(The following appeared on the Huffington Post website on March 1, 2011.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As protests continue over the proposal by Gov. Scott Walker (R) to strip collective bargaining rights from public employees in Wisconsin, two new independent national media surveys released Monday night find Americans taking the side of organized labor.
A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center includes a single question on the Wisconsin controversy:
“From what you’ve read or heard about the dispute between Wisconsin’s governor and public employee unions over collective bargaining rights, do you side more with the governor [or] the public employee unions?:
More side with the unions (42 percent) than with the governor (31 percent), with more than a quarter choosing neither side (9 percent) or unsure (18 percent). That’s roughly the same result as another Pew survey taken earlier this month that found Americans typically side with public unions (44 percent) rather than state or local governments (38 percent) when the two disagree.
The full story appears on the Huffington Post website.