Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Exit of Scott Walker from 2016 Republican Party Nomination Process: Why Labor Union Bursting is not good for National Politics?


Keywords or Terms: GOP debates; AFL-CIO; Union Power; State Labor Unions; Wisconsinites; Public Sector Unions; State of Wisconsin; Rigged Booby Traps; Shifting answers to questions on immigration and foreign policy; Conservative Candidates; FOX-News; CNN; BBC; Failed Attempt of Governor Scott Walker; Wisconsin Act 10; and, Republican Governors

Executives at AFL-CIO and labor leaders were probably relieved and pleased when Scott Walker announced he was jettisoning his plan to run for the White House in 2016. American Federation of Labor Union and Congress’s agenda for 2016 Presidential race and candidates probably stand in contrast with the Governor of Wisconsin’s touted record of conservative reform for his state, including balancing the budget of his state on the backs of his state’s labor union; and, deliberate attempt to undermine the successes of Labor Union Achievements across America. At 47, the college drop-out, had mortally wounded the Labor Congresses in the State of Wisconsin, including instituting a bill union leaders advised, is rigged with booby traps to cripple public sector unions.

Never mind the governor’s touted achievements on his campaign WEBSITE, including: 1) cutting property tax by $131 for Wisconsin homeowners since getting into office; 2) $322 tax cut for average Wisconsin family; 3) creating opportunity for Wisconsin families to deduct private school tuition from their yearly tax returns; 4) saving every Wisconsinite $52.17 on government waste, fraud and abuse. Scott Walker could have won a recall election in his state or gotten a second term with his kind of state executive administrative record; however, Republican voters across the nation are hardly impressed, and his polling after two consecutive GOP debates, has been dismal. The likelihood of him bringing his brand of conservatism to the nation was crated, nailed and shipped back to his home state in the current Republican primary cycle!

As impressive as his touted and self-described executive successes have been for Wisconsinites, American Republicans considered him a fluke as his polling data depicts, less than half of one percent of likely voters give him a thumbs up after the second debate. The lackluster and disappointing performance at the Republican primary debates have shown, he is much of a light weight than he had imagined or conceived. No wonder Mr. Walker, who had struggled on the campaign trail, giving shifting answers to questions on immigration and non-answers to foreign policy questions, closed his ambition by imploring other candidates to join his fatal decision, with a seemingly directed comments to the New York Billionaire Republican aspirant Donald Trump: “Today, I believe that I am being called to lead by helping to clear the field so that a positive conservative message can rise to the top of the field. With this in mind, I will suspend my campaign immediately. I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same so that the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive conservative alternative to the current front-runner.” This is rather cryptic and self-serving; a comment from, as Aspirant Donald Trump will put it: A looser!

Governor Walker took exceptions to ongoing primary debate(s) on the Republican side with the following: “This is what is wrong with this debate. We're not talking about real issues. And Mr. Trump, we don't need an apprentice in the White House, we don't need an apprentice in the White House, we have one right now.” His immediate concern about the direction or futility of the Republican primary debate(s) has not been shared by many Republican voters. The two debates conducted by FOX-News and CNN showed clearly that Mr. Walker has nothing important to share with America; and, his brand of Union-bursting conservatism is better left with the cheeses in Madison! In addition, his immediate concern for America was repudiated and his bravado attempt to take on big-government, special interest groups and lobbyists, were left in the sands and swamp of ignorance of how politics and American Labor Union work. To some extent, he was able to undermine a few of Wisconsin Union progresses for public employees to balance his state’s budget, but many labor unions across the nation loathed his burn-fire destruction of what has for several decades, been considered a break for American workers' unionization, the Union Power.

In short, Walker’s departure from the race, opens up opportunities for other conservative candidates like, Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush or John Kasich, only if they are able to improve on their campaign strategies that seem not to be up to snuff with television entertainer-turned Republican Party aspirant, Donald Trump. Some Political Strategists say the winnowing effect for the group of sixteen or seventeen aspirants has begun; and, is very good for the remaining aspirants on the trail. Avid Republican Party inner circle observers insist that Governor Scott Walker is just the new causality in the unexpected Donald Trump’s shake up of the GOP presidential race. Like him or hate him, Donald Trump is the preferred GOP nominee for 2016, about a month to go to the Iowa caucuses. To complement Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies observation to the Hill, “Donald Trump resonates with people who are tired of hearing lies and cliché from conventional politicians”, and since Governor Walker is one of those, he is not invited to the party and would not be able to make a good case for bursting labor unions and or countering illegal immigration.

