Today, protests against conservative attempts to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights continued in Wisconsin and other states across the nation, with new Main Street Movement demonstrations against attacks on the working class planned in both New Jersey and Florida. MoveOn.org is planning weekend rallies in all fifty states to “Save the American Dream.”

This movement began as a response to Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) attempt to strip his state’s public employees of their collective bargaining rights, under the guise of a budget crisis. If Walker and the Republican legislature had their way, Wisconsin’s teachers, government employees, sanitation workers, and public university professors would be essentially barred from bargaining collectively. But in a direct rebuke to Walker, the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse voted overwhelmingly yesterday to join the American Federation of Teachers:

Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse voted 249-37 of a unit of 328 in favor of union representation through AFT-Wisconsin, a statewide labor federation affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The vote comes in the wake of Gov. Scott Walker having introduced a budget repair bill that would slash workers’ rights and remove academic staff and faculty’s right to collectively bargain.

“What we’ve seen at UW-La Crosse today is an extension of what we’ve seen across Wisconsin for the past two weeks,” stated Susan Crutchfield, an associate professor of English. “Like the hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites who have rallied in Madison, Superior, Fond du Lac, and dozens of other communities across our state, La Crosse faculty stood united today in saying, ‘We deserve a voice in the workplace.’”

Prof. Crutchfield added that Walker’s union-busting legislation was one of the reasons that the faculty moved to approve the new union. “When it became clear that the governor’s extremist legislation had nothing to do with balancing the budget and everything to do with denying workers’ rights, UW-La Crosse faculty realized the urgency in this vote,” she said.

Earlier this week, Gallup released a poll showing that 61 percent of Americans oppose Walker’s plan to bust public employee unions. The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent adds that, when these numbers are broken down, only those in the poll’s highest income category support Walker’s proposal, while “low-to-middle class folks all oppose it.”

As protests against conservative attempts to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights have unfolded in states across the nation, a slew of Republican governors have said they will not pursue similar policy steps to those championed by Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI). “That’s not our path,” said Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI). “I and my administration fully intend to work with our employees and union partners in a collective fashion.” A spokesman for Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA) added, “This is Pennsylvania, not Wisconsin. We’ve had Act 195 [the collective bargaining law] since 1970, and I anticipate that we will continue to have it.”

Earlier this week, it seemed that Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) was also unwilling to challenge collective bargaining rights for his state’s employees. “My belief is as long as people know what they’re doing, collective bargaining is fine,” Scott said in a radio interview. However, during a different interview with Bloomberg Television that is scheduled to air this weekend, Scott took a completely different stance, saying “it’d be great” to get rid of the collective bargaining rights of Florida employees:

He said Florida would be better off if public employees couldn’t form unions and that it’s unfair to taxpayers that state workers don’t contribute to their pensions. While Florida’s constitution grants state workers the right to unionize and bargain for workplace rights, Scott said, “It’d be great to be able to change it.”

“Our state workers don’t pay for anything into their pension plan. And we can’t afford that — it’s not fair to taxpayers,” Scott said. “If you didn’t have collective bargaining, would it be better for the state? Absolutely.”

For one thing, as Tax.com’s David Cay Johnston laid out, the notion that Florida’s employees “don’t pay for anything” when it comes to their pensions is wrong: these employees have agreed to defer some of their compensation, and take it in the form of a pension rather than wages. For another, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) already stripped public employees of their collective bargaining rights, and even he couldn’t explain how it would help a state get into better fiscal shape. (Daniels also can’t quite pin down where he stands on the protest situation in his own state either.)

Scott already plans to pursue an agenda of corporate tax cuts paired with destructive spending reductions that will hurt low-income Floridians, gut the state’s health care system, and cause the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. And after a momentary fit of reason earlier in the week, he seems to have added union-busting to the list.

As the standoff between the Main Street Movement and Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) continues for the twelfth day, much of the media coverage — and anger — from both sides has focused on Walker’s efforts to strip Wisconsin public workers of their right to collective bargaining. But Walker’s assault on public employees is only one part of a larger political program that aims to give corporations free reign in the state while dismantling the healthcare programs, environmental regulations and good government laws that protect Wisconsin’s middle and working class.

Below, ThinkProgress examines ten of the most disastrous policies the Wisconsin GOP is pursuing:

1. ELIMINATING MEDICAID: The Budget Repair Bill includes a little-known provision that would put complete control of the state’s Medicaid program, known as BadgerCare, in the hands of the state’s ultra-conservative Health and Human Services Secretary Dennis Smith. Smith would have the authority to “to override state Medicaid laws as [he] sees fit and institute sweeping changes” including reducing benefits and limiting eligibility. Ironically, during the 1990s it was Republicans, especially former Gov. and Bush HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, who helped develop BadgerCare into one of the country’s most innovative and generous Medicaid programs. A decade later, a new generation of radical Republicans is hoping to destroy one of Wisconsin’s “success stories.”

2. POWER PLANT PRIVATIZATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL NEGLECT: The same budget bill calls for a rapid no-bid “firesale” of all state-owned power plants. One progressive blogger called the proposal “a highlight reel of all of the tomahawk dunks of neo-Gilded Age corporatism: privatization, no-bid contracts, deregulation, and naked cronyism” and suggested that the provision will open the way for large, politically connected corporations to buy up the state’s power plants on the cheap. While it’s unclear whether corporations would be interested in buying the plants, a similar proposal was vetoed six years ago by Gov. Jim Doyle (D), who called the plan fiscally and environmentally irresponsible. Many of Wisconsin’s power plants are in violation of federal clean air regulations and desperately need to be upgraded and cleaned up — not dumped into the private sector.

