By The PA. AFL-CIO

– On Monday, the union-busting Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker announced he is running for the Republican nomination for President in the 2016 elections. AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka, when asked, had this to say: “Scott Walker is a national disgrace.”

Scott Walker appeals to the ultra-right wing conservative segment of the Republican party. In primary elections this segment of the party is one of the more vocal in trying to push the party further to the right.

Walker recently made a major gaffe on the record by comparing his anti-union crusade in Wisconsin to fighting terrorists. He has been conducting his own brand of economic terrorism against the labor movement in Wisconsin by attacking school teachers, state workers and most recently all workers – making Wisconsin the 25th Right-to-Work “for less” state.

Now that he is a candidate, moderate republicans have a great opportunity to unite and defeat extremists like Walker who are an embarrassment to the nation.

Monday’s announcement came on the heels of a jam-packed day of activities in Philadelphia in which President Trumka met with Philadelphia Mayoral Democratic candidate Jim Kenney, who is endorsed by the Philadelphia AFL-CIO. Philadelphia AFL-CIO President Pat Eiding welcomed President Trumka to their Executive Council meeting in which our National President gave compelling reasons why we should be supporting candidates who have a solid, working family agenda, built around raising wages and commonsense economic.

President Trumka also participated in a roundtable discussion on fighting wage theft hosted by the Philadelphia AFL-CIO Executive Council and led by Council President Patrick Eiding. The roundtable included representatives of the Community Legal Services which assists victims of wage theft. Laws need to be strengthened to fight and prevent this growing economic problem which is cheating workers out millions of their earnings throughout Pennsylvania.

President Trumka’s message to members of the the Philadelphia AFL-CIO Council and to all of Pennsylvania’s working families is: to continue to escalate our national campaign to raise the wages for all working families, to rebuild the economic and political strength of working families through collective bargaining and to support and pass commonsense economic policies that help us grow together. Secretary-Treasurer Frank Snyder, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO’s Political Director, expressed appreciation on behalf of the entire PA AFL-CIO team, for the Council aggressively moving the initiatives set by the National AFL-CIO.

Source – http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6159