Scott Walker, You Can't Hide!
“Wherever Scott Walker goes, he needs to know that we’re going to be there waiting for him,” said IFPTE President Greg Junemann at a demonstration in Washington, D.C. against the controversial Wisconsin governor. Walker testified at today’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.
Outside, two dozen demonstrators chanted, “Hey, Walker, you can’t hide, we can see your corporate side” and “Tax Wall Street, not Main Street,” drawing interest from passing tourists and a speedy response from Capitol Police. Police threatened arrests and dispersed the “unpermitted demonstration” organized by National Nurses United.
Ann Louise Tetrault, a nurse from Wisconsin, was booted from her seat in the hearing by a Republican committee staffer before the hearing began, and reporter Chris Garlock of the Metro Washington AFL-CIO was ejected from the hearing entirely.
“The people of Wisconsin did not vote for his agenda,” said Junemann, a Wisconsin native.
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The House Republicans had planned to use the hearing to give Walker and the National Right to Work Committee a national stage to attack workers’ rights, under the guise of fixing broken state budgets. More than half the Republican committee members are recipients of funds from the anti-union Koch brothers, big donors to Walker.
The plan backfired when Walker found himself the subject of tough questioning from Democratic committee members. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio forced Walker to admit that several anti-union provision in his controversial “budget repair bill” had nothing to do with balancing the state’s budget. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland called politicians’ efforts to use the economic downturn to “strip American workers of their rights” “shameful.”
And despite Walker’s best efforts to dodge the question, he finally had to admit to Rep. Gerry Connelly of Virginia that he’d never brought up repealing workers’ collective bargaining rights during his campaign for governor. Even fellow witness Pete Shumlin, governor of Vermont, chided his colleague, saying, “If you want to go after collective bargaining, just come out and say it, but if you want to balance your budget, you bring people together, you have a dialogue.”
Includes reporting by Mike Hall on the AFL-CIO Now blog.