Markin comment: We need a fight to the finish this time. Fight for a general strike.
******
In bitter cold rain:Thousands rally at Indianapolis State House
By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / March 12, 2011
INDIANAPOLIS --On Thursday morning, March 10, three buses left the parking lot of a large supermarket in Lafayette, Indiana bound for the huge workers rights rally at the Indianapolis State House.
The buses were sponsored by the United Steelworkers Local 115A and the NAACP. About 100 workers, teachers, and peace and justice activists were on the buses. About two miles away another three buses left for Indianapolis with 100 activists from the Building Trades Council of Tippecanoe County and the Northwest Central Labor Council (AFL-CIO).
The buses were warm, cozy, and the spirit of solidarity pervaded the atmosphere. Travelers were determined to demonstrate their outrage at the rightwing onslaught on workers and education being planned by Indiana Republicans. Arriving about one hour later, riders disembarked from the warm and fuzzy atmosphere of the trip to a bitterly cold, cloudy, and windy rally in downtown Indianapolis.
The rally consisted of speeches, chants, prayers, and exhortations. Thousands of Hoosier workers withstood the cold to express their anger and their clear realization that the quality of their lives was in jeopardy.
Local 115A passed out some literature to articulate the reasons for enduring the cold and shouting for economic justice. They said that:
The struggle in Indiana was inspired by the events in Wisconsin.
The rally was about worker rights, including so-called Right-to-Work legislation and proposals to eliminate the right of teachers to organize.
The right-to-work bill that was not dead as some media had reported would negatively impact workers in both the private and public sectors.
Public sector rights, which need to be defended, had already been weakened by Indiana’s governor, Mitch Daniels.
The struggle in Indiana was not a publicity stunt, copying the movement in Wisconsin. Democratic House members walked out of the legislature and traveled to Illinois to forestall the Indiana body from passing the draconian legislation.
Taxpayers of the state were not funding the walkout by State House Democrats.
The so-called Right-to-Work bill was not the only threat posed to workers in Indiana. One bill would eliminate the secret ballot in union certification elections. Another would remove the right to collective bargaining from public employees at the local level. Another bill would prohibit local communities from establishing living wage laws in excess of the state determined minimum wage.
The struggle in Indiana is about protecting public education. Bills would authorize private firms to be hired to evaluate teacher performance, without any teacher input. School funding could be used to provide vouchers for use in private schools. Schools that did not meet certain performance standards would be transferred to private for-profit corporations.
The campaign to protect public education also required resisting the cutting of funds for colleges and universities.
The struggle for workers rights was relevant to the economy of the entire state of Indiana, not just the 300,000 unionized workers.
Another USW Local 115 document made the motivation for action crystal clear:
We stand at the statehouse as one people, one labor movement, one united group of citizens. We are proud to be union members and union supporters because together we have built Indiana! Whether we are construction workers, teachers or students --whether we clean buildings, deliver health care or manufacture useful products -- we stand together!
There were different assessments of the State House rally in Indianapolis. The conservative Indianapolis Star, on the one hand estimated that only 8,000 workers rallied in Indianapolis, but on the other hand pointed out how cold, windy, and rainy the weather was, suggesting that attendees were truly committed.
One trade unionist, recalling the rally of 20,000 Building Trades workers in 1995 indicated that he could not tell if this rally was bigger or smaller than that one. Another worker said that we needed at least 100,000 at the rally to make a difference.
Several speakers expressed their appreciation for those that attended the rally. AFL-CIO leaders from Kentucky and Wisconsin pointed out that the Indiana struggle was part of a larger movement involving workers from Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey, and everywhere that the basic standard of living of workers was being challenged.
Perhaps the most poignant statement came from an Iraq war vet who reminded the crowd that $3 trillion had been spent on two costly, foolish wars in the 21st century that helped create today’s economic crisis.
The outcome of the ferment, anger, and rebelliousness all around the world remains unclear. But one fine folk singer, after leading the crowd in a rendition of “This Land is Your Land,” wished the movement well. He recalled Woody Guthrie’s injunction: “Take it easy, but take it.” Perhaps that is where we are at today.
[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical.]
Showing posts with label wisconsin public workers unions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wisconsin public workers unions. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Just ask 100,000 people!A Perfect Day in Madison, Wisconsin-By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 13, 2011
Just ask 100,000 people!A Perfect Day in Madison, Wisconsin
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 13, 2011
[This is the third of Paul Beckett's reports from Madison for The Rag Blog.]
MADISON, Wisconsin -- Saturday, March 12, 2011. The wind off the frozen lakes was often 20 miles an hour (or more) and from the north. Windchills were in the 20s. It was mainly cloudy. Here and there, old snow and ice remained, and where there was no ice, the Wisconsin Capitol grounds had been trampled into a slippery, muddy morass. And it was beautiful!
Absolutely unprecedented crowds gathered for a whole day of protest events. Police estimates were 100,000 (but exact estimates are impossible). The crowd filled the Capitol square streets, sidewalks and what once were lawns, and then flowed down State Street and Wisconsin Avenue.
This time, a powerful sound system was in place and you could hear the speeches from far out in the crowd. In fact, you could hear them twice as the sound reflected off the taller buildings.
The breadth of social groups protesting Governor Scott Walker’s “union-busting” and public service-cutting Budget Repair Bill was truly awesome. The private sector unions were there (often with major leadership figures). The public service unions (AFSCME and the teachers unions) were there. The firemen, policemen and prison staff were there. Teachers and workers had come from Michigan, where things are also bad.
Farmers staged a tractor parade during the massive Madison protest. Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
Farmers came in, protesting the planned cutbacks in the Medicaid-based programs on which so many of them depend. Late in the morning a tractor parade pushed through the already-dense crowds, festooned with anti-Walker signs (many of them referring to the animal waste that is so familiar to farmers).
But the dominant impression one got was just of PEOPLE: all kinds of people, from all over Wisconsin, unaffiliated, unorganized. Just people. A feeling of complete like-mindedness and shared values and interests linked 100,000 people together.
Thank you, Scott Walker.
By 3 p.m., when the main program began, no one could move. The 14 Democratic senators who had decamped to Illinois to thwart passage of Walker’s bill were welcomed back. Each gave a speech to tumultuous applause and chants of “Thank you! Thank you!” They had not, in fact, stopped the bill. But they had provided almost three weeks for understanding -- and protest -- to develop
Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
Also, the holdout of the “Fab 14” ultimately forced the Walker camp to “pass” their bill in an abrupt night-time procedure that was full of parliamentary improprieties, and perhaps downright illegal.
The speakers (besides the 14, they included Jesse Jackson, Tony Shalhoub, and Susan Sarandon) noted that now the battle continues, but the battlefield changes.
Suits are already being brought to challenge the legality of the law in the courts.
More important in the longer run are the recall campaigns . While “Recall Walker” was a constant theme in signs and chants, under Wisconsin law that effort can not begin until next year. But petitions against eight Republican Senators have been filed, with May 2 deadlines for completion. There was an enormous sense of energy for these yesterday.
Meanwhile, a Utah-based anti-immigration group has already invaded Wisconsin (it is perfectly legal, it seems) to organize recalls against members of the Democratic “Fab 14” who got so much thanks and appreciation yesterday.
Control of the Wisconsin Senate will be determined during the coming summer by the outcome of these efforts.
Those who participated Saturday went home elated and politically energized in a way that few of us have been for some time. But all understood, as well, that Saturday did not mark the end of a battle, but its beginning. It will be a long battle for the future of Wisconsin, and no one can be sure of the outcome. And Wisconsin, in turn, clearly is just one battleground in the broader struggle for the country’s future.
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 13, 2011
[This is the third of Paul Beckett's reports from Madison for The Rag Blog.]
MADISON, Wisconsin -- Saturday, March 12, 2011. The wind off the frozen lakes was often 20 miles an hour (or more) and from the north. Windchills were in the 20s. It was mainly cloudy. Here and there, old snow and ice remained, and where there was no ice, the Wisconsin Capitol grounds had been trampled into a slippery, muddy morass. And it was beautiful!
Absolutely unprecedented crowds gathered for a whole day of protest events. Police estimates were 100,000 (but exact estimates are impossible). The crowd filled the Capitol square streets, sidewalks and what once were lawns, and then flowed down State Street and Wisconsin Avenue.
This time, a powerful sound system was in place and you could hear the speeches from far out in the crowd. In fact, you could hear them twice as the sound reflected off the taller buildings.
The breadth of social groups protesting Governor Scott Walker’s “union-busting” and public service-cutting Budget Repair Bill was truly awesome. The private sector unions were there (often with major leadership figures). The public service unions (AFSCME and the teachers unions) were there. The firemen, policemen and prison staff were there. Teachers and workers had come from Michigan, where things are also bad.
Farmers staged a tractor parade during the massive Madison protest. Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
Farmers came in, protesting the planned cutbacks in the Medicaid-based programs on which so many of them depend. Late in the morning a tractor parade pushed through the already-dense crowds, festooned with anti-Walker signs (many of them referring to the animal waste that is so familiar to farmers).
But the dominant impression one got was just of PEOPLE: all kinds of people, from all over Wisconsin, unaffiliated, unorganized. Just people. A feeling of complete like-mindedness and shared values and interests linked 100,000 people together.
Thank you, Scott Walker.
By 3 p.m., when the main program began, no one could move. The 14 Democratic senators who had decamped to Illinois to thwart passage of Walker’s bill were welcomed back. Each gave a speech to tumultuous applause and chants of “Thank you! Thank you!” They had not, in fact, stopped the bill. But they had provided almost three weeks for understanding -- and protest -- to develop
Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
Also, the holdout of the “Fab 14” ultimately forced the Walker camp to “pass” their bill in an abrupt night-time procedure that was full of parliamentary improprieties, and perhaps downright illegal.
The speakers (besides the 14, they included Jesse Jackson, Tony Shalhoub, and Susan Sarandon) noted that now the battle continues, but the battlefield changes.
Suits are already being brought to challenge the legality of the law in the courts.
More important in the longer run are the recall campaigns . While “Recall Walker” was a constant theme in signs and chants, under Wisconsin law that effort can not begin until next year. But petitions against eight Republican Senators have been filed, with May 2 deadlines for completion. There was an enormous sense of energy for these yesterday.
Meanwhile, a Utah-based anti-immigration group has already invaded Wisconsin (it is perfectly legal, it seems) to organize recalls against members of the Democratic “Fab 14” who got so much thanks and appreciation yesterday.
Control of the Wisconsin Senate will be determined during the coming summer by the outcome of these efforts.
Those who participated Saturday went home elated and politically energized in a way that few of us have been for some time. But all understood, as well, that Saturday did not mark the end of a battle, but its beginning. It will be a long battle for the future of Wisconsin, and no one can be sure of the outcome. And Wisconsin, in turn, clearly is just one battleground in the broader struggle for the country’s future.
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
Dispatch from Madison:Governor Walker’s putsch-By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 11, 2011
Dispatch from Madison:Governor Walker’s putsch
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 11, 2011
[This is the second of Paul Beckett's reports from Madison for The Rag Blog.]
