{"id":384568,"date":"2018-11-11T04:11:52","date_gmt":"2018-11-11T03:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-labor-helped-bring-down-scott-walker-and-bruce-rauner\/"},"modified":"2018-11-11T04:11:52","modified_gmt":"2018-11-11T03:11:52","slug":"how-labor-helped-bring-down-scott-walker-and-bruce-rauner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-labor-helped-bring-down-scott-walker-and-bruce-rauner\/","title":{"rendered":"How Labor Helped Bring Down Scott Walker and Bruce Rauner"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Tuesday night, in a strong rebuke to the anti-labor agendas of Wisconsin and Illinois\u2019 Republican governors, voters elected Democrats to lead their states. Illinois\u2019 new governor, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, won the race with 54 percent of the vote, while Wisconsin\u2019s new governor, Tony Evers, won his contest, though final votes are still being tallied. Both ran on strong, clear messages of supporting unions and working families. <\/p>\n

It would be hard to understate the damage to workers wrought by Scott Walker, elected during the Tea Party wave of 2010, and Bruce Rauner, elected in 2014. Walker wasted no time taking aim at organized labor: In 2011 he proposed the notorious Act 10, legislation which stripped public school teachers of their right to collectively bargain, on top of slashing their health insurance and pension benefits. Act 10 inspired 100,000 people to protest at the state capitol, but when Walker easily won a recall election in 2012, he grew emboldened. Republicans <\/span>repealed Wisconsin\u2019s prevailing wage laws<\/a> <\/span>for state and local government funded projects, and Wisconsin\u2019s minimum wage remains stuck at $7.25. The last time it was raised was nearly a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Prior to Act 10, the state\u2019s largest teachers union\u2014the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC)\u2014boasted 98,000 members. By 2016, that number <\/span>had dropped to 36,074<\/a>. As of August, WEAC membership had fallen even further, to just over 32,000 educators. Overall union membership across the state is down too: There were 355,000 union members across Wisconsin in 2010, but as of 2017, <\/span>that number stood at 230,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Don’t miss a beat<\/strong><\/p>\n

Get the latest news and thought-provoking analysis from Truthout.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In Illinois, Rauner\u2019s record was similarly hostile to workers. Upon taking office in 2015, the governor\u2019s first order of business was to introduce his so-called \u201cTurnaround Agenda\u201d\u2014a wish-list of 44 proposals that he insisted were needed to save the state. Among them were calls to eliminate…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On Tuesday night, in a strong rebuke to the anti-labor agendas of Wisconsin and Illinois\u2019 Republican governors, voters elected Democrats to lead their states. Illinois\u2019 new governor, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, won the race with 54 percent of the vote, while Wisconsin\u2019s new governor, Tony Evers, won his contest, though final votes are still being tallied. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-384568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}