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With Medicare in Crosshairs, Wis. IBEW Activists Mobilize for Pro-Worker Candidates

 

November 5, 2012

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Members of Madison, Wis., Locals 159 and 965 phone bank for pro-worker candidates.

Standing strong in the wake of recent anti-workerlegislation that first took root in their home state, Wisconsin IBEW activists are mobilizing against the erosion of Medicare and workers’ rights that could come to pass if right-wing candidates are elected Nov. 6.


Members from across the Badger State have been phone banking and knocking on doors for President Obama and U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Baldwin – who has a 100-percent lifetime voting record from the AFL-CIO over her 14 years in Congress representing Wisconsin's 2nd congressional district.

“Tammy Baldwin has demonstrated that she completely supports good construction jobs,” said Madison Local 159 member Dave Boetcher, who coordinates government affairs for all inside locals affiliated with the Wisconsin State Conference:

She’s always voted to protect Davis-Bacon and prevailing wages.

At the same time, her “no” vote against vice-presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget – which would have partially privatized Medicare – contrasts sharply with that of Baldwin’s challenger, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson.

After more than a dozen years in the state’s highest office, Thompson took a job as then-President Bush’s secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in 2001, where he oversaw Medicare for the next four years.

Now, on the campaign trail, Thompson has endorsed Ryan’s plan to overhaul the system that helps provide care for 48 million seniors and young people with disabilities. At a May Tea Party rally in southeastern Wisconsin, Thompson told the crowd, “Who better than me … to come up with programs to do away with Medicaid and Medicare?”

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“That position worries us a lot,” said Boetcher:

Retirees we talk to – they‘re paying attention. And our veterans are listening.

We have three veterans’ retirement homes in the state, and you need your Medicare payment along with your VA [benefits] in order to fund your treatment. If that goes away, if it becomes a voucher, that’s going to make it harder for people to get the services they need.

In addition to supporting Medicare, Baldwin has endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act, voted to restrict employer interference in collective bargaining and voted to increase the minimum wage while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Boetcher said that while Thompson used to support many initiatives for building trades members during his terms as governor, “he’s changed into someone else”:

When he was governor, he never went after the prevailing wage. He was OK on transportation, too. But we haven’t seen him in the state in a long time, and since then, he’s gone to work for big pharmaceutical companies and wants to do away with Medicare as we know it. It’s like he wants to run away from his earlier record of being more moderate.

In the end, it seems that this race is not about Tommy Thompson, but rather the new GOP platform down the line. What he’s running on isn’t close to what he used to do as governor. That’s why it’s important that we help get out the vote for Tammy Baldwin.