Labor & Employment Law

Walker Orders Capitol Cleared

By Donna Jablonski

Continuing his unprecedented power grab, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ordered the state capitol to be cleared at 4 p.m. local time Sunday, closing the building to Wisconsinites protesting his plan to gut the right to bargain for good jobs. Now he’s violating their freedom of assembly, too. Dozens of ministers, rabbis and priests joined workers and students from across the state, risking arrest to protest the closing of the capitol to the public.

Wisconsinites from all walks of life?nurses, firefighters, snowplow drivers, police officers, students, teachers, and others?have been in the capitol building peacefully for 14 days. During that time, they set up an elaborate community called ?Capitol City? to keep the capitol building clean, protesters safe and fed and, most importantly, to keep up pressure on Walker to come to the table and open up a dialogue to get Wisconsin moving forward again.

Wisconsin?s law enforcement community opposes Walker?s order to close the building as well as his effort to eliminate collective bargaining in this state.

In a prank call from a blogger posing as one of the billionaire Koch brothers last week, Walker revealed he considered sending in troublemaking infiltraters to disrupt the peaceful protests.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 27, 2011 (boomark / email).