Rauner “pro-union” like a fox is “pro-chicken”.

– Rich Miller in the Southtown Star:

It didn’t take long for Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner to drop the word “unions” from his vocabulary.

After bashing public employee union leaders for months as corrupt bosses who buy votes to control Springfield, Rauner and his campaign have assiduously avoided the use of the “u-word” since his victory March 18. Instead, he’s switched to a line about how “our government is run by lobbyists, for special interests, and the career politicians in both parties let it happen.”

Rauner’s campaign manager said on primary night that his boss is “pro-union.” Rauner himself insisted last week that he’s not anti-union and never has been.

The candidate’s record clearly shows otherwise however. Rauner kicked off his campaign with a widely published newspaper op-ed in which he called for legislation to allow individual counties to approve their own so-called “right to work” laws. Rauner has also repeatedly demanded that Illinois follow the lead of states such as Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin, which have all passed anti-union laws.

And Rauner’s only personal and extended interaction with an Illinois labor leader went horribly wrong. Rauner reportedly marched into the office of the president of Operating Engineers Local 150 late last year to pledge to the guy that if he backed Rauner, then the candidate would support his union’s interests.

But Rauner also warned the Local 150 president that if opposed Rauner, the candidate would essentially work to destroy him once elected. That message didn’t exactly go over too well.

– Read the entire column here.