Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Issues Layoff Warning Notices

March 4, 2011 11:39:08 PM

MADISON, Wis., March 4 (Reuters) - Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker issued layoff warning notices on Friday to unions representing state workers as a three-week-long battle between Republican and Democratic lawmakers over union bargaining rights took a new turn.

In an e-mail announcing the layoff notices, the governor's office said that "if the Senate Democrats come back to Wisconsin, these notices may be able to be rescinded and layoffs avoided. Without Senate action within 15 days, individual employees may begin to receive potential termination notifications."

Walker did not specify the number of workers affected but said this week about 1,500 employees would be affected. Friday's warning notices do not count as official layoff notices.

The letters to the statewide bargaining units notified them that layoffs will be possible starting in April. It said that the action was "due to the delay in the Budget Repair Bill."

That controversial measure, backed by Walker, would eliminate most of the collective bargaining rights for most of the state's 300,000 public employees.

It has triggered massive protests in the state capital and prompted 14 Democrats in the state senate to flee to neighboring Illinois two weeks ago to deny the measure the quorum it needs to pass in the chamber.

(Editing by Peter Bohan)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[Jefferson78]

07:40 PM on 03/08/2011

Scott Walker for President!

[parron]

08:09 PM on 03/08/2011

Yup - he may be bat shi+ crazy but he is better than the rest of the GOoP...
p.s. no offense, but how much did you have to pay to get 209 fans....

[Leigh49]

10:33 AM on 03/08/2011

Scott Walker Koch. Doing daddy proud.

[Covertghost1]

10:34 PM on 03/07/2011

This is just hilarious to me, because more workers have been calling in about retirement than ever before in state history, at a rate of 5,500 a day.

Keep bullying Scott, you're just proving more and more that it isn't a budget thing at all.

[TomUpton]

04:48 PM on 03/07/2011

Go for it Scott! You like this, the whole world is watching you. Pull out your big man move and lets see how it measures up. I have been missing a little bit of Nixon, thanks for this! Very entertaining.

[BARRY08]

04:14 PM on 03/07/2011

Only last January a court found Walker crossed the line in his last job by firing Federal workers and replacing them with the most despicable private group !! Walkerhut , he had to bring Federal Gov workers back and it cost the tax payer an arm and a leg !!! we must stop him from doing the same !!!

[BARRY08]

04:10 PM on 03/07/2011

Whilst you are at it Governor , issue one for yourself !!! and make yours become a reality PRONTO

[USNDC]

11:02 AM on 03/07/2011

The Aztec Union Priests have sacrificed 1,500 innocent union workers to the collective bargaining shakedown gods.

[thinker43]

10:35 AM on 03/07/2011

Walker would be better off issuing his resignation! He's not going to be there much longer anyway, may as well get it over with and save everyone time and money. Wait - he doesn't really care about saving money, just wants more of everyone else's to pass along to his Koch friends.

[bounced01]

12:48 AM on 03/07/2011

Will there be any executions, sire?

[akababs]

07:54 PM on 03/06/2011

The WI residents who elected this man are now getting what they voted for? So what's the problem?

[BARRY08]

04:12 PM on 03/07/2011

True but we are all allowed to make mistakes !!! mistakes can be corrected - asking for his resignation inso facto !!! is part of solving this HUGE as well as COSTLY mistake

[parron]

02:24 PM on 03/06/2011

Dear Gov. Walker

Workers have made their financial concessions to you.

Now you threaten layoffs...here is what you will accomplish

1) taking food away from their children
2) taking the heat away in the winter
3) taking clothes away from the school children
4) causing family stress and illness with the loss of income

What kind of evil person does that?

[Jefferson78]

07:43 PM on 03/08/2011

When government taxes regular citizens to pay the bloated benefits of unionized civil servants, you take food, clothing and shelter away from children. Guess that makes the unions evil.

[chappelforpres]

01:48 PM on 03/06/2011

Walker is a fully transparent troll who has been paid to shift the deficit burden, largely create by unfettered, massive speculation by Wall Street and the banks, onto the backs of the average working stiff.

Just another ploy by unapologetic uber-conservatives to stuff "free market economy" favoritism, zero taxes and fundamentalist driven social mores down the throats of the gullible.

It never fails to amaze me that in the U.S. of Amnesia,although Republicans have controlled the political agenda for nearly 30 years, many here have the gall to blame our current plight on progressives. From that chilling perspective, cutting teacher's salaries seems particularly stupid.

[judiNJ]

01:23 PM on 03/06/2011

I heard of a great sign today, "Jesus was a teacher. Pontias Pilate was a Governor."

[iconoclast6]

01:19 PM on 03/06/2011

Scott Walker is an infected, pus-filled zit on the backside of society. I'll never be able to tell him in person just what working people think of him. So, as a Card Carrying Member of two unions and the DNC, it will be my pleasure, no, not just my pleasure but my HONOR, to toss a couple of hundred to the people who are working to ride him out of Madison on a Union Made rail.

[mpk1028]

12:54 PM on 03/06/2011

According to a state budget think tank, Wisconsin could make up it's budget shortfall if it just outsourced the office of governor and that of the governor's staff and replaced it with diseased orphans from Bangladesh. The Koch brothers say that they already have some prospective servants, er, applicants for the jobs.

[Renlim]

04:13 AM on 03/07/2011

Are you sure their think tanks? or masturbation tanks?