When Badger Meter ordered $2.5 million in equipment last summer to start a new line of water-meter products, CEO Rich Meeusen had to pick its destination: Mexico or Milwaukee? “We were on the fence about where to go,” says Meeusen, who weighed Mexico’s cheap wages against Milwaukee’s better location and technical support. Over the last decade, his Wisconsin-based company had watched the number of jobs on its payroll swell by 40 percent. Yet Badger Meter had not added any in the Badger State.
That changed on March 9, when Governor Scott Walker signed a bill on the shop floor of Badger Meter’s Milwaukee factory, making Wisconsin the country’s 25th right-to-work state. “This legislation puts power back in the hands of Wisconsin workers, by allowing the freedom to choose whether they want to join a union and pay union dues,” said Walker. Meeusen announced that Badger Meter would hire a dozen workers in Milwaukee right away and as many as 50 in the years ahead. “We chose to expand here because of right-to-work,” he says.
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