County executive’s charm helps realize ambition
Strong 2008 re-election bid sets up another state run
(Fifth of six parts)
Labor leaders watched in wonder as some of their own members began to flock around Scott Walker at county employee picnics.
One high-ranking labor boss even ponied up for Walker’s campaign.
Most of the union brass couldn’t stomach that Walker might be winning voters on the substance of his actions. That left style as their only explanation.
Even Walker allies agreed he had a winning persona as county executive.
Hispanic business leader Maria Monreal-Cameron was among those who praised him despite occasional differences.
“Scott has always been a caballero, a gentleman,” said Monreal-Cameron, who led the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin. “He made you feel like you were the most important person in the world with the most important issue.”
She’s still a fan today despite her deep disappointment in Walker backtracking
from his support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. She is a first-generation American, born of Mexican parents who met in a Texas cotton field.
Recall leader Chris Kliesmet saw shades of motivational speaker Tony Robbins in Walker.
“You get people to follow you and do things not so much by the facts, but the way you make them feel,” Kliesmet said.
But the labor heads saw a darker side.
One American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees official, David Eisner, said Walker used his choir-boy charm and aura of Eagle Scout innocence to hide his blind ambition.
Kurt Zunker, who led an AFSCME local, thought Walker was attractive to union members who had a “white privilege mentality.”
Many younger white workers, Zunker said, resented union-backed seniority rules and legal decrees that gave promotion and hiring advantages to racial minorities.
Rich Abelson, Walker’s chief antagonist and leader of AFSCME’s Milwaukee council, insisted his rival’s certainty reflected ignorance.
“It’s a gift,” Abelson would say.
In Abelson’s eyes,
Walker was an empty suit doing the bidding of billionaire businessmen, CEOs and conservative ideologues.
Scott Walker had felt underestimated, even demonized, before.
‘Staying with the playbook’
In one sense, nothing had changed at the county while Walker concentrated on his 2006 gubernatorial campaign.
There was still no deal with AFSCME, which had been without a contract for two years.
It was a costly delay because the spigot of the giant pension payouts remained open.
While AFSCME and Walker argued, 500 new workers had been hired and became eligible to take part of their pension as a big lump sum if they retired from county and met other rules down the road.
By the end of 2006, eight other county unions had given up the lump-sums for new workers.
AFSCME wanted protections against layoffs and privatization of county jobs in return for new employees not getting the lump-sum option.
Walker wanted much more: a 20% pension cut for existing employees’ future years of service. He also sought from AFSCME something else other unions had agreed to: employees paying a greater share of their health costs.
Leaders of smaller unions found Walker fair to work with in negotiations.
“We had great contracts, nothing was eroded,” Wisconsin Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals president Candice Owley recalls. “They never even proposed big changes in benefits.”
Abelson drew some criticism, even among liberals, for not finding a way to save union jobs.
“The union attitude always has been, ‘More and more for fewer and fewer,’ ” Supervisor Roger Quindel said of AFSCME.
But union critic Kliesmet understood Abelson’s stance.
“You can’t fault him for staying with the playbook,” he said. “You don’t change until you have to.”
Walker wanted a whole new playbook, even a 401(k)-style system instead of guaranteed pensions, but county supervisors called that an unrealistic ask.
In Madison, Republicans were cool to ideas Walker floated during the 2006 race, including altering state law to allow union contracts to be voided.
“The Legislature can’t just wave a magic wand to undo contracts,” state Sen. Alberta Darling (RRiver Hills) said at the time.