Job Outsourcing Booster of Gov. Walker’s Wrong for Wisconsin Right to Work Law Putting Company Up For Sale?

MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin job outsourcing business that hosted Gov. Scott Walker when he signed a wrong for Wisconsin right to work law is now suggesting it may be up for sale to, “enhance shareholder value”. One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross termed “pathological” the quest for corporate profits at the expense of workers.

“Gov. Walker and the corporate CEOs that pushed the wrong for Wisconsin right to work law pathologically lied to Wisconsin workers,” said Ross. “The same people who supported a law that hurts Wisconsin’s middle class in their drive for profits are now preparing to sell off the business to further pad their own pocketbooks.”

According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report:

“Badger Meter Inc., the Brown Deer-based maker of water meters and other flow measuring devices, said Wednesday that it is exploring “various options to enhance shareholder value,” which could include the sale of the company.”

Research in other states has shown that far from helping workers and the economy, when right to work is enacted the result is lower wages, less health care, fewer resources for schools and less workplace safety.

Previously Badger Meter unapologetically shifted jobs out of Wisconsin. According to a Milwaukee Business Journal that reported:

“To reduce costs and optimize a new factory, Badger Meter Inc. plans to shift production from its main operations in Brown Deer to a new plant in Mexico.

“We are going to be moving unskilled work down to Mexico and I’m not going to apologize for that,” Badger Meter chairman, president and chief executive officer Richard Meeusen said at the company’s annual meeting on April 24.”

For his part Gov. Walker had previously declared he did not want a right to work law to pass but was furiously pandering to the right wing in his disastrous quest for the GOP presidential nomination. Not coincidentally according to Ross, Walker received significant campaign contributions from right to work backers, including in excess of $17,000 from Meeusen himself.

Ross concluded, “Right to work was wrong for Wisconsin — it hurts workers and tilts the system even further in favor of CEOs only concerned about their own profits.”