Governor-elect Scott Walker is raising the possibility of decertifying state employee unions. In remarks Tuesday at the Milwaukee Press Club, the governor-elect sent the clearest message yet that he intends to take on state employee unions. “There’s obviously a lot of great people. You’re not going to hear me degrade state and local employees in the public sector,” Walker said. “But we can no longer live a society where the public employees are the haves, and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have nots.”
Walker said that means greater concessions from the unions on things like health care and pension contributions. And he suggested a willingness to get tough – even decertifying the unions as bargaining units. “Anything from the decertify all the way to through modifications to the current laws in place,” Walker said. “The bottom line is we want to have . . . a better ability to control what we do when it comes to wages and benefits.