'We need more bodies': Gov. Scott Walker wants $6.8 million for campaign to bring workers to Wisconsin for Foxconn and other firms

MADISON - Gov. Scott Walker says he wants the state to spend nearly $7 million to draw workers to Wisconsin.

"We need to go beyond our borders," Walker told the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Foundation on Wednesday.

"This would be just one more big step to go beyond our traditional ways ... to bring more talent to the state of Wisconsin."

The state needs more workers to fill jobs, including at a display-screen plant that Foxconn Technology Group plans to build in Racine County, Walker said.

He called on lawmakers to pass a $6.8 million package this spring to market the state. The ad and marketing campaign would target veterans by letting them know they can access generous state benefits and millennials by touting the state's cost of living, he said.

"We need more bodies," Walker said.

His plan drew support from his fellow Republicans who control the Legislature but skepticism from Democrats.

“I’m baffled why Gov. Walker and Republicans aren’t looking at their own policies that have driven away young adults and contributed to our state’s brain drain crisis," Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) said in a statement. "Millennials are increasingly choosing to live in states that invest in public transit, promote workplace flexibility and support student loan debt relief."

His plan quickly won support from Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).

“Our reforms have improved our business climate to the point where we have more jobs to be filled than workers to fill them," Fitzgerald said in a statement. "We should welcome an influx of new taxpayers and homebuyers that will add fuel to our economic engine."

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said in a statement he was interested in the idea but did not commit to it.

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Lawmakers return to Madison in January. They plan to wrap up their session by spring.

Walker said he also wanted to improve job training for workers already living here and find ways to get more people into the workforce.

Dorothy Walker, interim dean of the technology and applied science division at Milwaukee Area Technical College, said there are plenty of people in Milwaukee who need jobs.

The key is letting them know what opportunities are available and helping them learn the necessary skills.

To that end, the state could provide more money to help schools such as MATC develop and fund programs tailored toward the Foxconn jobs, she said. The governor and lawmakers have approved $20 million for tech schools for Foxconn job training.

Dorothy Walker made her comments before the governor announced his plans for an ad campaign.

Federal, state and local governments could work to expand workforce development programs. A return to one of Wisconsin’s previous models for public assistance, in which people could go to school instead of being required to apply for a certain number of jobs, also could help, she said.

Once people acquire basic skills, she would like to see them move into paid internship or apprenticeship programs.

“You learn best when you’re on the job every day,” said Walker, who is not related to the governor.

It’s also the best way for companies to build a workforce, she said.

“Companies used to build their investment in people,” she said. “Now they invest in other things.”

It would be a mistake to leave Milwaukee’s unemployed and underemployed behind in the search for Foxconn workers, she said.

"There has to be a way to create opportunities for people that live in the city of Milwaukee to access some of the opportunities that are available,” she said.

Under the governor's proposal, $3.5 million would be spent on a campaign to bring veterans to Wisconsin. Another $3 million would be spent to promote Wisconsin to young professionals in Detroit, Minneapolis and other parts of the Midwest.

In addition, $300,000 would be put toward a mobile job center that could be taken to events outside Wisconsin, as well as rural parts of the state that don't have permanent job centers.

The ad campaign targeting millennials would build on a $1 million effort that is already budgeted and slated to launch in January. That campaign is aimed at getting recent alumni from University of Wisconsin institutions living in the Chicago area to return to Wisconsin.

Rep. Daniel Riemer (D-Milwaukee) said he supports efforts to bring people in their 20s and 30s like him to Wisconsin. To do that, state officials need to know what amenities and activities draw people to Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Walker doesn’t have a handle on that, he said.

“Scott Walker is the anti-cool governor,” Riemer said. “He’s deeply out of touch with what makes us tick.”

He called it ironic that Walker — who killed a proposed Madison-to-Milwaukee train line — would be advertising on Chicago commuter trains to attract young people to Wisconsin. To bring young people here, Walker needs to embrace public transportation, bike trails and boosting university funding, he said.

Rep. Dana Wachs of Eau Claire, one of more than a dozen Democrats running against Walker, ridiculed the idea of running ads to get workers for Foxconn after Walker and lawmakers agreed to give the company up to $3 billion because of the jobs it will create.

“Gov. Walker sold a bill of goods to the Wisconsin public by saying it would create new jobs for Wisconsinites," Wachs said in a statement. "Apparently, what he really means was that the jobs would go to workers from Chicago."

Patrick Marley reported for this story in Madison with Gina Barton in Milwaukee.