Governor-elect Scott Walker raised the possibility of decertifying state employee unions on Tuesday as one of his administration's options to control rising labor costs and eliminate the state's budget deficit.
"Anything from the decertify all the way through modifications of the current laws in place," Walker said at a luncheon sponsored by the Milwaukee Press Club at the Newsroom Pub.
Spoken by a man who has no idea what he's talking about.
An employer can't decertify a union; only the members can. It usually requires a petition with enough signers to require an election, and a majority of the members have to vote to decertify the union as their bargaining agent.
Given Walker's war on public employees, giving up their union protection and representation would seem to be the last thing state employees would want to do.
UPDATE: More complete quote, from WisPolitics.com:
"We're exploring every option out there, not just for the system but looking at next year's state budget," Walker said. "Any spectrum of things out there would be things we would consider -- anything from the decertification all the way through modifications to the current laws in place. The bottom line is we want to have a better ability to control what we do when it comes to wages and benefits because we know that's a driving factor in how we're going to balance this current budget and the budgets to come."