Walker says National Guard is prepared... to Take on Angry workers with no Paychecks

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-wi-budgetwoes-nation,0,77...

MADISON, Wis. —

Gov. Scott Walker says the Wisconsin National Guard is prepared to respond wherever is necessary in the wake of his announcement that he wants to take away nearly all collective bargaining rights from state employees.

Walker said Friday that he hasn't called the Guard into action, but he has briefed them and other state agencies in preparation of any problems that could result in a disruption of state services, like staffing at prisons.

Walker says he has every confidence that state employees will continue to show up for work and do their jobs and he's not anticipating any problems.

His plan would require higher pension and health insurance contributions and remove bargaining rights except in a limited way over wages.

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Permalink Reply by Petalrose on February 14, 2011 at 3:01pm

And I would say to him-"Don't threaten me! What Nat Gard-they are all over seas pretty much.

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Permalink Reply by Localtarian on February 14, 2011 at 3:43pm

No, there really isn't very much national guard over seas, a huge portion of them are still in the states. Mostly over seas troops consist of actual military soldiers, mercenaries, and people whom have volunteered. I don't think the states can afford to send them over seas right now.

@ Lauren, yes indeed I agree, we'll have to wait and see what happens from here out.

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Permalink Reply by Localtarian on February 14, 2011 at 7:21pm

Agreed, Lauren. I too am kind of worried why the people there haven't said a thing about this. Maybe the people of Wisconsin are going to go the direction I worried they would and just accept it and take it as it is, they're going to bend over and accept that the national guard is there to keep them in check, and they'll just continue to go to work as unpaid slaves. But... we'll see, hopefully they prove me wrong.

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Permalink Reply by Localtarian on February 15, 2011 at 11:55pm

Thanks for the up dates and keeping up with this situation and all the time and effort you've put into it, Lauren. Yeah, I was sort of afraid that the people would target their anger at the wrong group of people. We'll just have to see where this goes from here now, I really do hope for the best for both sides of this debacle.

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Permalink Reply by Localtarian on February 17, 2011 at 11:45pm

Very true, and thanks for looking into this and doing all this research, Lauren.

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Permalink Reply by Tara on February 18, 2011 at 1:18am

I live in WI and definetely have an opinion about this. Scott Walker, which I didn't vote for and I surely don't like all is tactics.....is truly trying to cut the fat in WI. Whether you like it or not, the State employees have always made a lot more money, have had much better benefits and do a lot better than the nonstate worker. WI can not afford to keep paying for this because we're in debt like most States are. Every other worker in WI have had to take pay cuts, pay more on health insurance, ect. It is what it is. Our State and National Governments led us down this path of self destruction to begin with. The corruption is everywhere.

This is all about the bloated Unions and their own corruption from within. It's BS. And in regards to the National Guard. The only reason they were called in is if for some reason, the prison workers should not show up for work, there will be somebody there to fill in for the duties of watching over the prisoners. Otherwise mass chaos would ensue surely.

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Permalink Reply by Localtarian on February 18, 2011 at 4:11pm

Oh, OKay, I see now. Thanks for the first hand experience and clearing things all up, Tara. From just the short couple sentences and the headline of the article I found, it really sounded like they were calling out the National Guard to maintain the crowds, and I do remember what happened the last time a state government called out the National Guard for crowd control. So thanks for clearing that all up. Also, here's another article, apparently the state of Wisconsin is going to go down the road that Greece, Ireland, the UK, Portugal, Germany did with the Austerity loans from the IMF. I personally don't think it will have as catastrophic effect like it did in Europe, seeing as we contribute financially to the IMF the most. But, we'll have to wait and see.

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Permalink Reply by Tara on February 18, 2011 at 4:24pm

It's unfortunate NAU but the media is turning this into another left/right bash fest and there's a lot of pointing fingers going on right now.

For me, I see both sides of the coin in this issue. I don't care much for Scott Walker or any of the other hand picked politicians that we get to choose from nowadays, but I do think that the States budget is too bloated and they have to make many cut backs. On the other hand, taking away employees rights to bargain is wrong and the whole way the Governor has dealt with this issue is terrible IMO.

You're right, we'll definetely have to see the way this is all played out. I'm keeping my eyes and ears open on this one.