The warning shots came late last November.

Weeks after being elected governor, Scott Walker sent a letter to the as yet Democrat-controlled Legislature urging them to halt work on public employee union contracts so that he may “fully evaluate their effect on our next state budget.”

Though the legislative leaders did not heed Walker’s request, the contracts died on the Senate floor with two key Democrats voting against the contracts – one of whom now works in Walker’s Department of Administration.

I’m sure most members of the state’s government employee unions winced as Walker was sworn into office and immediately called a special session for economic development and to address budget issues. He made no secret of the fact that changes were in order for the thousands of unionized state workers.

However, I don’t think state workers were quite prepared for Walker’s bombshell announcement: the proposed budget repair bill would terminate nearly all of the state workers’ union collective bargaining powers, with the exception of local police and fire departments as well as the state patrol.

State workers will also be required to pay more towards their health care and pension benefits under the repair bill to become more comparable to private sector benefit contributions. And while state union workers would still be able to negotiate their salary under the bill, that power is heavily restricted.

To add insult to injury, Walker also announced that he had briefed the state’s National Guard in case of employee unrest – in particular to step in if prison guards decide to strike.

“They’re not called up at this point…but I want to make certain to everyone in the state that I’m fully prepared,” Walker said at a press conference Friday.

This flagrant disrespect for state workers is appalling. First Walker threatens their livelihoods, and then he intimidates them. This is behavior much more suited to a dictator, and frankly it’s embarrassing to call Walker an elected official.

In fact, there are reports that some of Walker’s fellow Republicans are not quite on board with these bold measures. Most notably, some key Republican senators with a lot of unionized constituents were taken aback by the announcement and have questions for Walker before they would consider passing the bill.

“The concept is pretty radical,” Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, told The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “It affects a lot of good working people.”

Walker’s fundamental intentions in leveling the playing field between public and private union benefits are not entirely unreasonable. The state is facing a budgetary shortfall of $137 million for this fiscal year, coupled with a $3.6 billion hole for the next biennium, and painful choices will need to be made to remedy the state’s fiscal health.

However, the logic of reigning in state employee benefit spending is completely lost in Walker’s strong-armed approach to the situation. To force state workers to pay more towards benefits like health care coverage that many workers and their families have long depended on is like cutting a person off at the knees. A smarter approach would have been at least an attempt at negotiating with the unions and easing them into certain necessary concessions.

As I recall from covering Walker’s gubernatorial campaign last year, Walker always made a point of reassuring the struggling state residents he met with that help was on the way.

“Tonight, I want to tell every worker, every family and every business big or small in the state that you have an ally in the governor’s office,” Walker said during his victory speech on election night.

Apparently, thousands of state workers and their families were not included in this promise.

Alicia Yager ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism and French.