MADISON, Wisconson -- In less than 24 hours, in a series of shocking and unprecedented developments, public sector union and collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin have been eviscerated by a Republican legislative majority controlled by Governor Scott Walker.
What seemed to Democratic legislative members and to neutral observers (but there are few of those in Wisconsin now) a putsch, began about 6 p.m. on the evening of Wednesday, March 9. As coups go, this one clearly was carefully -- even brilliantly -- prepared. The surprise was absolute.
Governor Walker spoke to a news conference on Monday, March 7. He referred to meetings at the Illinois border his staff had had with some of the 14 Democratic state senators who had left Wisconsin on February 17 in order to prevent passage of the “union busting” legislation, SB11. (See my article, “Madison and the Revolution at Home," on The Rag Blog, March 8, 2010.)
A compromise was brewing, Walker implied. “The problem,” Walker said, “is Senator [Mark] Miller.” (Miller is the titular leader of the Senate Democrats.) Maybe it is time, Walker went on, for the Democratic caucus to elect a new leader.
All eyes turned to the Group of 14 Democratic senators: were they divided? Would one or more accept some form of compromise and enable the Republicans to complete their passage of SB11? (The presence of only ONE Democratic senator in the chamber would legitimate the vote passing SB11.] (Read the full text of SB11 here.)
Meanwhile, unperceived, Republicans prepared a trap that would snap shut on Wednesday. The complicated, 144-page “Budget Repair Bill” (SB11) was being taken apart by staff and reformulated, ostensibly to strip out everything BUT the collective bargaining provisions.
The result was labeled a conference amendment to SB11, and was only six pages shorter than the original. But the point was that this new version could be labeled as non-fiscal and would not carry the quorum requirement of the original.
A bizarre reversal of positions was now apparent. Incorporation of the collective bargaining provisions within the Budget Repair Bill, very definitely a “fiscal” measure, had been stoutly justified by Governor Walker on the grounds that they were inseparable from the fiscal repair provisions. (Opponents had argued that the provisions had nothing to do with fiscal “repair” and should be taken out of the Budget Repair Bill and debated separately.)
Now, the Republican position was the opposite. The new version was NOT fiscal. With the quorum requirement changed, whether the Group of 14 were in the Chamber or in Illinois was immaterial. The bill could be passed with Republican votes alone.
The ambush worked perfectly. Democrats and protesters remained focused on the hold-out by the 14 Senators and on the possibility of compromise. Word of Walker’s plan leaked out only at the last minute, late on Wednesday afternoon. Beginning about 5:30 p.m. a cluster of emails, most of them billed “emergency,” appeared in my email inbox. The following, from the Dane County Democrats, is typical:
Breaking Update: Tonight at 6:00 pm in the Senate Parlor we are hearing that Senate GOP is going to split the budget repair bill, fiscal from non-fiscal, and ram it through in the dark of night. Given that they're attempting to ram through the bill without any media attention we wanted to let you know that very important developments are likely to occur tonight at 6:00 pm in the Senate Parlor.
Please be at the capital by 6:00PM TONIGHT!
Actually, I did not receive any of the emails until the next day. I was having a quick dinner a block away from the Capitol at Ian’s Pizza (an enterprise that has become known internationally for its role in keeping the protesters in the Capitol Rotunda sustained). I was on the way to a 7 p.m. debate between Madison’s two mayoral candidates.
Suddenly people were shouting, “To the Capitol. They’re going to pass the bill! Tonight!” People in groups of two, four, six, were hurrying up State Street toward the Capitol. I followed. At the top of State Street was a volcano-shaped mountain of snow (some five inches had fallen the night before). On its peak a tall young man stood shouting in an amazing voice: “Everyone to the Capitol! Everyone to the Capitol!” He waved us onward.
The word spread amazingly. By 6 p.m. hundreds were there; very soon thousands. It was dark. Everyone wanted to enter the Capitol. A long line formed at the only entrance that was (in a limited way) open. The line moved glacially. Inside, on the other side of the revolving door, protesters were packed, waiting, apparently, to be taken one-by-one through the security wanding procedure. Noise was deafening: “Whose house? Our house!”
Soon, however, any pretense of an open Capitol was abandoned; the police closed the doors absolutely, leaving some inside and thousands outside. People were angry.
Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
In the meantime, inside the Senate chamber, the deed was already done. In less than half an hour, a “conference committee” had reported out the revised bill. The committee Chair gaveled the meeting closed as the Democratic minority leader, Peter Barca, was shouting out the many ways in which the meeting was improper under the rules of the Legislature or illegal under state law.
The bill was then instantaneously passed (or “passed”) by the Senate Republicans.
By about 6:25 p.m. it was all done. The session was immediately adjourned, and the Republican Members were reportedly smuggled out of the Capitol building and beyond the crowds through a tunnel. (Their escape and removal by a special Madison Metro bus was not as secret as they would have liked.)
The word spread among the protesters and, more than any other time in the three weeks of protest, the mood was one of deep anger and frustration. Later in the evening some of the inside protesters opened an unguarded outside door. Crowds outside pushed in, brushing aside the police, who had raced to stop them. Thousands ended up inside, chanting, commiserating, venting. Most left by 2 or 3 a.m.
The expectation was that the building would open at 8 a.m. Thursday morning and that the Assembly would begin passage of the “conference amendment” by 9 a.m. In fact, the building did not reopen in the morning. The Department of Administration announced that an “assessment of building security requirements” was in progress. By 11 a trickle of protesters was permitted in as the Assembly slowly began to organize itself for the crucial session to pass the Senate version.
The session, billed a “Special Session” to allow more flexibility with rules and the traditions of the “Body” as it is always called, was brought to order at 12:34 p.m. Incongruously (considering he had been refused entry to the Capitol an hour or so earlier), the Reverend Jesse Jackson was allowed to deliver an opening prayer. He took no sides on the issues, and insisted that the legislators join hands (literally) across the aisle. They did, and then a bitter partisan verbal battle began.
A little over three hours of speeches were allowed. Most of these were from Democratic representatives clad in the bright orange T shirts proclaiming workers’ rights that they had adopted three weeks before. The session was broadcast by WisconsinEye and is available for viewing here.
The Democrats argued the illegality of procedures. They asserted that the bill before the Assembly was not the same one that had been before the Senate, and that senators (they were all Republican) had not been informed, had not been given copies of the new legislation, and could not have understood what they were voting for. They cited the shame brought on “this Body,” and on Wisconsin by all that had been done over the recent days and weeks.
More than that, they condemned the loss of workers’ rights and human rights, and the great harm that would be done to Wisconsin families and communities by the bill. Representative Tamara Grigsby, Democrat from the 18th District, delivered a particularly powerful and moving speech. (Had this reporter been a member of the Republican caucus he would have instantly moved across the aisle, sobbing with shame.)
To no avail. At 3:40 in the afternoon, abruptly, with some 20 representatives still to speak, the chair called for the vote (it is electronic and almost instantaneous), announced that the bill was passed, and adjourned the meeting.
The Republicans once again dematerialized mysteriously from the Capitol building.
It was over. Or, perhaps, just begun. The Democratic Party and labor unions are filing complaints and suits challenging the legality of the bill’s passage. The Governor’s use of the State Patrol (now under the direction of the father of Scott Fitzgerald, leader of the Senate Republicans, and his brother Jeff Fitzgerald, leader of the Assembly Republicans) to enforce the Capitol closures is being challenged.
But it has been understood from the beginning that this is less a legislative battle than a long-term political one that will touch every community and involve every important issue. It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of Wisconsin is at stake. And as Michael Moore has been saying so eloquently, the implications for the nation are huge.
Already planned for Saturday, March 12, is a major protest, bringing together farmers (who will mount a “tractorcade” around the Capitol square), labor, educators, students, liberal-progressives from all over the state, and many members of smaller communities that are becoming aware of the hit their schools and local governments are about to take from the Walker budget. Major speakers are invited, and it is reported that the 14 Democratic Senators will return to thank the public for their support.
Recall campaigns are planned on both sides. Under Wisconsin’s recall law almost a year must go by before a campaign to recall Scott Walker can begin. The same is true of Assembly members. So effectively, only senators are presently subject to recall. A bevy of progressive organizations are organizing campaigns directed against at least four of the Republican senators and, so far, there seems to be enormous energy behind these. Success would shift the Senate back to Democratic hands. The Republican recall campaigns, if they are pursued, would be directed against members of the “Group of 14” representing swing districts.
The political fallout of this tempestuous three weeks events will soon begin to be known. It is interesting, already, that one Republican senator and four Republican representatives voted against the “conference amendment.” And there is speculation that one reason that Scott Walker opted for this radical and legally risky legislative maneuver was that he sensed weakening on the part of other of the Republican senators.
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
Source
The Rag Blog
Posted by thorne dreyer at 6:00 PM
Labels: Direct Action, Labor Unions, Madison, Paul Beckett, Rag Bloggers, Reactionary Politcs, Scott Walker, Social Protest, Union Busting, Wisconsin
3 Make/read comments:
Extremist to the DHS said...
It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of Wisconsin is at stake.
Doubtful .... It is true that the future of the democratic party in WI, and to some extent elsewhere, is at stake. Without forced collection of union dues by governments, the slush fund to pay off democrat lawmakers with union money takes a hit. That affects both the unions, who get sweetheart deals from the democrat politicians they buy, and the democrat politicians themselves.
Other than that cast of characters, I am doubtful that anyone else is going to give a crap that public employees have to choose to write out a check to pay their union dues and no longer receive special job perks that average workers never see.
Mar 14, 2011 2:26:00 AM
Gaston Cantens said...
The Governor’s use of the State Patrol to enforce the Capitol closures is being challenged.
Mar 15, 2011 4:56:00 AM
Brother Jonah said...
Yeah, Extremist,we workers are just stupid and subhuman. Alle Sieg Heil am der Korporatisch Reich!
Mar 15, 2011 7:20:00 PM
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 11, 2011
[This is the second of Paul Beckett's reports from Madison for The Rag Blog.]
MADISON, Wisconson -- In less than 24 hours, in a series of shocking and unprecedented developments, public sector union and collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin have been eviscerated by a Republican legislative majority controlled by Governor Scott Walker.
What seemed to Democratic legislative members and to neutral observers (but there are few of those in Wisconsin now) a putsch, began about 6 p.m. on the evening of Wednesday, March 9. As coups go, this one clearly was carefully -- even brilliantly -- prepared. The surprise was absolute.
Governor Walker spoke to a news conference on Monday, March 7. He referred to meetings at the Illinois border his staff had had with some of the 14 Democratic state senators who had left Wisconsin on February 17 in order to prevent passage of the “union busting” legislation, SB11. (See my article, “Madison and the Revolution at Home," on The Rag Blog, March 8, 2010.)
A compromise was brewing, Walker implied. “The problem,” Walker said, “is Senator [Mark] Miller.” (Miller is the titular leader of the Senate Democrats.) Maybe it is time, Walker went on, for the Democratic caucus to elect a new leader.
All eyes turned to the Group of 14 Democratic senators: were they divided? Would one or more accept some form of compromise and enable the Republicans to complete their passage of SB11? (The presence of only ONE Democratic senator in the chamber would legitimate the vote passing SB11.] (Read the full text of SB11 here.)
