[img_assist|nid=65970|title=Making you work harder|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=200|height=150]The Marthon County Labor Council has blinked, saying it will now permit Republicans to particpate in Wausau's Labor Day parade.
According to the Wausau Herald, Labor Council President Randy Radtke sent an email late Tuesday saying everyone will be permitted to march in the parade, which is organized by the council. Radtke added, however:
“We didn't start this fight in Wisconsin, but were responding to anti-worker positions and policies supported by local Republican politicians, including those who have complained about not being invited. With the track records that Pam Galloway, Sean Duffy, Scott Walker, and Jerry Petrowski have all put together this year, they should be ashamed to even show their faces at a Labor Day parade.”
Amen to that. Nevertheless, Wausau Mayor Jim Tipple had demanded that members of all political parties be allowed to participate in the parade. He threatened to bill the labor council for all city costs to police the parade if the unions didn't agree.
Take special note of Mayor Tipple's tactics. They're pretty much the same tactics Republicans just used in Madison to bust public employee unions: Cut their funding and make their operations more expensive, expecting that will tame them if not destroy them. Meanwhile, imply that labor unions aren't patriotirc or community-minded. Nope, that supposedly describes innocent Republicans who now want to lead the kind of parade they didn't like when it was encircling the state Capitol.
Maybe the labor council realized that the hypocrisy of Republicans parading with big smiles in a Labor Day event would be swamped by the anti-labor black eye ensuing from the heated rhetoric of Republicans aggrieved that they wouldn't be able once again to piggyback on the work of organized labor.
But the GOP won't be getting a free ride in the parade, even if they are indeed brave enough to show their faces. Pat Kreitlow, former state senator who is running for Congress against Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Free Market), has put together a petition campaign. "Tell Duffy America needs more than parades, we need jobs and the people who have jobs need rights and respect." The signature page is here:
https://services.myngp.com/ngponlineservices/petition.aspx?X=iQCGWUYWAoY=