Scott Walker completely ignores request from Wisconsin teacher to quit talking about her story

Megan Sampson, an English teacher at Wauwatosa East High School in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, has repeatedly been used by Republican Wisconsin Governor and presidential candidate Scott Walker as the face of his union-busting Act 10 bill. Act 10, among other things, stripped teachers and most Wisconsin public employees of the vast majority of their collective bargaining rights.

However, Walker has been using Sampson’s story, which I’ll explain in detail in the following paragraph and only mention once on this blog, without permission from Sampson. Sampson has repeatedly denied Walker permission to use her story because she doesn’t want to be seen as a political figure, and she’s offended by Walker using her as a posterchild for Walker’s far-right political agenda.

In 2010, Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) laid off Sampson, and Sampson was hired by the Wauwatosa school system not long afterwards. Both of those events occurred before Act 10 became law in Wisconsin in 2011. After she was hired to teach in Wauwatosa, MPS offered Sampson to return to MPS as a teacher, but Sampson refused the offer because she was employed to teach in Wauwatosa.

Walker has claimed that Sampson was hired in Wauwatosa after Act 10 became law in Wisconsin. As I stated in the above paragraph, this claim by Walker is false. Additionally, Walker has claimed that Sampson was honored by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) with a Outstanding Teacher of the Year award for her work for MPS. In reality, DPI gave four Wisconsin teachers outstanding teacher awards for 2010, but not Sampson, and Sampson received an outstanding first-year teacher award from the Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English (WCTE), a non-profit organization whose membership is composed of English teachers in Wisconsin who wish to join the organization.

Since I started blogging a few years ago, there have been instances where people have contacted me and asked me not to use their name, likeness, quotes, stories, etc. in my blog posts, and I have respected their wishes. The fact that Scott Walker has continued to use the story of Megan Sampson in an inaccurate manner and, more importantly, without her permission proves that Walker has zero respect for his fellow Wisconsinites. If Walker can’t respect the people of his own state, he’s not going to respect the American people if he’s elected president.

Advertisement

CONFIRMED: Plexus shipped jobs to foreign countries after being awarded tax breaks from Scott Walker’s WEDC

The administration of Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is giving me a ton of material for my upcoming book about corporate welfare that I intend to release sometime in February of next year.

Greg Neumann, the host of a Wisconsin political talk show called Capitol City Sunday on WKOW-TV, the ABC affiliate in Madison, Wisconsin, confirmed that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) had given millions of dollars in tax credits to Plexus Corporation, a Neenah, Wisconsin-based manufacturer that makes electronic components, after they had laid off 116 workers at its Neenah plant and moved the jobs to a foreign country.

Earlier this year, Neumann originally reported that Plexus had announced in July of 2012 that they laid off 116 of its Neenah workers after having been awarded $2 million in tax credits from the WEDC in 2011, as well $15 million in tax credits in 2012.

Neumann’s follow-up report noted that, according to an official petition filed with the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, Plexus actually laid off the 116 workers in May of 2012:

In July of 2012, Plexus announced it was letting go of 116 workers from its facility in Neenah.  But the layoffs actually came a few months before that.  A Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) petition filed with the U.S. Department of Labor on behalf of the impacted workers states the layoffs were actually implemented by Plexus on May 7, 2012.

Additionally, Neumann reported that the laid-off workers are still receiving federal trade adjustment benefits:

The review concluded only that Plexus is no longer shifting such production, but did in 2012 when it laid off 116 workers from its Neenah facility.

Still the TAA benefits are being allowed to continue flowing to the impacted workers. According to the new ruling, the criteria for benefits has been met because “a significant number or proportion of the workers in such workers’ firm have become totally or partially separated, or are threatened to become totally or partially separated.”

The ruling goes on to state that the production of printed circuit boards by Plexus has “decreased absolutely” and because “customer imports of articles like or directly competitive with the printed circuit board assemblies produced by Plexus Corporation have increased.”

The ruling states those imports also contributed to further workers losing their jobs at Plexus.

It has been confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that Plexus was awarded tax breaks from the WEDC, Scott Walker’s corporate welfare agency, after Plexus had shipped American jobs to foreign countries. This proves that Scott Walker’s corporate welfare agenda has done nothing but waste Wisconsinites’ taxpayer money and effectively ship their taxpayer money to foreign countries.