Long before Scott Walker dusted off the statutes and tried to put "search for truth" and the rest of the Wisconsin Idea in the 'ol wood chipper, he successfully obliterated something almost as big: he deleted "fair and peaceful" and the rest of the Declaration of Policy for labor peace from the State Employment Labor Relations Act (SELRA), which was a general mission statement for how Wisconsin should deal with its public servants.
I know this going to shock you, but Wisconsin hasn't always had peaceful labor relations. Strikes and other labor unrest were common and a huge inconvenience to the public. Historically speaking, Wisconsin was home to the Bayview Massacre, where seven unarmed workers were shot and killed by the Wisconsin National Guard during protests for a little bitty thing called the eight hour workday.
To ensure that labor conflicts were resolved peacefully, Wisconsin passed a wide variety of laws and developed "suitable machinery for fair and peaceful adjustment of whatever controversies may arise."
This "machinery for fair and peaceful adjustment" led to forty years of labor peace in Wisconsin. But in 2011, Walker changed all that. He literally tore-up the longstanding peace agreement between Wisconsin and its public servants, in what is now known as Act 10—even removing "fair and peaceful" and the rest of the Declaration of Policy for labor peace from the statutes.
Most disturbing is that like his (attempted) deleting of the Wisconsin Idea, his axing of the this labor peace section had no legal basis-- he was just doing it to poke progressives in the eye.
Unfortunately, unlike the Wisconsin Idea, controversial words of reason like "friendly," "peaceful" and "fair" were successfully ripped out of the Wisconsin statutes.
Were those drafting errors as well?
