MADISON - We are only a few short weeks away from an election that will impact veterans across the state. One area they will be affected by is their rights at work.

In 2012 Walker repealed Wisconsin’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act. It enhanced pay equity protections for a number of classes including veterans. While there are federal protections, federal law does not allow veterans to receive punitive damages or other types of compensatory damages, only back pay, thereby putting veterans in a less protected position than other discrimination classes. Mary will work to reinstate the Equal Pay Enforcement Act.

It is hard to imagine that in Wisconsin we would not allow veterans to have a recourse in the courts to hold employers accountable who would discriminate against them. Wisconsin has always had a fine tradition of standing up for our veterans and for protecting workers rights to fair treatment. The hardest thing to understand in Walker's support of taking this right away from veterans is why he would do it. No reason was every given as to why veterans should be treated differently in Wisconsin.

In this election we need to stand up for our veterans by holding accountable those who would take this right away. We have the opportunity to do that on November 4th.

We also hope you will see the grave need to change the governor of our state to someone who will help our veterans. Please consider volunteering for the campaign. We need veterans around the state. If you are willing to help please send me your name, phone, email, city and county and we will get in touch with you.

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To find out more about the Veterans and Military Families for Burke & the Democratic Party of WI Veterans Caucus, go to the following link: http://action.burkeforwisconsin.com/page/speakout/dailies.  You can also visit their FaceBook page, https://www.facebook.com/WisdemsVeteransCaucus, and share the posting there on this issue.

To read Mary Burke's position paper on this issue, you can find it at: http://action.burkeforwisconsin.com/page/-/Veterans-Equal-Pay-Protection.pdf