Wading into Wisconsin's divisive recall election, Minnesota's Republican-endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Kurt Bills said he supports both unions collective bargaining rights and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's move to take many of those rights away.
"I'm a union member, I have been since I was 18 years old...my dad's a retired (union) fitter..I understand trade unions, I'm in a public union right now with the teacher's union. I'm totally an advocate for collective bargaining rights. I think unions have a great place in our county. I just think there needed to be some reforms done in Wisconsin," Bills said, taking a break from making get-out-the-vote calls on Walker's behalf in Hudson, Wisconsin.
But last year Walker's plan to a plan strip public unions of most of their collective bargaining rights to save the state money touched off weeks of protests and triggered the move to recall the new Wisconsin governor.
Bills, who also supports the make Minnesota a 'Right to Work' state, described that move as "more about finances and the local school districts than it was about collective bargaining."
Asked how he could both support collective bargaining and support taking collective bargaining away, Bills said, "I don't know what to tell you," adding that sometimes unions do sometimes strike deals that "go too far."
"Can you collectively bargain? Yes, you absolutely can but you have to be...very careful, especially with the public union side, sometimes you can drive costs up too much," he said.
Bills starts the Minnesota Senate race with a huge financial and name identification gap and will face Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is one of the most popular senators in the country, said he still thought it important to volunteer in Wisconsin.
"I did grow up in Wisconsin...being from the state I thought it was important to come over and help out, it is a very important election," Bills said. "I don't think it is really controversial, it's just a difference in ideas."