Meanwhile, unperceived, Republicans prepared a trap that would snap shut on Wednesday. The complicated, 144-page “Budget Repair Bill” (SB11) was being taken apart by staff and reformulated, ostensibly to strip out everything BUT the collective bargaining provisions.
The result was labeled a conference amendment to SB11, and was only six pages shorter than the original. But the point was that this new version could be labeled as non-fiscal and would not carry the quorum requirement of the original.
A bizarre reversal of positions was now apparent. Incorporation of the collective bargaining provisions within the Budget Repair Bill, very definitely a “fiscal” measure, had been stoutly justified by Governor Walker on the grounds that they were inseparable from the fiscal repair provisions. (Opponents had argued that the provisions had nothing to do with fiscal “repair” and should be taken out of the Budget Repair Bill and debated separately.)
Now, the Republican position was the opposite. The new version was NOT fiscal. With the quorum requirement changed, whether the Group of 14 were in the Chamber or in Illinois was immaterial. The bill could be passed with Republican votes alone.
The ambush worked perfectly. Democrats and protesters remained focused on the hold-out by the 14 Senators and on the possibility of compromise. Word of Walker’s plan leaked out only at the last minute, late on Wednesday afternoon. Beginning about 5:30 p.m. a cluster of emails, most of them billed “emergency,” appeared in my email inbox. The following, from the Dane County Democrats, is typical:
Breaking Update: Tonight at 6:00 pm in the Senate Parlor we are hearing that Senate GOP is going to split the budget repair bill, fiscal from non-fiscal, and ram it through in the dark of night. Given that they're attempting to ram through the bill without any media attention we wanted to let you know that very important developments are likely to occur tonight at 6:00 pm in the Senate Parlor.
Please be at the capital by 6:00PM TONIGHT!
Actually, I did not receive any of the emails until the next day. I was having a quick dinner a block away from the Capitol at Ian’s Pizza (an enterprise that has become known internationally for its role in keeping the protesters in the Capitol Rotunda sustained). I was on the way to a 7 p.m. debate between Madison’s two mayoral candidates.
Suddenly people were shouting, “To the Capitol. They’re going to pass the bill! Tonight!” People in groups of two, four, six, were hurrying up State Street toward the Capitol. I followed. At the top of State Street was a volcano-shaped mountain of snow (some five inches had fallen the night before). On its peak a tall young man stood shouting in an amazing voice: “Everyone to the Capitol! Everyone to the Capitol!” He waved us onward.
The word spread amazingly. By 6 p.m. hundreds were there; very soon thousands. It was dark. Everyone wanted to enter the Capitol. A long line formed at the only entrance that was (in a limited way) open. The line moved glacially. Inside, on the other side of the revolving door, protesters were packed, waiting, apparently, to be taken one-by-one through the security wanding procedure. Noise was deafening: “Whose house? Our house!”
Soon, however, any pretense of an open Capitol was abandoned; the police closed the doors absolutely, leaving some inside and thousands outside. People were angry.
Photo by Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog.
In the meantime, inside the Senate chamber, the deed was already done. In less than half an hour, a “conference committee” had reported out the revised bill. The committee Chair gaveled the meeting closed as the Democratic minority leader, Peter Barca, was shouting out the many ways in which the meeting was improper under the rules of the Legislature or illegal under state law.
The bill was then instantaneously passed (or “passed”) by the Senate Republicans.
By about 6:25 p.m. it was all done. The session was immediately adjourned, and the Republican Members were reportedly smuggled out of the Capitol building and beyond the crowds through a tunnel. (Their escape and removal by a special Madison Metro bus was not as secret as they would have liked.)
The word spread among the protesters and, more than any other time in the three weeks of protest, the mood was one of deep anger and frustration. Later in the evening some of the inside protesters opened an unguarded outside door. Crowds outside pushed in, brushing aside the police, who had raced to stop them. Thousands ended up inside, chanting, commiserating, venting. Most left by 2 or 3 a.m.
The expectation was that the building would open at 8 a.m. Thursday morning and that the Assembly would begin passage of the “conference amendment” by 9 a.m. In fact, the building did not reopen in the morning. The Department of Administration announced that an “assessment of building security requirements” was in progress. By 11 a trickle of protesters was permitted in as the Assembly slowly began to organize itself for the crucial session to pass the Senate version.
The session, billed a “Special Session” to allow more flexibility with rules and the traditions of the “Body” as it is always called, was brought to order at 12:34 p.m. Incongruously (considering he had been refused entry to the Capitol an hour or so earlier), the Reverend Jesse Jackson was allowed to deliver an opening prayer. He took no sides on the issues, and insisted that the legislators join hands (literally) across the aisle. They did, and then a bitter partisan verbal battle began.
A little over three hours of speeches were allowed. Most of these were from Democratic representatives clad in the bright orange T shirts proclaiming workers’ rights that they had adopted three weeks before. The session was broadcast by WisconsinEye and is available for viewing here.
The Democrats argued the illegality of procedures. They asserted that the bill before the Assembly was not the same one that had been before the Senate, and that senators (they were all Republican) had not been informed, had not been given copies of the new legislation, and could not have understood what they were voting for. They cited the shame brought on “this Body,” and on Wisconsin by all that had been done over the recent days and weeks.
More than that, they condemned the loss of workers’ rights and human rights, and the great harm that would be done to Wisconsin families and communities by the bill. Representative Tamara Grigsby, Democrat from the 18th District, delivered a particularly powerful and moving speech. (Had this reporter been a member of the Republican caucus he would have instantly moved across the aisle, sobbing with shame.)
To no avail. At 3:40 in the afternoon, abruptly, with some 20 representatives still to speak, the chair called for the vote (it is electronic and almost instantaneous), announced that the bill was passed, and adjourned the meeting.
The Republicans once again dematerialized mysteriously from the Capitol building.
It was over. Or, perhaps, just begun. The Democratic Party and labor unions are filing complaints and suits challenging the legality of the bill’s passage. The Governor’s use of the State Patrol (now under the direction of the father of Scott Fitzgerald, leader of the Senate Republicans, and his brother Jeff Fitzgerald, leader of the Assembly Republicans) to enforce the Capitol closures is being challenged.
But it has been understood from the beginning that this is less a legislative battle than a long-term political one that will touch every community and involve every important issue. It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of Wisconsin is at stake. And as Michael Moore has been saying so eloquently, the implications for the nation are huge.
Already planned for Saturday, March 12, is a major protest, bringing together farmers (who will mount a “tractorcade” around the Capitol square), labor, educators, students, liberal-progressives from all over the state, and many members of smaller communities that are becoming aware of the hit their schools and local governments are about to take from the Walker budget. Major speakers are invited, and it is reported that the 14 Democratic Senators will return to thank the public for their support.
Recall campaigns are planned on both sides. Under Wisconsin’s recall law almost a year must go by before a campaign to recall Scott Walker can begin. The same is true of Assembly members. So effectively, only senators are presently subject to recall. A bevy of progressive organizations are organizing campaigns directed against at least four of the Republican senators and, so far, there seems to be enormous energy behind these. Success would shift the Senate back to Democratic hands. The Republican recall campaigns, if they are pursued, would be directed against members of the “Group of 14” representing swing districts.
The political fallout of this tempestuous three weeks events will soon begin to be known. It is interesting, already, that one Republican senator and four Republican representatives voted against the “conference amendment.” And there is speculation that one reason that Scott Walker opted for this radical and legally risky legislative maneuver was that he sensed weakening on the part of other of the Republican senators.
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
Source
The Rag Blog
Posted by thorne dreyer at 6:00 PM
Labels: Direct Action, Labor Unions, Madison, Paul Beckett, Rag Bloggers, Reactionary Politcs, Scott Walker, Social Protest, Union Busting, Wisconsin
3 Make/read comments:
Extremist to the DHS said...
It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of Wisconsin is at stake.
Doubtful .... It is true that the future of the democratic party in WI, and to some extent elsewhere, is at stake. Without forced collection of union dues by governments, the slush fund to pay off democrat lawmakers with union money takes a hit. That affects both the unions, who get sweetheart deals from the democrat politicians they buy, and the democrat politicians themselves.
Other than that cast of characters, I am doubtful that anyone else is going to give a crap that public employees have to choose to write out a check to pay their union dues and no longer receive special job perks that average workers never see.
Mar 14, 2011 2:26:00 AM
Gaston Cantens said...
The Governor’s use of the State Patrol to enforce the Capitol closures is being challenged.
Mar 15, 2011 4:56:00 AM
Brother Jonah said...
Yeah, Extremist,we workers are just stupid and subhuman. Alle Sieg Heil am der Korporatisch Reich!
Mar 15, 2011 7:20:00 PM
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
From The Wisconsin War-Zone- The Lines Are Further Drawn- The Fight For A General Strike Of All Labor In Wisconsin Is Directly Posed-And Solidarity Actions By Those Outside The State- Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Get To It
Markin comment:
Over the past few week as the events concerning the fate of collective bargaining rights, the core of any union’s reason for existence, of Wisconsin’s public workers unions have unfolded I had joined the voices of those who have argued that passage of the ant-iunion legislation by the Republican Senate majority should trigger the call for a one day general strike of all Wisconsin as the start of a push back. Well that day has arrived and every pro-labor militant from Madison to Cairo (Illinois or Egypt, it matters not) should be joining their voices in that call, and agitating in their unions and other organization to carry it out. The lines could not be more clearly drawn, the survival of the Wisconsin public workers unions are at stake, the survival of all public workers unions are now at stake, and the survival of unionism in the United States as well. This is only the start of the right-wing onslaught. Let Wisconsin’s labor response make it the end. Fight for a one day general strike now!
******
Friday, March 04, 2011
On The Question Of General Strikes In Defense Of The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions- Don't Mourn, Organize- A Short Note
Click on the headline to link to a James P.Cannon Internet Archive online article about the lessons of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934 mentioned in the post below.
Markin comment:
Recently, in the wake of the front-line struggle of the Wisconsin public workers unions (now heightened by the latest news that the Ohio Senate has also voted to curb collective bargaining rights in that state), I, along with others, have been agitating for a one day general strike by organized labor, unorganized, but desperately in need of being organized, workers, and other allies, in support of those efforts. I have also placed the propaganda of others, individuals and organizations, who are advocating this same general position in this space, and will continue to do so as I see it come up as I scan the leftist universe. Before I go on, just to make things clear on this issue, I would draw the reader’s attention to the distinction between propagandizing, the general task for communist organizers in this period pushing issues on behalf our communist future, and agitation which requires/requests some immediate action. The events in the public sector labor movement over the past several weeks, as they have rapidly unfolded, call for immediate action whether we can cause any motion on the issue or not.
That said, I would also note that I have framed my call to action in terms of posing the question of a general strike, the objective need for such action. That proposition is the axis of intervention for leftist and trade union militants today. And that is the rub. Of course, right this minute (and as the Ohio situation foretells maybe only this minute), any such one day general strike would, of necessity, have to be centered in Wisconsin, and the tactical choices would have to be made on the ground there ( how to make the strike effective, what unions to call in, what places to shut down, etc.). My original posting did not make a distinction on location(s)though, and I make none now, about whether such a strike would be localized or not. Certainly, given the centrally of the collective bargaining principle to the lifeblood of any union, and the drumbeat of other states like Ohio, it can hardly be precluded that it could not be a wider strike than just in Wisconsin.
