Poll: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Winning Labor, Budget Fight

Reader Comments
Back to blog

Ah, how come every other poll, including the Wall Street Journal/NBC News show, has a different result with the majority of people supporting collective bargaining and, by a slim margin, supporting the state employee protesters ever the young governor.

Nancy Lee of IL 9:33PM March 02, 2011

the ole north state does not have collective bargaining at all ---nada- doesn't exist. we are no worse off than anyone else. no one is moving out , state workers aren't quitting. collective bargaining ---the big lie. GAs are forced to negotiate labor contracts when all states are in a budget crisis--and even with the cuts these cry babies still want their maypo, even though their bennies are still cheaper than the rest of us. cry baby cry baby stick your finger....... Go Heels!

batcavenc of NC 1:17PM March 02, 2011

Spot on.

Laura Buchthal of WA 3:37AM March 02, 2011

Like the fact that the people who were polled, were the 400 prostitutes who Dick Morris sucked the toes of.

Rabble Rouser of NY 10:04PM March 01, 2011

Not a single one of your readers believes your poll...have you noticed?
Do you care?

Jack of OH 8:06PM March 01, 2011

My Fuherer,
We are with you unto death....Heil!!!

Rocky Suhayda of MI 7:41PM March 01, 2011

Of all the titles that Morris has held in the past I think it very strange that the author would just highlight his time with the Clintons. Since that time, he has disavowed the Clintons and worked hard to defeat Hillary and then Obama so his creds cannot be defined as "former Bill Clinton political consultant." And does Morris own a polling firm? If so, what is their track record. What about other polls on this subject - have there been any?

Mary of IL 11:45AM February 28, 2011

OMG----So the scumbag sex freak Morris conducted the poll.....
To all you brainwashed Wisconsinites.....This poll results are incredible because it was run by sore dick morris.............In case you have forgotten him go to google and googled him...lololololol

Olin Ross of IL 12:27AM February 28, 2011

Glad to see you are giving Walker advice on how to brainwash people, Peter Roff. No, Walker thought that he could jam this bill through before people figured out what was going on. He failed, and so the workers got to frame the language of the debate. There is a reason why Walker did not start out by explaining about why he wanted to eliminate collective bargaining-he KNEW that there would be huge resistance.
Now that his fast track plan failed, the language of the debate has already been established.
My goodness, Peter Ruff, you write for US News and you are so cynical that you would call union busting "education reform." What this means in terms of Walker's plans is massive layoffs in the public sector, devastating cuts for schools (remember, his budget address still hasn't happened....), Milwaukee Public Schools will probably be bankrupt, hundreds if not thousands of young teachers will lose their jobs at a critical point in their careers when they have just invested a great deal of time and money to get those jobs, class sizes will balloon due to layoffs......and so on and so on.
Education reform. Mr. Ruff, you should be ashamed of yourself. If you have children, I hope you consider how you would feel if the staff at your child's school was cut in half, and their class sizes doubled.

Numzio Simfuegos of WI 4:13PM February 27, 2011

In December, Governor elect Walker asked the unions to wait to negotiate until he came in office and accept a wage cut of 5.8% and pay 12% to their health care. Marty Bell, representative of the 22,000 Municipal and County workers union said that asking public employees to take any pay cuts was like. " A Plantation Owner talking to his slaves". They told Governor Walker to screw himself. The unions then went with Democrat Governor Doyle and tried to negotiate contracts with wage and benefit increases. They wanted Nothing to do with wage cuts. Their scheme failed.
Now they are going to lose it all, so they blame Walker for not negotiating, when just two months earlier they didn't want to negotiate and were planning on negotiating State contracts with the Democrats and Governor Doyle for Pay Increases! What hypocrisy
The reason Walker wants to severly limit collective bargaining, is that two years from now when the contracts are due for negotiating again, the unions will bargain to get those paycuts back and have 100% employer(state of Wis.) paid health care. When the State disagrees, then it goes to an Arbitration Judge who has historically given in to the demands of the unions and that increases the taxes on us ordinary citizens, who work two full time jobs at $8-$10 per hour just to pay for teacher salaries/benefits that average $70,000-$125,000 per year! We citizens can't afford that! Not only is the State broke, but we are broke and barely surviving. We can't allow unions to bust the State Government and us citizens. The negotiations took 15 months last time and ended with an arbitration judge increasing pay and benefits. We will be $3.6 Billion in debt, over I Billion a year shortfall just for teachers salaries/benefits.
In our town there are over 350 homes in foreclosure with more happening daily. Unemployment is around 9%, no one is hiring, local businesses have closed, laid off over 200 at one, and have instituted wage freezes or pay and vacation cuts the last 8 years., We can't afford to keep teachers and public employees living in luxury, while we, who pay them, lose our homes so they can keep theirs! Don't tell me the Unions and Democrats are for the common worker, they are not! They stand with their special interest unions and are full of hate and anger because they can't make $75,000 per year anymore, and lost the last elections. Boo Hoo!
I worked for Consolidated Freight under the Teamsters Union. They became so rigid , arrogant and inflexible, just like the teachers union, with their demands for wages, benefits and hiring more employees, that CF started a non-union company that paid higher wages and similar benefits, and closed CF, putting 22,000 employees out of work, just to get rid of the Teamsters Union. That Union cost me a $20.56/ hour wage with full medical benefits along with 22,000 others!
The Federal employees that belong to unions can't collective bargain either. It is time for change.

Michael Plautz of WI 12:52PM February 27, 2011