Dave Umhoefer

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Gov. Scott Walker’s fleeting proposal in 2015 to take his Act 10 collective bargaining limits national is drawing interest from a key adviser to President-elect Donald Trump.

Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, sought Walker’s thoughts last week on the proposal the Wisconsin governor made during his presidential bid, Walker said.

Walker’s advice: go for it.

Trump has proposed a hiring freeze on federal employees, except for military, public safety and public health jobs.

He made both positive and negative remarks during the campaign about public-sector unions, but is hearing from Gingrich and some congressional Republicans who want to make it easier to fire federal employees.

Walker in 2015 proposed sweeping labor-law changes . He called for a ban on federal workers from collectively bargaining. He backed a national right-to-work law and elimination of the National Labor Relations Board.

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“If you really want to drain the swamp, as Trump says, that would be a way to do it,” Walker said in an interview.

Walker added: “It’s the work rules, the seniority, all those things. If they could tackle that in a similar way to what we did, long term it would be a major, major improvement.”

Most federal employees only have bargaining rights over working conditions. Wages and benefits were not part of bargaining, unlike in Wisconsin, where until Walker’s 2011 legislation public-sector unions had full bargaining rights.

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Two federal unions sounded ready to fight to hold their ground.

Trump has some good ideas, but if he targets working people after promising to “drain the swamp,” it will be the biggest bait and switch ever, said Randy Erwin, national president-elect of the National Federation of Federal Employees.

Erwin added: “It is shocking how cavalier Gov. Scott Walker and others are about abolishing cherished First Amendment rights like freedom of association.”

The head of the American Federation of Government Employees said the union would work with anyone to improve conditions for working people.

“But we will defend the Constitution, which federal employees are sworn to uphold, and vigorously oppose any proposals that would undermine our Constitutional rights,” AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said.

Trump will find it very difficult to defeat the lobbying power of the federal unions if he tries to take away collective bargaining, predicted Kate Bronfenbrenner, senior lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

An easier path would be overturning rules changes that helped unions during the years of President Barack Obama, she said.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, a Wisconsin Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he would support efforts to make it easier to fire “bad, borderline criminal” federal employees.

The committee heard testimony last week about U.S. Forest Service workers who kept their jobs despite evidence they sexually harassed employees at the agency.