And that is the rub, again. I am perfectly aware, after a lifetime of oppositional politics of one sort or another, that it is one thing to call for an action and another to have it heeded by some mass organization that can do something about it, or even have it taken for more than its propaganda value. And it is the somewhat fantastic quality of the proposition to many trade unionists that I have been running up against in my own efforts to present this demand. Now, as I have noted previously, in France this kind of strike is something of an art form, and other European working classes are catching on to the idea. Moreover, in the old days the anarchists, when they had some authority in the working class in places like Spain,thought nothing of calling such strikes. And some Marxists, like the martyred Rosa Luxemburg, saw the political general strike as the central strategic piece in the working class taking state power. However the low level of political consciousness here, or lack of it, or even of solid trade union consciousness, is what the substance of this note is about.
Although the Wisconsin public workers unions have galvanized segments of the American labor movement, particularly the organized sector (those who see what is coming down the road for them-or who have already been the subject of such victimizations in the roller coaster process of the de-industrialization of America) the hard fact is that it has been a very, very long time since this labor movement has seen a general strike. You have to go back to the 1930s and the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934, or to the San Francisco General Strike of that same year to even been able to provide an example to illustrate how it could take place in this country. That, my friends, is over seventy-five years ago, a long time in anybody’s political book and, more importantly, a couple of generations removed from the actual experience. Hell, it has been as far back as the period immediately after World War II since we have seen massive nation-wide industrial strikes. The closest situation that I can think of that would be widely remembered today, and that was also somewhat successful and well supported, was the UPS strike in the 1990s. All of this points to one conclusion, our class struggle skills are now rather rusty, and it shows.
How? Well, first look at the propaganda of various leftist and socialist groups. They, correctly, call for solidarity, for defense rallies and for more marches in support of the Wisconsin struggle. But I have seen relevantly little open advocacy for a one day general strike. That is damning. But here is the real kicker, the one that should give us all pause. The most recent Wisconsin support rally in Boston was attended by many trade union militants, many known (known to me from struggles over the years) leftist activists, and surprisingly, a significant segment of older, not currently active political ex-militants who either came out for old times sake, or understood that this is a do or die struggle and they wanted to help show their support. In short, a perfect audience before which a speaker could expect to get a favorable response on a call for a political general strike. And that call that day, was made not by me, and not by other socialists or communists, but by a militant from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a well-known union with plenty of militants in it. The response: a few claps in a crowd of over two thousand.
Time has been, is, and will be our enemy here as we struggle to win these pubic workers union fights. Why? Our sense of leftist legitimacy, our class struggle sense has so atrophied over the past several decades that people, political people, trade union political people and even leftist political people have lost their capacity to struggle to win. Still, the objective situation in Wisconsin, hell, in Boston and Columbus, requires that we continue to fight around a class struggle axis. And central to that fight- Fight for a one day general strike in support of the Wisconsin public workers unions!
Over the past few week as the events concerning the fate of collective bargaining rights, the core of any union’s reason for existence, of Wisconsin’s public workers unions have unfolded I had joined the voices of those who have argued that passage of the ant-iunion legislation by the Republican Senate majority should trigger the call for a one day general strike of all Wisconsin as the start of a push back. Well that day has arrived and every pro-labor militant from Madison to Cairo (Illinois or Egypt, it matters not) should be joining their voices in that call, and agitating in their unions and other organization to carry it out. The lines could not be more clearly drawn, the survival of the Wisconsin public workers unions are at stake, the survival of all public workers unions are now at stake, and the survival of unionism in the United States as well. This is only the start of the right-wing onslaught. Let Wisconsin’s labor response make it the end. Fight for a one day general strike now!
******
Friday, March 04, 2011
On The Question Of General Strikes In Defense Of The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions- Don't Mourn, Organize- A Short Note
Click on the headline to link to a James P.Cannon Internet Archive online article about the lessons of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934 mentioned in the post below.
Markin comment:
Recently, in the wake of the front-line struggle of the Wisconsin public workers unions (now heightened by the latest news that the Ohio Senate has also voted to curb collective bargaining rights in that state), I, along with others, have been agitating for a one day general strike by organized labor, unorganized, but desperately in need of being organized, workers, and other allies, in support of those efforts. I have also placed the propaganda of others, individuals and organizations, who are advocating this same general position in this space, and will continue to do so as I see it come up as I scan the leftist universe. Before I go on, just to make things clear on this issue, I would draw the reader’s attention to the distinction between propagandizing, the general task for communist organizers in this period pushing issues on behalf our communist future, and agitation which requires/requests some immediate action. The events in the public sector labor movement over the past several weeks, as they have rapidly unfolded, call for immediate action whether we can cause any motion on the issue or not.
That said, I would also note that I have framed my call to action in terms of posing the question of a general strike, the objective need for such action. That proposition is the axis of intervention for leftist and trade union militants today. And that is the rub. Of course, right this minute (and as the Ohio situation foretells maybe only this minute), any such one day general strike would, of necessity, have to be centered in Wisconsin, and the tactical choices would have to be made on the ground there ( how to make the strike effective, what unions to call in, what places to shut down, etc.). My original posting did not make a distinction on location(s)though, and I make none now, about whether such a strike would be localized or not. Certainly, given the centrally of the collective bargaining principle to the lifeblood of any union, and the drumbeat of other states like Ohio, it can hardly be precluded that it could not be a wider strike than just in Wisconsin.
And that is the rub, again. I am perfectly aware, after a lifetime of oppositional politics of one sort or another, that it is one thing to call for an action and another to have it heeded by some mass organization that can do something about it, or even have it taken for more than its propaganda value. And it is the somewhat fantastic quality of the proposition to many trade unionists that I have been running up against in my own efforts to present this demand. Now, as I have noted previously, in France this kind of strike is something of an art form, and other European working classes are catching on to the idea. Moreover, in the old days the anarchists, when they had some authority in the working class in places like Spain,thought nothing of calling such strikes. And some Marxists, like the martyred Rosa Luxemburg, saw the political general strike as the central strategic piece in the working class taking state power. However the low level of political consciousness here, or lack of it, or even of solid trade union consciousness, is what the substance of this note is about.
Although the Wisconsin public workers unions have galvanized segments of the American labor movement, particularly the organized sector (those who see what is coming down the road for them-or who have already been the subject of such victimizations in the roller coaster process of the de-industrialization of America) the hard fact is that it has been a very, very long time since this labor movement has seen a general strike. You have to go back to the 1930s and the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934, or to the San Francisco General Strike of that same year to even been able to provide an example to illustrate how it could take place in this country. That, my friends, is over seventy-five years ago, a long time in anybody’s political book and, more importantly, a couple of generations removed from the actual experience. Hell, it has been as far back as the period immediately after World War II since we have seen massive nation-wide industrial strikes. The closest situation that I can think of that would be widely remembered today, and that was also somewhat successful and well supported, was the UPS strike in the 1990s. All of this points to one conclusion, our class struggle skills are now rather rusty, and it shows.
How? Well, first look at the propaganda of various leftist and socialist groups. They, correctly, call for solidarity, for defense rallies and for more marches in support of the Wisconsin struggle. But I have seen relevantly little open advocacy for a one day general strike. That is damning. But here is the real kicker, the one that should give us all pause. The most recent Wisconsin support rally in Boston was attended by many trade union militants, many known (known to me from struggles over the years) leftist activists, and surprisingly, a significant segment of older, not currently active political ex-militants who either came out for old times sake, or understood that this is a do or die struggle and they wanted to help show their support. In short, a perfect audience before which a speaker could expect to get a favorable response on a call for a political general strike. And that call that day, was made not by me, and not by other socialists or communists, but by a militant from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a well-known union with plenty of militants in it. The response: a few claps in a crowd of over two thousand.
Time has been, is, and will be our enemy here as we struggle to win these pubic workers union fights. Why? Our sense of leftist legitimacy, our class struggle sense has so atrophied over the past several decades that people, political people, trade union political people and even leftist political people have lost their capacity to struggle to win. Still, the objective situation in Wisconsin, hell, in Boston and Columbus, requires that we continue to fight around a class struggle axis. And central to that fight- Fight for a one day general strike in support of the Wisconsin public workers unions!
Rally to Support WGBH Workers In Boston- Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 4:00 pm
Rally to Support WGBH Workers In Boston- Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 4:00 pm
Rally to Support WGBH Workers
Submitted by ujpadmin1 on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 8:26am.
When: Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 4:00 pm
Where: 10 Guest St • Brighton
Start: 2011 Mar 15 - 4:00pm
From Wisconsin to Boston, show your support for workers' rights!
Please join us to show support for WGBH’s AEEF/CWA Local 1300 in their current struggle.
Workers at WGBH, our local public television station, are fighting for the basic right to have a union in their workplace. Workers are members of AEEF/CWA Local 1300, and have been organized for nearly 40 years.
In the past, WGBH has bargained in good faith with their workers. Management and the union have been in negotiations since August, and management has recently decided to end collective bargaining. The union now faces the implementation of an unfair contract, and needs your support today!
Keep the union-busting in Wisconsin out of Massachusetts.
Sponsored by AEEF/CWA Local 1300, Greater Boston Labor Council, Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.
For more information contact Jennifer at jennifer@massjwj.net.
Rally to Support WGBH Workers
Submitted by ujpadmin1 on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 8:26am.
When: Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 4:00 pm
Where: 10 Guest St • Brighton
Start: 2011 Mar 15 - 4:00pm
From Wisconsin to Boston, show your support for workers' rights!
Please join us to show support for WGBH’s AEEF/CWA Local 1300 in their current struggle.
Workers at WGBH, our local public television station, are fighting for the basic right to have a union in their workplace. Workers are members of AEEF/CWA Local 1300, and have been organized for nearly 40 years.
In the past, WGBH has bargained in good faith with their workers. Management and the union have been in negotiations since August, and management has recently decided to end collective bargaining. The union now faces the implementation of an unfair contract, and needs your support today!
Keep the union-busting in Wisconsin out of Massachusetts.
Sponsored by AEEF/CWA Local 1300, Greater Boston Labor Council, Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.
For more information contact Jennifer at jennifer@massjwj.net.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Rally to Support WGBH Workers In Boston- Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 4:00 pm
Rally to Support WGBH Workers In Boston- Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 4:00 pm
Rally to Support WGBH Workers
Submitted by ujpadmin1 on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 8:26am.
When: Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 4:00 pm
Where: 10 Guest St • Brighton
Start: 2011 Mar 15 - 4:00pm
From Wisconsin to Boston, show your support for workers' rights!
Please join us to show support for WGBH’s AEEF/CWA Local 1300 in their current struggle.
Workers at WGBH, our local public television station, are fighting for the basic right to have a union in their workplace. Workers are members of AEEF/CWA Local 1300, and have been organized for nearly 40 years.
In the past, WGBH has bargained in good faith with their workers. Management and the union have been in negotiations since August, and management has recently decided to end collective bargaining. The union now faces the implementation of an unfair contract, and needs your support today!
