Governor Walker can read the polls as well as anyone so it is not surprising that he would bend a little in order to get most of what he wants in the budget repair bill.
The problem is, any concessions at all to the unions will be trumpeted as a huge victory by the left and their allies in the press. In short, he won't get credit for compromising nor will he get what he needs to rein in the unions.
Hot Air points us to this JS Online article that gives the parameters of a potential deal:
According to GOP sources familiar with talks on the bill, the discussions with Democratic senators holed up in Illinois include removing or changing a provision from Walker's budget-repair bill that would limit unions' bargaining over wages to the rate of inflation. The talks have also touched on the possibility of removing or changing a provision that would require workers to vote every year on whether their union would remain active or be decertified, the sources said.The last provision especially is anathema to Democrats and unions, who say it could kill many labor groups. The sources asked not to be identified because they had no clearance to speak and because the talks were still delicate.
The Republican governor acknowledged Thursday that his administration was in talks with Democrats but declined to provide details. He also signaled for the first time in the budget crisis that he might be willing to make at least a marginal change to his budget-repair proposal.
The moment for reform is passing. The unions have marshaled their forces very effectively and won the messaging battle by appealing to the American people's innate support for unions in general and the drumbeat from the press that was ceaseless in its smears and outright lies directed against Walker and the GOP in Wisconsin.
But don't worry. The moment will come again when the public employee pension bombs start going off all over America and taxpayers wake up one morning and realize they are on the hook for trillions of dollars from the very same unions they didn't want their political leaders to rein in while there was still a chance to avoid the worst of it.
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