3. DANGEROUS DRINKING WATER: Republican lawmakers have introduced bills in both the Senate and the House which would repeal a rule requiring municipal governments to disinfect their water. Conservatives have said that the clean water rule — which went into effect in December — is simply too expensive. Yet the rule only affects 12 percent of municipalities and the price may be worth it. In 1993, 104 people died and 400,000 fell sick when the Milwaukee water supply became infected. Even two decades later, the Environmental Protection Agency Advisory Board notes that 13 percent of acute gastro-intestinal illnesses in municipalities that don’t disinfect their water supplies are the result of dirty water. Municipalities can keep their water clean for as low as $10,000 per well — but apparently for the Wisconsin GOP that is too high a price to pay to keep citizens safe from deadly microorganisms.

4. DESTROYING WETLANDS: In January, Walker’s proposed regulatory reform bill exempted a parcel of wetland owned by a Republican donor from water quality standards. But the exemption was more than just an embarrassing giveaway to a GOP ally: environmental groups believe the bill’s special provision would actually affect the entire county, eliminating public hearings on proposed wetland development, short-circuiting approval of development projects, and disrupting the region’s water system.

5. FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY: Walker signed a bill this week requiring a 2/3 supermajority in the legislature to pass any tax increase. Republican lawmakers are now reportedly considering a constitutional amendment that would make the rule permanent. A similar constitutional amendment in California has been called the “source of misery” of that state’s crippling budget crisis and has forced lawmakers to “gut public education, slash social services and health care programs, close prisons, and lay off record numbers of public employees.” While claiming to “make a commitment to the future instead of [choosing] dire consequences for our children” Walker and GOP lawmakers are instead putting generations of Wisconsinites in a “fiscal strait-jacket.”

6. DISENFRANCHISING VOTERS: This week, Republican lawmakers moved forward on a bill that would require voters to present a photo ID from the DMV at the polls, making it significantly more difficult for the elderly, the disabled, college students, and rural residents to participate in elections. While Republican lawmakers insist the bill is necessary to prevent voter fraud, there have been almost no documented cases of fraudulent voting in the state. Instead, the Wisconsin State Journal writes, the GOP bill is going “overboard in limiting ballot access in a state proud of its long history of high participation in elections.”

7. CUTTING JOBS, LOSING THE FUTURE: Last fall, Walker killed an $810 million federally funded high-speed rail project, forcing the Transportation Department to pull its funding. Walker’s decision killed 130,000 expected jobs and forced the Spanish company Talgo to close its Milwaukee factory and layoff its 40 person staff. A spokeswoman for the company told The Daily Reporter that “the state’s decision to back away from the high-speed rail project sends a terrible message to businesses considering locating in the state.”

8. STIFLING INNOVATION: In late January, Walker introduced a bill that would ban wind-powered energy from Wisconsin and exacerbate the state’s dependence on out-of-state coal. If passed, it’s estimated that the law would immediately eliminate $1.8 billion in new wind power investments and jeopardize eleven currently proposed wind projects. After a public outcry earlier this month, Walker’s bill is (for now) dead.

9. “NAKED POWER GRAB”: Earlier this month in a party-line vote, the legislature ceded “extraordinary control” of the state’s rule-making oversight process to the governor. Walker now has complete power to draft agency rules which the legislature must then either approve or reject. The law gives Walker the power to write rules for formerly independent state agencies like the state Departments of Justice and Education — and most ominously the Government Accountability Board, the state’s ethics watchdog.

10. POLITICIZING STATE AGENCIES: A provision in Walker’s budget repair bill would convert thirty-seven state employees from civil servants to political appointees — consolidating his power over state government and expanding his power to “hire, fire and move key employees to carry out his agenda.”

Since his inauguration just two months ago, Walker and the Wisconsin GOP have taken unprecedented action to undermine the state’s unions, environmental regulations, long-term fiscal health, social welfare programs and basic democratic structure. As Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) said Tuesday, Walker has stopped acting like the Republican governor of a Midwestern state and has instead “basically taken on the position of a dictator” with a “vision of America that’s similar to somewhere like Nigeria or Pakistan.”

– Kevin Donohoe

Early this morning, Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly approved legislation stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights, in the face of ongoing protests that have gripped Madison for well over a week. The bill passed at 1:17 a.m., and Republicans only held the vote open for “seconds.” The vote was called while many Democrats were outside the Assembly chamber, preventing them from casting no votes. Only 13 of the Assembly’s 38 Democratic members got their votes in on time.

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) praised the Assembly’s action in a statement. However, the Assembly Republicans’ late-night procedural shenanigans fly directly in the face of commitments Walker made on the campaign trail, where he promised to end late-night votes because “nothing good happens after midnight”:

He promised to sign legislation if elected governor that prohibits the Legislature from voting after 10 p.m. or before 9 a.m.

“I have two teenagers and I tell them that nothing good happens after midnight. That’s even more true in politics,” he said in a statement. “The people of Wisconsin deserve to know what their elected leaders are voting on.”

A campaign spokesperson said at the time that Walker believes 10 p.m. is the appropriate hour to end floor work. “Scott’s been there and he’s seen it,” she said, referring to late-night work that allows lobbyists undue influence over legislation. Of course, this supposed commitment to transparency didn’t stop Walker, when he was a member of the Assembly himself, from “join[ing] with the Republican majority in January 1997 to eliminate a rule that required lawmakers to finish their floor sessions at 8 p.m.”

The anti-worker bill now moves to the Wisconsin state senate, which is unable to convene a quorum because its Democratic members are in Illinois, in protest of Walker’s attack on public sector employees. Meanwhile, Main Street movement protests have spread, with workers planning demonstrations in New Jersey and Florida.