Keep the union-busting in Wisconsin out of Massachusetts.
Sponsored by AEEF/CWA Local 1300, Greater Boston Labor Council, Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.
For more information contact Jennifer at jennifer@massjwj.net.
Rally to Support WGBH Workers
Submitted by ujpadmin1 on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 8:26am.
When: Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 4:00 pm
Where: 10 Guest St • Brighton
Start: 2011 Mar 15 - 4:00pm
From Wisconsin to Boston, show your support for workers' rights!
Please join us to show support for WGBH’s AEEF/CWA Local 1300 in their current struggle.
Workers at WGBH, our local public television station, are fighting for the basic right to have a union in their workplace. Workers are members of AEEF/CWA Local 1300, and have been organized for nearly 40 years.
In the past, WGBH has bargained in good faith with their workers. Management and the union have been in negotiations since August, and management has recently decided to end collective bargaining. The union now faces the implementation of an unfair contract, and needs your support today!
Keep the union-busting in Wisconsin out of Massachusetts.
Sponsored by AEEF/CWA Local 1300, Greater Boston Labor Council, Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.
For more information contact Jennifer at jennifer@massjwj.net.
Friday, March 11, 2011
From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-No Illusions in Democratic Party!-Wisconsin Showdown Over Union Rights
Workers Vanguard No. 975
4 March 2011
No Illusions in Democratic Party!
Wisconsin Showdown Over Union Rights
On February 26, some 100,000 pro-union demonstrators flooded the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, following nearly two weeks of protests against Republican governor Scott Walker’s proposed union-busting bill, which would strip public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights. The massive demonstrations began on Valentine’s Day, when over 1,000 workers and University of Wisconsin students occupied the state Capitol building rotunda. They flooded into the lawmakers’ chambers, with hundreds camping at the Capitol every night since. This action sparked the teachers unions to organize sick-outs, causing schools to close across the state. Sensing a draconian threat to their livelihoods and rights, tens of thousands of unionists and their families as well as students and other supporters have flocked to Madison on a daily basis demanding, “Kill the Bill!”
It is in the vital interest of the entire labor movement to defend Wisconsin’s public employee unions and spike the union-busting “budget repair bill.” This deadly law would eliminate public sector collective bargaining on any issue besides wages, limit raises to no more than cost-of-living increases, and require public sector unions to endure mandatory annual recertification votes that would threaten the very existence of these unions. Under the bill, employee payroll deductions for health care would be dramatically increased. Workers would be required to pay 50 percent of the contributions to the pension fund, resulting in a pay cut of 5 to 12 percent. Walker, a Republican of the reactionary Tea Party ilk, has threatened to start laying off 12,000 workers beginning this week if his bill does not pass.
“It’s about the assault on labor, an assault on the working human being; to take and throw away the contract and say it’s balancing the budget is bull crap,” said a member of Wisconsin’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). In short order, Scott Walker confirmed this observation. Believing, gullibly, that he was in a phone conversation with right-wing billionaire and Tea Party backer David Koch, Walker confessed to having considered planting troublemakers among the pro-union demonstrators while praising Ronald Reagan’s 1981 smashing of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike and destruction of the union; Walker said that this was “our” PATCO “moment.” Indeed, the impact of such legislation is demonstrated in Indiana, where all collective bargaining for public unions was banned six years ago. Since that time, as the governor of that state brags, union membership for state workers has nose-dived by 90 percent.
There will either be class struggle or defeat. In his phone call with the ersatz David Koch, Governor Walker articulated a strategy of simply letting the protests play out. What is needed is hard class struggle to defeat this union-busting attack. The massive, hugely popular Madison protests show that there is widespread outrage over the savage cutbacks and that workers are ready to fight.
On February 21, the South Central Federation of Labor (SCFL), composed of delegates from 97 public and private sector union locals representing 45,000 workers in Madison and southern Wisconsin, unanimously passed a motion stating: “The SCFL endorses a general strike, possibly for the day Walker signs his ‘budget repair bill’.” In another motion, SCFL rejected any bargaining concessions on wages, benefits and union rights. At the same time, SCFL president Jim Cavanaugh was quick to explain that the group’s support for a “general strike” was just advisory: “We’re just a support organization, and the actual local unions would have to decide if they wanted to escalate things to the point of a strike.” Recommendations will not do the trick. The Wisconsin labor movement needs to prepare for statewide strike action if this attempt to gut the unions is to be defeated.
But the Wisconsin public union tops have centered their whole strategy on pressuring the capitalist politicians to “compromise” by merely deleting the portions of Walker’s bill that gut their collective bargaining rights. Blathering about the need to “share the sacrifice,” these labor lieutenants of capital have pledged their support to all the wage and benefit givebacks Walker wants to wring from the unions. On February 21, the teachers union bureaucracy called off the school sick-outs—themselves a weak form of protest that sets individual teachers up for victimization.
It is necessary to defend each and every gain that the labor movement has won—from wages and benefits to pensions to the right for unions to exist. But that cannot be done by playing by the bosses’ rules. Beginning with the very right to form unions, all the major gains that labor has wrested from the bosses in the past century were once themselves “illegal” by the norms of bourgeois “law and order.” The class-struggle methods through which our rights were won—from massive picket lines to factory occupations to hot-cargoing struck goods—were also “illegal,” and are today! Hard-fought strikes galvanize the rest of the labor movement and, when victorious, tear up the bosses’ anti-strike laws and injunctions.
With similar restrictions and cuts against labor on the legislative agenda in many states (see article, page 1), the showdown in Wisconsin—the first state to legalize public sector unions, in the 1950s—has riveted the attention of workers nationally and internationally. In the U.S., private sector unions have mobilized in force alongside public sector workers around the Midwest. From New Jersey to Oklahoma and elsewhere, labor has rallied against similar anti-union legislation. In Columbus, Ohio, over 5,000 trade-union demonstrators filled Capitol Square.
With the global economic crisis grinding down working people and the oppressed throughout the world, mobilizations against exploitation and oppression quickly resound. Many in Wisconsin have identified their struggles with those of the working masses of Egypt, with some carrying signs denouncing Walker as a Mubarak-type dictator. In turn, messages of solidarity have been sent to Wisconsin from Egyptian workers and activists.
In Wisconsin, Democratic Party politicians have heavily promoted the protests to burnish their image as “friends of labor” in Midwest swing states. Fourteen Democratic state senators fled across the border to Illinois in a maneuver to deprive Walker of a quorum to ram the bill through the Republican-controlled state legislature. President Barack Obama has claimed to sympathize with public workers, asserting that it would be wrong “to vilify them or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees.” That takes a lot of chutzpah from an imperialist Commander-in-Chief whose assaults on the United Auto Workers, relentless attacks on teachers unions, and two-year wage freeze on federal employees have set the stage for the current round of state and local attacks on public sector unions.
In distributing Workers Vanguard to the Madison protesters, our comrades have warned against any illusions in the Democrats. No less than the Republicans, the Democratic Party is a capitalist party and the class enemy of workers, black people, immigrants and the oppressed. While the Tea Party reactionaries want to smash the unions outright in order to extract the maximum concessions, the Democrats pretend to be “friends” of labor to better hoodwink the workers and maintain labor “peace,” while extracting the same economic concessions.
The union tops—a component of the Democratic Party—are fully committed to the system of capitalist exploitation. In the private sector, these types have for decades agreed to the savage cutbacks of wages and benefits and the job-slashing attacks deemed by the bosses to be vital to the health of corporate America. This class collaboration has fueled the steep decline of the once-powerful industrial unions, which were built in the giant class battles of the 1930s. Now public sector unions face the same attacks along with the threat of a nationwide spate of “right to work” legislation to assure the withering of their union membership. In short, the union bureaucracy’s subordination of the class struggle to the dictates of the bosses has set the stage for those forces on the right that seek the destruction of public sector unions.
The union tops are fond of portraying labor struggles as a fight to maintain the “middle class,” thus obscuring the class divide in this country. In turn, the Tea Party types portray their struggle as a fight to maintain the middle class against encroachments of the labor movement. In reality, what is at issue is the inherent class conflict of workers against their capitalist exploiters.
Walker’s bill exempts firefighters and cops from the cutbacks, supposedly in the interest of public safety. Firemen, who have joined the demonstrations at the Capitol, are workers whose job it is to save lives and prevent destruction. The cops and prison guards are not workers. They are the hired thugs of the capitalist rulers, front-line enforcers of the racist capitalist “justice” system. Marxists understand that far from being “neutral,” the capitalist state is at bottom nothing more than an apparatus of violence—the cops, army, courts and prisons—for enforcing the bosses’ class rule. This is no mystery to the bourgeois politician Walker, who has threatened to call out the National Guard to quell militant labor action. But the public sector unions like AFSCME have recruited cops and prison guards, deadly enemies of the working class, into the unions by the tens of thousands. Cops, prison guards out of the trade-union movement!
In channeling the workers’ anger into the dead end of bourgeois pressure politics, the union bureaucrats are aided by a host of reformist “socialist” outfits. Groups like the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Socialist Alternative (SAlt) and the Party for Socialism and Liberation have uncritically cheered the Madison protests while upholding the losing strategy of pressuring the Democrats to “fight the right” and “tax the rich” to balance the budget. In a February 19 statement on its Web site, SAlt cravenly wrote, “We can’t rely on the Democratic Party to maintain a principled stand unless they feel the fire of the movement spreading underneath them. After all, would the Senate Democrats have even taken their stand if the working people of Wisconsin hadn’t risen up in the first place?” For the ISO, the demonstrations have “transformed U.S. politics in a way that won’t disappear, whatever happens with Walker’s legislation.” Or as Jesse Jackson put it in addressing a crowd at the state Capitol, “This is a Martin Luther King moment, this is a Gandhi moment.” The continuing miseries of black Americans and of the Indian masses show that this is not the way forward.
Labor needs a fighting leadership that will break the chains that tie the unions to the capitalist Democrats—a class-struggle leadership that understands that the whole capitalist system of racism, war and exploitation must be thrown on the garbage heap of history. This is part of the struggle to build a revolutionary workers party that fights for a workers government and for a socialist egalitarian society in which those who labor will rule. Speaking of the victorious 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes, which were key to establishing the Teamsters as an industrial union, Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon noted in The History of American Trotskyism (1944):
“Our people didn’t believe in anybody or anything but the policy of the class struggle and the ability of the workers to prevail by their mass strength and solidarity. Consequently, they expected from the start that the union would have to fight for its right to exist; that the bosses would not yield any recognition to the union, would not yield any increase of wages or reduction of the scandalous hours without some pressure being brought to bear. Therefore they prepared everything from the point of view of class war. They knew that power, not diplomacy, would decide the issue. Bluffs don’t work in fundamental things, only in incidental ones. In such things as the conflict of class interests one must be prepared to fight.”
4 March 2011
No Illusions in Democratic Party!
