Wisconsin governor survives recall
Labor fails to oust
nemesis, but Dems
regain state senate
Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott
Walker — who last year eliminated all
meaningful collective bargaining rights
for Wisconsin public employees —
survived recall June 6. Walker won
with 53 percent of the vote to 46 per-
cent for Democrat Tom Barrett.
The same percentage held for lieu-
tenant governor, where Walker’s in-
cumbent running mate survived a chal-
lenge from Fire Fighter union leader
Mahlon Mitchell, 53 to 47 percent.
Four Republican state senators also
faced recall, and three kept their seats
by even greater margins, including
Senate Republican Leader (and
Walker right-hand man Scott Fitzger-
ald).
But the fourth, Van Wanggaard, lost
to Democrat John Lehman, a retired
teachers union member, and that
means control of the Senate goes over
to Democrats 17 to 16. [When Repub-
licans rammed through the collective
bargaining bill last year, they had a 19-
14 majority in the Senate. But six Re-
publican state senators faced recall last
year, two of whom lost their seats to
Democrats.]
Walker was able to keep his seat
thanks to help from billionaires. He
raised $30.5 million, mostly from out-
of-state donors, compared to $3.9 mil-
lion for Barrett, who focused on in-
state fundraising. Walker also benefited
from over $16 million in independent
ad campaigns by supporters, including
$3 million by Americans For Prosper-
ity, a group funded by the Koch broth-
ers, and $1 million by the anti-union
group Center For Union Facts. Barrett
backers spent about $10 million on in-
dependent campaigns. [Labor unions
earlier spent about $4 million on Kath-
leen Falk’s campaign to be the Demo-
cratic nominee, but she lost badly to
Barrett in a May 8 primary.]
Turnout in the recall was the highest
ever for a Wisconsin governor’s race:
2.5 million Wisconsinites voted, about
57 percent of voting age adults, and
well more than the 2.17 million who
voted in the 2010 election that brought
Walker to power.
Walker’s 1,334,430 votes meant he
and his allies spent about $35 per vote
— most of it in a flood of last minute
television advertising. Yet exit polls
showed that over 90 percent had made
up their minds before the ad barrage
began, and 94 percent of voters voted
for the same person they voted for in
2010.
An exit poll for the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel also showed that
union households made up 33 percent
of the electorate in the recall election,
compared with 26 percent in 2010.
And union households voted 63 per-
cent for Barrett in the recall, compared
with 62 percent in 2010. A union
household was defined as having at
least one person who is a union mem-
ber.
The national AFL-CIO commis-
sioned an exit poll of union members
themselves. Of the 390 Wisconsin
union members contacted by Hart Re-
search Associates, 75 percent voted for
Barrett. Public sector union members
were 85 percent for Barrett, while pri-
vate sector union members were 69
percent for Barrett. Just as with the
public at large, women union members
and union members with college de-
grees were somewhat more likely to
vote for Barrett than men and those
without any college. Asked whether
public employees should be allowed to
engage in collective bargaining over
wages, benefits and working condi-
tions, 82 percent of the union members
said yes, and 14 percent said no.
In a press conference call the morn-
ing after, AFL-CIO President Rich
Trumka emphasized the recapture of
the state senate, and said Walker’s win
was not a validation of the effort to
eliminate collective bargaining rights.
In Ohio, voters last year struck down a
law that eliminated public employee
collective bargaining rights. But Wis-
consin lacks the referendum, the
process by which opponents of a law
may gather signatures to refer it to vot-
ers. And neither Walker nor Barrett
emphasized the collective bargaining
issue in their campaigns.
“This election wasn’t about collec-
tive bargaining,” Trumka said. “I wish
it had been about collective bargaining,
but it wasn’t.”
Local Motion
May 2012
A list of Oregon and Southwest Washington workplaces deciding
whether to be union-represented – as reported by the National
Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board.
Voting in union elections
Date Workplace (Location) Union
Yes
No
DECERT
26
27
5/10 Service Steel/Aerotek (Portland) Sheet Metal Workers Local 16
43
90
3
21
5/30 Sacred Heart Medical Ctr maintenance (Springfield) Op. Eng. 701 33
26
5/2 Ore. Child Dev. Coalition (Gresham) Laborers Local 320
5/17 Pacific Rail Services (Portland) Boilermakers Local 104
DECERT
Requesting a union election
Workplace (Location) Union
Number of workers in unit
Sacred Heart Medical Center maintenance (Springfield) Operating Engineers 701
Ore. Child Development Coalition Head Start (Cornelius) Laborers Local 320 DECERT
Coos County Airport District (North Bend) Teamsters Local 206
51
90
8
L EGEND
: workers will be union-represented
DECERT
: workers will be on their own
: A decertification election occurs when some union-represented workers declare
that the union no longer has majority support. A ‘yes’ vote is a vote for the union.
Kaiser announces opening date for Westside Medical Center
Kaiser Permanente Westside Med-
ical Center is targeted to open in Au-
gust 2013 to better serve residents of
Washington and western Multnomah
counties from its location in Hillsboro’s
Tanasbourne area.
Construction will wrap up on the
126-bed hospital this month. After that
comes the work of outfitting the hospi-
tal with equipment and furnishings, and
hiring and training the workforce.
The project has progressed
smoothly since groundbreaking in
2009 and has bolstered the local econ-
omy with more than 2,000 union con-
struction jobs. When open, the hospital
will create about 800 permanent, fam-
ily-wage jobs under union contracts.
The Kaiser Permanente Westside
Medical Center is the first new Oregon
hospital to be built in the Portland
metro area in decades. The $344 mil-
lion, 421,000-square-foot project will
feature a full-service Emergency De-
partment and eight operating rooms.
The hospital design incorporates the
Kaiser Permanente ideal of total health
and will be the first LEED Gold certi-
fied hospital in the metro area (one of
only 39 hospitals worldwide to receive
this environmental designation).
K now Y our r ights
T he only Time you musT go To a
docTor chosen by The work -
ers ’ compensaTion insurer is if
you receive a proper noTice of
an “ independenT medical exam
( ime ).” This one - Time appoinT -
menT is for Their experT To
commenT on your case .
JUNE 15, 2012
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 3