Governor Walker’s departure from the race leaves his rivals scrambling to appeal to former Walker’s supporters or constituent(s) just before the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Experts see potential gain for conservative candidates like Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee; as well as, center-right contenders such as Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Jeb Bush. For Mr. Walker, a shaky performance on the campaign trail, two consecutive lackluster debate performances, plus a spooked donors campaign contribution, virtually closed the shop for him. As the Harley-Davidson motorcycle aficionado quickly learned this time around, if you are not moving forward after crisscrossing the neighborhood for about eight months, it is about time to throw in the towel. If you lack a national exposure, if you are unable to respond on the spot to simple foreign policy questions from BBC-News interviewer, you are not ready for prime time.

As the former 2012 Republican presidential candidate and senior senator from the State of Arizona puts it, the “circus” is not over, there is still need for more clowns to get off the clown wagon! By emphasizing that other candidates join his decision to drop out of the Republican Party nomination race, Scott Walker finally accepted his national party campaign failures; but, wants others to join his failed ambition attempt. This is really pathetic, considering that he was said to have been bank-rolled by the Koch brothers and seen as one of the futures of the Republican Party. Koch brothers and the governor of the State of Wisconsin probably found out that you cannot buy the voters’ conscience, if all you hinge your hopes on is to undermine the sweat of hard working Americans.

All of these could have been excused for now, except that, Governor Walker had not only done damage to Wisconsin’s Labor Unions, he has increasingly created an atmosphere of distrust between the Republican Party and the labor unions. His passing of Act 10 in Wisconsin has done the following: 1) Stripped public sector workers of collective bargaining rights; 2) prevent unions from automatically collecting dues from members; 3) limit collective bargaining to wage increases; and 4) required public sector workers to vote whether to unionize or not every year. The Act has already produced a constant changing work rules environment that impact the working relationships on shop floors, including reduction of dues and contributions to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Wisconsin Education Association Council, among others. What damage Mr. Walker has done to the average worker in the State of Wisconsin is, create a deteriorating and hostile work environment, where distrust and mistrust are the order of the day; and, Unions are now at the mercy of workers, since Act 10 stripped unions of legal protections and forced them to reinvent themselves outside the collective bargain stratosphere. The change is so huge that labor union leaders categorized the labor movement shake-up in Wisconsin as, the first dissembling and re-calibrating of American Labor Movement Struggle since the nineteen twenties. 

What started in Wisconsin in 2011 – reorganization of public sector unions - is what Scott Walker was going to nationalize, if he had obtained the Republican nomination and went on to win US Presidency. American Union Leaders already suffer for lack of union dues and more than twice the time, many public workers are opting out from joining public sector unions for a number of reasons better left for discussions, other days. However, the long-run changes that the Union instability challenges in Wisconsin has created, may ripple to other states and the resulting effect on labor wages and salaries may be complex. It is not so much a question of more instability in Unionization of American Workers; but rather, the new system of multi-sectoral unions that are probably unable to work together, act together and achieve a level of advocacy for labor through electoral politics and lobbying, is now the new order in Wisconsin, baring a nationwide possibility. The solution to this problem would not come overnight as this singular effort from a college dropout politician, Scott Walker, seems to have re-written the rule of Labor Union Advocacy.

The good news is that the chilling effect of Act 10 in Wisconsin does not stand the chance of going nationally with the dropping-out of Governor Scott Walker from the Republican nomination race. If Unions are to solve the underpinning effect of Act 10 of Wisconsin, Unions have to evolve from the Cancun they have been for several decades. Unions have to become more proactive in strategizing at multi-levels to help balance out the chances of acrimonious and meld together instincts that help different Union groups see their goal as one, bettering the welfare of all workers. The dis-aggregation which Act 10 has resulted into in Wisconsin does have same hallowed effect on Unionization nationally or universally, public or private sectors. Union executives must begin to manage organized change to the structure of Union memberships at all dis-aggregated levels in Wisconsin and anticipate the possibility of this happening in other states. Much has been learned with the experience in Wisconsin, it is sometimes hard to imagine change that Act 10 had done to labor movement in the State of Wisconsin; however, leadership with proactive strategic thinking regarding labor laws is a starting point; and one that is now required with the Union bursting ambitions of some other Republican governors.

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