U.S. Supreme Court Issues Anti-Worker Decision in Harris v. Quinn

MADISON, Wis. — The U.S. Supreme Court today, by a narrow 5-4 majority, issued an anti-worker decision in the case of Harris v. Quinn. According to federal tax records, the right-wing legal organization that helped bring the case, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, has received significant financial support from the Bradley Foundation run by Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign chair Michael Grebe.

One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross commented, “Whenever there’s an attack on worker rights it seems that Gov. Walker and his radical, right-wing privatization cohorts are on the scene. This time it’s his campaign chair Michael Grebe on the scene helping to bankroll the effort.”

A review of the federal IRS Form 990 tax documents reveals the Bradley Foundation has provided major financial support to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in recent years. Over the last three years for which tax records are available, Bradley has contributed a total of $289,000, including $100,000 in 2012, $90,000 in 2011 and $99,000 in 2010.

Grebe, as head of the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, with over $620 million in assets, regularly doles out millions of dollars to right-wing organizations inside and outside of Wisconsin. Mr. Grebe has also served as a chair of Gov. Walker’s campaign since 2010 and as chair of his gubernatorial transition team in 2010-11.

A report by One Wisconsin Now showed Grebe’s Bradley has financed $31 million to support public school privatization. The Bradley Foundation along with the Americans for Prosperity Foundation and the MacIver Institute, ran the “It’s Working” television campaign with tax deductible funds during the 2011-12 recall of Gov. Walker and is a major backer of American Majority/Media Trackers, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.

Ross noted that, as if on cue, Gov. Walker issued a statement praising the Harris decision and tying it to his own disastrous and divisive efforts in Wisconsin to deny worker rights.

“Gov. Walker has overseen an administration rife with corruption, cronyism and incompetence in service of the ideological extremism of the millionaires and billionaires that bankroll him. Today is yet another demonstration of how eager he is to be a tool in the toolbox of the right-wing’s relentless campaign to dismantle workplace protections and silence workers’ voices,” concluded Ross.