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Politics
10:38 am
Fri May 11, 2012
Video of Walker describing "divide and conquer" union strategy
Video surfaced Thursday (5/10) of Gov. Scott Walker telling his largest campaign donor that he would use a "divide and conquer" strategy with unions.
Walker's comments were captured by documentarian Brad Lichtenstein in January 2011 as part of a film he was making about the changing economy of Janesville. They were first reported last night by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
In the movie, Walker is speaking to Diane Hendricks, who has since donated more than $500,000 to his campaign. Hendricks asks Walker about unions--and more specifically--about whether Wisconsin might pass a "right to work" law that bans mandatory union shops in the private sector, "(Any chance we'll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions?) Oh yeah. (And become a right to work?) Well, we'll, in fact, the big thing we'll (What can we do to help you?) Well, we're going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we're going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions. (Right). Because you use divide and conquer."
Democrats have often accused Walker of using divide and conquer tactics. But in this video those words come directly from the governor, just a few weeks before he would introduce his bill to curb bargaining rights for most public workers.
Walker has said in recent weeks that he won't push for a right to work law in Wisconsin. But the governor has repeatedly stopped short of promising to veto such a law should it reach his desk.