Wisconsin Showdown Over Union Rights
On February 26, some 100,000 pro-union demonstrators flooded the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, following nearly two weeks of protests against Republican governor Scott Walker’s proposed union-busting bill, which would strip public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights. The massive demonstrations began on Valentine’s Day, when over 1,000 workers and University of Wisconsin students occupied the state Capitol building rotunda. They flooded into the lawmakers’ chambers, with hundreds camping at the Capitol every night since. This action sparked the teachers unions to organize sick-outs, causing schools to close across the state. Sensing a draconian threat to their livelihoods and rights, tens of thousands of unionists and their families as well as students and other supporters have flocked to Madison on a daily basis demanding, “Kill the Bill!”
It is in the vital interest of the entire labor movement to defend Wisconsin’s public employee unions and spike the union-busting “budget repair bill.” This deadly law would eliminate public sector collective bargaining on any issue besides wages, limit raises to no more than cost-of-living increases, and require public sector unions to endure mandatory annual recertification votes that would threaten the very existence of these unions. Under the bill, employee payroll deductions for health care would be dramatically increased. Workers would be required to pay 50 percent of the contributions to the pension fund, resulting in a pay cut of 5 to 12 percent. Walker, a Republican of the reactionary Tea Party ilk, has threatened to start laying off 12,000 workers beginning this week if his bill does not pass.
“It’s about the assault on labor, an assault on the working human being; to take and throw away the contract and say it’s balancing the budget is bull crap,” said a member of Wisconsin’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). In short order, Scott Walker confirmed this observation. Believing, gullibly, that he was in a phone conversation with right-wing billionaire and Tea Party backer David Koch, Walker confessed to having considered planting troublemakers among the pro-union demonstrators while praising Ronald Reagan’s 1981 smashing of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike and destruction of the union; Walker said that this was “our” PATCO “moment.” Indeed, the impact of such legislation is demonstrated in Indiana, where all collective bargaining for public unions was banned six years ago. Since that time, as the governor of that state brags, union membership for state workers has nose-dived by 90 percent.
There will either be class struggle or defeat. In his phone call with the ersatz David Koch, Governor Walker articulated a strategy of simply letting the protests play out. What is needed is hard class struggle to defeat this union-busting attack. The massive, hugely popular Madison protests show that there is widespread outrage over the savage cutbacks and that workers are ready to fight.
On February 21, the South Central Federation of Labor (SCFL), composed of delegates from 97 public and private sector union locals representing 45,000 workers in Madison and southern Wisconsin, unanimously passed a motion stating: “The SCFL endorses a general strike, possibly for the day Walker signs his ‘budget repair bill’.” In another motion, SCFL rejected any bargaining concessions on wages, benefits and union rights. At the same time, SCFL president Jim Cavanaugh was quick to explain that the group’s support for a “general strike” was just advisory: “We’re just a support organization, and the actual local unions would have to decide if they wanted to escalate things to the point of a strike.” Recommendations will not do the trick. The Wisconsin labor movement needs to prepare for statewide strike action if this attempt to gut the unions is to be defeated.
But the Wisconsin public union tops have centered their whole strategy on pressuring the capitalist politicians to “compromise” by merely deleting the portions of Walker’s bill that gut their collective bargaining rights. Blathering about the need to “share the sacrifice,” these labor lieutenants of capital have pledged their support to all the wage and benefit givebacks Walker wants to wring from the unions. On February 21, the teachers union bureaucracy called off the school sick-outs—themselves a weak form of protest that sets individual teachers up for victimization.
It is necessary to defend each and every gain that the labor movement has won—from wages and benefits to pensions to the right for unions to exist. But that cannot be done by playing by the bosses’ rules. Beginning with the very right to form unions, all the major gains that labor has wrested from the bosses in the past century were once themselves “illegal” by the norms of bourgeois “law and order.” The class-struggle methods through which our rights were won—from massive picket lines to factory occupations to hot-cargoing struck goods—were also “illegal,” and are today! Hard-fought strikes galvanize the rest of the labor movement and, when victorious, tear up the bosses’ anti-strike laws and injunctions.
With similar restrictions and cuts against labor on the legislative agenda in many states (see article, page 1), the showdown in Wisconsin—the first state to legalize public sector unions, in the 1950s—has riveted the attention of workers nationally and internationally. In the U.S., private sector unions have mobilized in force alongside public sector workers around the Midwest. From New Jersey to Oklahoma and elsewhere, labor has rallied against similar anti-union legislation. In Columbus, Ohio, over 5,000 trade-union demonstrators filled Capitol Square.
With the global economic crisis grinding down working people and the oppressed throughout the world, mobilizations against exploitation and oppression quickly resound. Many in Wisconsin have identified their struggles with those of the working masses of Egypt, with some carrying signs denouncing Walker as a Mubarak-type dictator. In turn, messages of solidarity have been sent to Wisconsin from Egyptian workers and activists.
In Wisconsin, Democratic Party politicians have heavily promoted the protests to burnish their image as “friends of labor” in Midwest swing states. Fourteen Democratic state senators fled across the border to Illinois in a maneuver to deprive Walker of a quorum to ram the bill through the Republican-controlled state legislature. President Barack Obama has claimed to sympathize with public workers, asserting that it would be wrong “to vilify them or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees.” That takes a lot of chutzpah from an imperialist Commander-in-Chief whose assaults on the United Auto Workers, relentless attacks on teachers unions, and two-year wage freeze on federal employees have set the stage for the current round of state and local attacks on public sector unions.
In distributing Workers Vanguard to the Madison protesters, our comrades have warned against any illusions in the Democrats. No less than the Republicans, the Democratic Party is a capitalist party and the class enemy of workers, black people, immigrants and the oppressed. While the Tea Party reactionaries want to smash the unions outright in order to extract the maximum concessions, the Democrats pretend to be “friends” of labor to better hoodwink the workers and maintain labor “peace,” while extracting the same economic concessions.
The union tops—a component of the Democratic Party—are fully committed to the system of capitalist exploitation. In the private sector, these types have for decades agreed to the savage cutbacks of wages and benefits and the job-slashing attacks deemed by the bosses to be vital to the health of corporate America. This class collaboration has fueled the steep decline of the once-powerful industrial unions, which were built in the giant class battles of the 1930s. Now public sector unions face the same attacks along with the threat of a nationwide spate of “right to work” legislation to assure the withering of their union membership. In short, the union bureaucracy’s subordination of the class struggle to the dictates of the bosses has set the stage for those forces on the right that seek the destruction of public sector unions.
The union tops are fond of portraying labor struggles as a fight to maintain the “middle class,” thus obscuring the class divide in this country. In turn, the Tea Party types portray their struggle as a fight to maintain the middle class against encroachments of the labor movement. In reality, what is at issue is the inherent class conflict of workers against their capitalist exploiters.
Walker’s bill exempts firefighters and cops from the cutbacks, supposedly in the interest of public safety. Firemen, who have joined the demonstrations at the Capitol, are workers whose job it is to save lives and prevent destruction. The cops and prison guards are not workers. They are the hired thugs of the capitalist rulers, front-line enforcers of the racist capitalist “justice” system. Marxists understand that far from being “neutral,” the capitalist state is at bottom nothing more than an apparatus of violence—the cops, army, courts and prisons—for enforcing the bosses’ class rule. This is no mystery to the bourgeois politician Walker, who has threatened to call out the National Guard to quell militant labor action. But the public sector unions like AFSCME have recruited cops and prison guards, deadly enemies of the working class, into the unions by the tens of thousands. Cops, prison guards out of the trade-union movement!
In channeling the workers’ anger into the dead end of bourgeois pressure politics, the union bureaucrats are aided by a host of reformist “socialist” outfits. Groups like the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Socialist Alternative (SAlt) and the Party for Socialism and Liberation have uncritically cheered the Madison protests while upholding the losing strategy of pressuring the Democrats to “fight the right” and “tax the rich” to balance the budget. In a February 19 statement on its Web site, SAlt cravenly wrote, “We can’t rely on the Democratic Party to maintain a principled stand unless they feel the fire of the movement spreading underneath them. After all, would the Senate Democrats have even taken their stand if the working people of Wisconsin hadn’t risen up in the first place?” For the ISO, the demonstrations have “transformed U.S. politics in a way that won’t disappear, whatever happens with Walker’s legislation.” Or as Jesse Jackson put it in addressing a crowd at the state Capitol, “This is a Martin Luther King moment, this is a Gandhi moment.” The continuing miseries of black Americans and of the Indian masses show that this is not the way forward.
Labor needs a fighting leadership that will break the chains that tie the unions to the capitalist Democrats—a class-struggle leadership that understands that the whole capitalist system of racism, war and exploitation must be thrown on the garbage heap of history. This is part of the struggle to build a revolutionary workers party that fights for a workers government and for a socialist egalitarian society in which those who labor will rule. Speaking of the victorious 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes, which were key to establishing the Teamsters as an industrial union, Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon noted in The History of American Trotskyism (1944):
“Our people didn’t believe in anybody or anything but the policy of the class struggle and the ability of the workers to prevail by their mass strength and solidarity. Consequently, they expected from the start that the union would have to fight for its right to exist; that the bosses would not yield any recognition to the union, would not yield any increase of wages or reduction of the scandalous hours without some pressure being brought to bear. Therefore they prepared everything from the point of view of class war. They knew that power, not diplomacy, would decide the issue. Bluffs don’t work in fundamental things, only in incidental ones. In such things as the conflict of class interests one must be prepared to fight.”
From The Rag Blog- Senate Bill 5 squeaks by in Columbus:Corporate union busters draw first blood in Ohio
Senate Bill 5 squeaks by in Columbus:Corporate union busters draw first blood in Ohio
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman /The Rag Blog / March 3, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The national corporate campaign to destroy America’s public sector unions has drawn first blood in Ohio.
But a counterattack centered on one or more statewide initiatives or constitutional amendments has become highly likely.
While thousands of protesters chanted, spoke and sang inside and outside the statehouse for the past two weeks, the Ohio Senate voted 17-16 on Senate Bill 5, a bill that will slash collective bargaining for state workers by banning strikes and giving local officials the right to settle disputes. The bill, among other things, also eliminates all paid sick days for teachers.
The vote came amid shouts of “shame on you” and widespread booing from the diverse crowd of teachers, police, firefighters, construction workers, state employees, and more.
The bill decimates a legal framework in place since 1983. The vote was surprisingly close as six Republicans joined 10 Democrats in opposition. The 17 yes voters were all Republicans.
In order to vote the bill out of committee, Republican Senate president Tom Niehaus had to remove two key Republican senators who opposed the bill from crucial committees. Both Senators Scott Oelslager of Canton and Bill Seitz of Cincinnati were yanked from their posts. The removal of Seitz broke a committee stalemate and allowed the bill to come to the floor with a 7-5 vote.
Ultraconservative Senator Timothy Grendell of rural Chesterland, Ohio denounced the bill as"unconstitutional" pointing out that it prohibits union members from talking with elected public officials during negotiations and labels such activity as an unfair labor practice. Seitz echoed this theme: "It's an unfair labor practice if they exercise their First Amendment right to call up their councilman."
The bill now goes to the Ohio House, where it is fast-tracked and anticipated to pass by mid-March. In the House, the passage is being orchestrated by House Speaker Bill Batchelder. The Free Press has reported in the past of Batchelder's ties to the secretive Council for National Policy.
Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates describes CNP members as not only traditional conservatives, but also nativists, xenophobes, white racial supremacists, homophobes, sexists, militarists, authoritarians, reactionaries and "in some cases outright neo-fascists."
The Democrats do not hold enough seats in either house to deny the GOP a quorum, as is being done in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Ohio’s multimillonaire Governor John Kasich, who got rich selling junk assets to public pensions in Ohio as a managing partner for Lehman Brothers , will sign the bill as soon as he gets it. Kasich is a former Fox news commentator who was elected last November with a large last-minute contribution from Rupert Murdoch.
Kasich has blamed budget problems on state workers. But a rich person’s repeal of Ohio’s estate tax has cost the state a long-standing multimillion-dollar revenue stream. Like Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich also has rejected a big federal grant ($400 million) to upgrade the state’s passenger rail system, which would have created at least a thousand direct jobs and thousands more indirectly, along with a jump in state tax revenue.
Kasich meanwhile has given his chief of staff a substantial pay hike over that of his predecessor. He has hired at least four commissioners to sit on a “job creation” panel with annual salaries of roughly $150,000 each. The commission has been structured to operate without formal accountability to the legislature or taxpayers of the state. Kasich has already succeeded in privatizing the state's department of development.
Kasich tried to ban the media and the public from his inauguration. He has warned opponents that they had better “get on the bus or get run over by the bus.”
Unlike Wisconsin, Ohio has no recall law. The only apparent route to overturning this union-busting legislation may be with a statewide initiative or a constitutional amendment. As the statehouse filled with union protestors, talk spread of how and when that might be done.
Polls are showing overwhelming support for public workers, in part due to the blatant attack on Ohio's police and firefighters who are now barred from negotiating on safety issues. The bill bans binding arbitration used in the past to settle negotiations, and instead allows management to pick the settlement it wants.
Ohioans may also consider a constitutional amendment to guarantee hand-counted paper ballots. Electronic voting is dominated here by the successor to the Ohio-based Diebold corporation and the ES&S corporation, and other Republican-controlled voting machine companies. The privatization of Ohio's voting and voter registration rolls corresponded with a 5.4% shift to the Republican Party not predicted by the exit polls in the 2010 election. Exit polls showed Kasich losing the election.
Overall the architectural map of the Ohio election system appears to give private voting companies contracted to the Secretary of State's office -- currently headed by John Husted, a Republican -- the ability to electronically select state office winners in a matter of a few minutes on election night.
Husted has already introduced legislation to restrict voting rights through demands for photo ID and other measures aimed at students, the elderly, poor, and other Democratic-leaning citizens. Without universal voter registration and hand-counted paper ballots, the Ohio Democratic party has little chance of winning statewide office for the foreseeable future, or of turning back legislative union busting.
Key to the national corporate strategy now playing itself out in Ohio is the destruction of the Democratic Party’s traditional base. It is also about trashing teachers, firefighters, police, and other citizens who choose to work for the general good rather than individual profit. As Nina Turner, a Senate Democrat told The New York Times, “This bill seeks to vilify our public employees and turn what used to be the virtue of public service into a crime.”
It’s widely believed Kasich will next assault Ohio’s pubic school system, whose funding mechanisms have been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional by state courts. Kasich is a cheerleader for private charter schools. The GOP is expected to push a voucher program that would use taxpayer money to subsidize private schools for the rich.
David Brennan, owner of White Hat Management, a chain of private charter schools, has consistently been the leading donor to the Ohio Republican candidates. Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray filed a legal complaint against Brennan alleging that "White Hat's management agreements with the schools are invalid because the public charter schools handed over nearly all funding -- 96 percent -- to White Hat and were given essentially no accountability or transparency as to how the funds were spent."
Kasich and the GOP have already moved to gut environmental regulations and turn the state’s park system over to corporate extractors. He is also expected to attack legislation mandating advances in renewable energy while pushing for a new nuclear plant to be built in southern Ohio by corporations poised to cash in on massive federal subsidies being proposed by President Obama.
While the mood of demonstrators yesterday at the statehouse was angry and defiant, there are no illusions about the stakes in this battle. Governor Kasich and his wholly owned Republican legislature are born of unlimited Citizens United corporate cash and rigged electronic voting machines.
It’s thus no surprise that the first serious blood drawn in this latest corporate campaigns to finally wipe labor unions off the American map has come in the Buckeye State.
The question now: can the unions effectively fight back, in Ohio and nationwide?
[Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman have co-authored four books on election protection at www.freepress.org , where Bob’s Fitrakis Files books appear. Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States is at harveywasserman.com.]
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman /The Rag Blog / March 3, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The national corporate campaign to destroy America’s public sector unions has drawn first blood in Ohio.
But a counterattack centered on one or more statewide initiatives or constitutional amendments has become highly likely.
While thousands of protesters chanted, spoke and sang inside and outside the statehouse for the past two weeks, the Ohio Senate voted 17-16 on Senate Bill 5, a bill that will slash collective bargaining for state workers by banning strikes and giving local officials the right to settle disputes. The bill, among other things, also eliminates all paid sick days for teachers.
The vote came amid shouts of “shame on you” and widespread booing from the diverse crowd of teachers, police, firefighters, construction workers, state employees, and more.
The bill decimates a legal framework in place since 1983. The vote was surprisingly close as six Republicans joined 10 Democrats in opposition. The 17 yes voters were all Republicans.
In order to vote the bill out of committee, Republican Senate president Tom Niehaus had to remove two key Republican senators who opposed the bill from crucial committees. Both Senators Scott Oelslager of Canton and Bill Seitz of Cincinnati were yanked from their posts. The removal of Seitz broke a committee stalemate and allowed the bill to come to the floor with a 7-5 vote.
Ultraconservative Senator Timothy Grendell of rural Chesterland, Ohio denounced the bill as"unconstitutional" pointing out that it prohibits union members from talking with elected public officials during negotiations and labels such activity as an unfair labor practice. Seitz echoed this theme: "It's an unfair labor practice if they exercise their First Amendment right to call up their councilman."
The bill now goes to the Ohio House, where it is fast-tracked and anticipated to pass by mid-March. In the House, the passage is being orchestrated by House Speaker Bill Batchelder. The Free Press has reported in the past of Batchelder's ties to the secretive Council for National Policy.
Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates describes CNP members as not only traditional conservatives, but also nativists, xenophobes, white racial supremacists, homophobes, sexists, militarists, authoritarians, reactionaries and "in some cases outright neo-fascists."
The Democrats do not hold enough seats in either house to deny the GOP a quorum, as is being done in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Ohio’s multimillonaire Governor John Kasich, who got rich selling junk assets to public pensions in Ohio as a managing partner for Lehman Brothers , will sign the bill as soon as he gets it. Kasich is a former Fox news commentator who was elected last November with a large last-minute contribution from Rupert Murdoch.
Kasich has blamed budget problems on state workers. But a rich person’s repeal of Ohio’s estate tax has cost the state a long-standing multimillion-dollar revenue stream. Like Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich also has rejected a big federal grant ($400 million) to upgrade the state’s passenger rail system, which would have created at least a thousand direct jobs and thousands more indirectly, along with a jump in state tax revenue.
Kasich meanwhile has given his chief of staff a substantial pay hike over that of his predecessor. He has hired at least four commissioners to sit on a “job creation” panel with annual salaries of roughly $150,000 each. The commission has been structured to operate without formal accountability to the legislature or taxpayers of the state. Kasich has already succeeded in privatizing the state's department of development.
Kasich tried to ban the media and the public from his inauguration. He has warned opponents that they had better “get on the bus or get run over by the bus.”
Unlike Wisconsin, Ohio has no recall law. The only apparent route to overturning this union-busting legislation may be with a statewide initiative or a constitutional amendment. As the statehouse filled with union protestors, talk spread of how and when that might be done.
Polls are showing overwhelming support for public workers, in part due to the blatant attack on Ohio's police and firefighters who are now barred from negotiating on safety issues. The bill bans binding arbitration used in the past to settle negotiations, and instead allows management to pick the settlement it wants.
Ohioans may also consider a constitutional amendment to guarantee hand-counted paper ballots. Electronic voting is dominated here by the successor to the Ohio-based Diebold corporation and the ES&S corporation, and other Republican-controlled voting machine companies. The privatization of Ohio's voting and voter registration rolls corresponded with a 5.4% shift to the Republican Party not predicted by the exit polls in the 2010 election. Exit polls showed Kasich losing the election.
Overall the architectural map of the Ohio election system appears to give private voting companies contracted to the Secretary of State's office -- currently headed by John Husted, a Republican -- the ability to electronically select state office winners in a matter of a few minutes on election night.
Husted has already introduced legislation to restrict voting rights through demands for photo ID and other measures aimed at students, the elderly, poor, and other Democratic-leaning citizens. Without universal voter registration and hand-counted paper ballots, the Ohio Democratic party has little chance of winning statewide office for the foreseeable future, or of turning back legislative union busting.
Key to the national corporate strategy now playing itself out in Ohio is the destruction of the Democratic Party’s traditional base. It is also about trashing teachers, firefighters, police, and other citizens who choose to work for the general good rather than individual profit. As Nina Turner, a Senate Democrat told The New York Times, “This bill seeks to vilify our public employees and turn what used to be the virtue of public service into a crime.”
It’s widely believed Kasich will next assault Ohio’s pubic school system, whose funding mechanisms have been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional by state courts. Kasich is a cheerleader for private charter schools. The GOP is expected to push a voucher program that would use taxpayer money to subsidize private schools for the rich.
David Brennan, owner of White Hat Management, a chain of private charter schools, has consistently been the leading donor to the Ohio Republican candidates. Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray filed a legal complaint against Brennan alleging that "White Hat's management agreements with the schools are invalid because the public charter schools handed over nearly all funding -- 96 percent -- to White Hat and were given essentially no accountability or transparency as to how the funds were spent."
Kasich and the GOP have already moved to gut environmental regulations and turn the state’s park system over to corporate extractors. He is also expected to attack legislation mandating advances in renewable energy while pushing for a new nuclear plant to be built in southern Ohio by corporations poised to cash in on massive federal subsidies being proposed by President Obama.
While the mood of demonstrators yesterday at the statehouse was angry and defiant, there are no illusions about the stakes in this battle. Governor Kasich and his wholly owned Republican legislature are born of unlimited Citizens United corporate cash and rigged electronic voting machines.
It’s thus no surprise that the first serious blood drawn in this latest corporate campaigns to finally wipe labor unions off the American map has come in the Buckeye State.
The question now: can the unions effectively fight back, in Ohio and nationwide?
[Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman have co-authored four books on election protection at www.freepress.org , where Bob’s Fitrakis Files books appear. Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States is at harveywasserman.com.]
From The Rag Blog-The revolution at home:Dispatch from the Madison front
The revolution at home:Dispatch from the Madison front
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 8, 2011
MADISON, Wisconsin -- My wife Kathie and I have been to the Capitol square in Madison, sometimes inside, sometimes outside the Capitol building, most days since February 13 when the demonstrations began. It’s been cold, often snowy, usually with a wind chill of 20 degrees or less. Pretty uncomfortable. And they’ve been some of the best days of our lives.
