At at New York Times, "Wisconsin Governor Says He Will Begin Issuing Layoff Warnings to Unions":
Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, said Thursday that he would begin issuing layoff warnings to unions representing 1,500 state employees on Friday if his bill to sharply reduce collective bargaining rights and benefits for public sector employees remained at an impasse in the Legislature.Fleebaggers. Scumbags. Progressives. Screwing over Wisconsin. Typical.
Republican leaders in the Senate, where the bill has been stalled since Senate Democrats left the capital two weeks ago to block a vote, passed a provision that they said allowed law enforcement officers to detain the missing Democratic senators if they were seen anywhere in Wisconsin and take them to Madison.
Both measures were aimed at increasing the pressure on Democrats, who hold a minority in the Senate and oppose the bill. But the efforts also significantly raised the stakes in a fight that has grown into a national referendum on unions and public workers and has spread to Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere.
In Wisconsin, no one in either party seemed eager to consider the images that now appeared possible: hundreds of ordinary workers getting word that they would soon be out of work, and senators arriving at the Capitol in handcuffs. Still, no one in either party seemed willing to budge.
“No one is going to come back today,” said Fred Risser, one of the Senate’s 14 Democrats who left the capital last month after realizing that the cuts to collective bargaining were likely to pass the Senate, but that no vote could be taken without at least 20 members — and thus at least one Democrat — in attendance.