Wisconsin Republicans battle with public workers

The maneuver came a week after legislators in Ohio stripped public workers of most of their collective bargaining rights and as several other Republican-led state legislatures consider bills to curtail union rights.

Critics say the legislation is part of a larger power grab by Republicans who aim to undermine unions in key swing states ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

Unions are the biggest source of financial and grass roots, get-out-the-vote organizational support for Democrats and have long been a target of business-backed Republicans.

Wisconsin\'s Republican Governor Scott Walker has insisted throughout the weeks-long battle that the only way to close the state\'s yawning budget deficit was to eliminate collective bargaining rights so public workers cannot fight pay and benefit cuts.

Tens of thousands of people descended on the capitol in daily protests insisting that they were not fighting about money but to protect their democratic right to form a union.

Walker began sending layoff notices to 1,500 state workers last week and has ordered the state police to arrest the 14 Democratic senators who fled to Illinois February 17 to prevent the necessary legislative forum to pass the bill.

The state\'s Republican senators ended the legislative standoff Wednesday by stripping all references to the budget out of the union-busting bill.

A legislative quorum is needed to pass budget measures, but the Republicans said they didn\'t need a quorum for the new bill because it didn\'t include fiscal measures.

Democrats blasted the move and said it will spur efforts to recall Walker and some of the Republican senators.

"The people I don\'t think knew what they were getting when they voted last November, so there will be a do-over" Senate Minority leader Mark Miller told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"I think it\'s political suicide," added Democratic state senator Bob Jauch.

The Republican leaders left the legislature without speaking to reporters as protesters chanted "shame."

Senate Majority Leader sent the paper a statement saying Republicans were forced to act because of the "childish stunt" staged by Democrats prevented the majority from acting on its agenda.

"The people of Wisconsin elected us to do a job," he said. "They elected us to stand up to the broken status quo, stop the constant expansion of government, balance the budget, create jobs and improve the economy."

The Republican attempts to bust public unions face strong public opposition and have galvanized Democrats and union organizers.

A poll released last week showed that Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public workers by a margin of nearly two to one: 60 percent to 33 percent.

The New York Times/CBS News poll found that 56 percent of respondents opposed cutting the pay and benefits of public employees while 37 percent supported cuts.

Yet unions have seen their power and membership rolls shrink as the manufacturing sector declined and shifted to anti-union southern states, and now represent just 12 percent of US workers.

Public workers account for more than half of union rolls, even though a dozen states prohibit state employees from forming unions.

Some 22 states have also undermined unions with so-called "right-to-work" legislation which ban labor contracts that require all employees to join and pay union dues.

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