incredibly high," says Vukmir of the union campaign. "What happens in Wisconsin will have a dramatic effect on what happens in other states and the country." (Vukmir herself is not facing recall because she was just elected last November and the law doesn't allow recalls of newly elected lawmakers.)
There's another fight going on, this one in court, where a county circuit judge has ordered the state not to implement the new budget law while she considers a challenge filed by a local district attorney. On Thursday Walker announced he will abide by the judge's ruling, even though top Republican lawmakers believe the judge does not have the authority to set aside the law. At some point it's all going to end up with the state supreme court.
Which brings up the most intense battle going on at the moment. On Tuesday, voters will go to the polls to elect a supreme court justice. The choice in the "nonpartisan" contest is between incumbent David Prosser, a conservative who has served on the court for 13 years, and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, a liberal who has made clear that if elected she will vote to strike down the new budget law. If Kloppenburg wins, the pro-union faction will have a 4-to-3 majority on the court. In other words, the outcome of this single judicial election could well determine the fate of the budget law.
So it's no surprise that unions and other outside groups are spending big money to defeat Prosser. And just as in the recall fights, Republicans have been slow to get going. But now, just days before the voting, they've realized that everything is on the line. "If we lose this race," says Vukmir, "every piece of legislation that the legislature [passes] and the governor signs into law will be challenged and turned over in the courts."
Now, add in the new union intimidation campaign directed against businesses in the state. The Republican victory in the legislature didn't settle anything. It just opened up some ugly new fronts in the Battle of Wisconsin.
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
