Thursday, January 19, 2012

USA: Walker faces monster petition

The people of Wisconsin have delivered a mountain of petitions signed by over a million people to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker - 460,000 more than the 540,208 needed to trigger a recall election.

This kicks off yet another phase of the massive fight by workers and their allies in the US state to restore union rights that were crushed by Republican legislators last year.

The governor and his party rammed through a law that abolished the rights of public employees to collectively bargain and maintain a decent standard of living, unions and their allies say.

Recent reports have said that Mr Walker's policies are killing 18,000 jobs a year in Wisconsin.

The 1,000,208 recall signatures submitted on Tuesday are nearly equal to the 1,128,159 votes that Mr Walker received when he was elected in 2010.

"There is no question about it. Wisconsinites want to recall Walker in order to put an end to his disastrous agenda and stop his attacks on working families," said Wisconsin state AFL-CIO president Phil Neuenfeldt. He accused Mr Walker of "putting corporate allies above the people of Wisconsin."

AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Stephanie Bloomingdale said: "This is a governor who crippled the rights of workers, raised taxes on the poor, compromised our children's education and made it harder for Wisconsinites to vote.

"For 60 days union and community members have organised at union halls, grocery stores and bowling allies around the state" to recall Mr Walker and those who "walk in lock-step" with him, she said.

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