We are proud of Wisconsin. We have new hope (dare we hope so much?) for America. According to Michael Moore , everyone is a Wisconsinite now. Welcome! Badgers of the world, unite!
Background to protest
Scott Walker provoked the demonstrations Friday, February 11, when he tabled his 144-page “Budget Repair Bill” and insisted it be passed the following week without significant alteration. The first thing that leapt out of the bill was its frontal assault on Wisconsin’s public service unions: the bill would eviscerate the unions and effectively eliminate the collective bargaining process.
Quickly it became apparent that there were many other right-wing dreams buried in the bill that would be instantly made law.
SB11 attacked public-sector pensions and health care (resulting in public service pay reductions of 8-10%); provided authority for the Walker administration (without further legislative consideration) to sell off public owned power plants on no-bid contracts; and it separated the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the State of Wisconsin University System.
There were many other far-reaching provisions as well, together with ominous undertones foretelling drastic cuts that would be included in the biennial budget still to come: cuts to local schools and services, and to Wisconsin’s very successful Medicare initiative (Badger Care). Many suspected that Wisconsin’s huge and fully-funded public service pension fund would soon have crosshairs on it.
Understanding spread that, first, most of the provisions had little or nothing to do with “repairing” the present-year budget; and, second, all were part of a national right-wing agenda best articulated by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and funded by billionaires such as the Koch brothers. (The latter, Charles and David, were heavy funders of Walker’s election campaign, and they had just opened a lobbying firm a block away from the Wisconsin Capitol.)
As all of this came out, the Budget Repair Bill seemed radical to the core in turning back Wisconsin’s progressive traditions and in transferring important legislative powers to the Governor’s administration.
Walker threw a match into this pail of gasoline by preemptively remarking that if there were worker trouble he would call out the state’s National Guard.
In the state Assembly, the Republican majority was strong enough to pass the bill without a single Democratic vote, or even the presence of a single Democrat. But in the Senate, while Republicans held a 19 to 14 advantage, at least one Democrat had to be in the chamber to count toward quorum to legally pass the bill.
The Democrats made themselves scarce. The Republican leader of the Senate instructed his father (since Walker’s election, the head of the State Patrol) to bring them in. Suddenly, on Thursday, February 17, all heard the news: the 14 Democratic Senators were safely out-of-state, in Illinois. The bill could not be passed.
Meanwhile, demonstrations had begun. They started small with a few of Madison’s “usual suspects” (people like myself) and members of the UW-Madison’s Teaching Assistants’ Association. But in a day or so protesters numbered in the thousands: unprecedented in recent history.
The numbers grew exponentially as understanding of the bill’s implications sank in. Teachers caught a collective cold; the schools had to close; high school students marched down in phalanxes to join the crowds. University students were there en masse, and parents brought their children. The Capitol’s marble rotunda became a gigantic resonator for the opposition: packed on three levels, festooned with signs, reverberating with drums and chants: “Walker is a weasel, not a badger!” “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” “Kill the Bill!”
And among the teachers, the parents, the school children, the university students, the retirees and other townspeople were: the unions! The unions really got it from day one: they knew that this battle had the significance of the 1981 air controller’s strike: a last ditch struggle to hold on to the remnants of our trade union movement (and with it, much of the progressive achievement of the twentieth century).
The unions knew this was not a local issue, not a Wisconsin-only issue, and not a budget issue. (Early on, the public service unions indicated they would agree to the salary cuts -- for health and pension payments -- that the Budget Repair bill demanded; they thus took the genuine deficit-reduction issues off the table.)
Walker had cunningly tried to separate the police and fire fighter unions from the rest by exempting them from the bill’s provisions. What a great moment it was (we were there, and up front) when a long line of fire fighters, many in uniform, carrying solidarity placards, marched in a file through the crowd which cheered them ecstatically. And this happened over and over again: fire fighters, police, prison workers condemned the anti-union provisions.
Taken in by a prankster, Walker said to a caller he thought to be David Koch that the demonstrations were dying down and consisted mainly of out-of-staters. (See the complete transcript of the call.)
He wished! The demonstrations were only getting going!
The joy of protest
What does it look and feel like? First, really huge crowds. Thursday, the 17th, when the 14 Senators fled, the crowd is 25,000. The next day, 40,000. On Saturday, 68,000. The following Saturday, more than 70,000. (This despite the constantly below-freezing temperatures). The wide streets that make the square around the Capitol are packed all the way around. The crowd moves slowly, drumming, chanting, waving signs. The procession moves (wouldn’t you know it!) in a leftward direction.
There are some pre-printed signs, mainly from the many (more than 60) unions that are participating. They predominated on the first day or so, but quickly were swamped by thousands of wonderful, whimsical hand-made signs. Each communicates its maker’s own sense of the essence of the problem or the solution.
Humor is adopted as a weapon by many. Plays are made on the name of Scott Walker’s corporate backers, the Koch brothers (the funders of Americans For Prosperity, which already is taking out ads and organizing bus tours to support Walker).
“Scottie, kick your Koch habit.” Or, referring to the infamous 20 minute phone conversation with “David Koch:” “Scott: Koch dealer on 2.”
Many, a little ribald for these pages, play on the Koch brothers’ name mispronounced. Many other signs, always greatly appreciated by the crowd, proclaim: “I voted for Walker. And am I sorry.” You see the figure “14” everywhere: “14 Heroes!” Or just “14.” We all know who they are.
By the time of Saturday’s big demonstration on March 5 (when Michael Moore spoke) the variety of hand-made signs has come to seem infinite. Even dogs are displaying signs, on the order of “I smell a weasel!” or “Bad Scottie! Bad! Bad!”
Inside and out, music and drumming has a spontaneous character. Many of the drums are plastic drywall tubs, sometimes with a tin can inside to impart a ring. We also saw pans, cow bells, snare drums, African drums, even a ukulele. South African vuvuzelas blare discordantly.
Here and there, inside and out, speeches are being given. Most loudspeaker systems are minimalist, hand-held. Some speakers (or, shouters) use only old-fashioned unamplified megaphones (probably made at the kitchen table an hour ago).
Amid the drumming and the chanting in the Capitol, most speeches can’t be heard by most people. But that doesn’t stop us from cheering and applauding. We feel sure the speech was right on, saying just what we think!
Getting warm In Madison (I don’t mean the weather)
Monday, February 28, a new stage was reached. The Capitol reverberated throughout with the people’s voices. Governor Walker would present his budget on Tuesday evening. How could the television-watching public be allowed to see and hear the tens of thousands of citizens that would be outside the chamber?
Solution: close the Capitol to the public. He did. That added more fuel to the fire. The Dane County sheriff withdrew his men and women from the job of closing the entrances, making the unhelpful statement: “My deputies are not a palace guard.”
The Capitol police, assigned the job of clearing the rotunda of the tens, sometimes hundreds, of protesters who had camped there for two weeks, declined to do so, saying the protest had been remarkably peaceful, safe and respectful, and they saw no necessity of arresting and dragging out the campers.
A Dane County judge decided it was not legal to close the building to the public. He issued an injunction against the closure. This was overruled (not legally, of course) as Walker’s Department of Administration simply announced they were in compliance, but then did not open the building.
Some remarkable scenes ensued. Senator Glenn Grothman, a Tea Party Republican, left the Capitol for some reason and for some time could not get back in. He knocked on a window to attract the attention of his staff inside, and they assumed he was a demonstrator and ignored him. Meanwhile the crowd walked with him, wherever he went, and shouted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” (This was the refrain of the Democrats in the Assembly after the Budget Repair Bill there was passed -- or “passed” -- in a surprise vote at 1 a.m.
Finally, Grothman was rescued by a Democratic Assembly member who came out, calmed the crowd, and brought him back into the building. Afterwards, somewhat strangely, Grothman referred to the “slobs” who had “attacked” him, even though the crowd is dressed in pure Wisconsin and is almost embarrassingly middle class in character.
A Democratic Assembly member meanwhile was denied entrance to the Capitol completely; she had her official ID card but insisted it should not be required for her, as a Wisconsin citizen, to enter. Another Democratic Assembly member was tackled and taken to the floor by police (on video), even though he WAS showing his state ID card.
By the end of the week the Department of Administration had to retreat from their manifestly not-legal closure of the building. They then imposed a “security” system so elaborate as to make entrance an onerous, hour-long job. By Saturday March 5, this too was backed away from as a much more reasonable security check was administered by friendly police officers.
The Republican Senate then passed a resolution defining the absent 14 as in contempt, and ordering their arrest. But police spokesmen indicated they would not attempt to arrest them.
Still one more Walker initiative did not work out well. Probably feeding into Tea Party stereotypes involving long-haired, bad-smelling “radicals,” his administration announced that it would cost $7.5 million dollars to remove tape and repair other damage done to the beautiful Capitol building interior during the occupation.
Alas for Walker, both the painters union and an expert in landmark building preservation surveyed the building and reported that damages were slight to non-existent.
Finally, a Fox TV interview show about Madison by Bill O’Reilly cut in footage showing “unruly” (read dangerous Communist?) protesters. Unfortunately, in the scenes shown there was no snow, trees were leafed out, and palm trees could be seen. Oops: not Madison! (Ever since this report, some protesters have carried plastic palm trees.)
Beginning of a movement (or not?)
Where are we now? On Saturday, March 6, it is clear from speeches and conversations that most people feel that we are winning. Whistling in the graveyard? We can’t know for sure. But things seem to be swinging our way.
Walker was forced to present his biennial budget before getting the special powers provided in the Budget Repair Bill. Now, throughout Wisconsin communities are realizing the extent of the hit they are about to take, especially to their schools. Teachers all over Wisconsin are already getting layoff notices.
“Luxuries” like school athletic programs may have to go. Ambulance service may be cut. Smaller towns’ personnel budgets typically are about half police and firefighters and they are exempt from the anti-collective bargaining provisions (even if Walker gets them). Most communities already have multi-year contracts with their public workers anyway.
Demonstrations are beginning in the small towns. The polls make very bad reading for Republicans. Stay tuned.
My wife and I are old enough to remember the anti-Vietnam protests of the 60s. How does this compare? Larger, we would say, and happier. The participants are passionate about the issues: the attack on workers' rights to collective bargaining and on their pensions and health care; cutting Medicaid eligibility and funding; pushing a state deficit down to the local level; and pushing the deficits born mainly of tax concessions to the rich and the corporations onto the schools and the young.
But also, humor seems to bubble through it all, and there is an enormous sense of fellowship. The police have mainly been wonderful (that’s a contrast!). The crowds are a complete cross-section of Wisconsin’s working (or studying) population, and all ages are participating.
Everyone admits that, while they are campaigning seriously for the old Wisconsin (good schools, good government, clean government, union rights, democracy), they are also having the best time that they’ve had in a long time. Emma Goldman would have loved it.
Is this the beginning of a nationwide mobilization of the center and the left against right-wing extremism? All here in Madison hope so. We’ll have to wait to see. In the meantime, we feel that our protest here is, indeed, exactly “what democracy looks like!”
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 8, 2011
MADISON, Wisconsin -- My wife Kathie and I have been to the Capitol square in Madison, sometimes inside, sometimes outside the Capitol building, most days since February 13 when the demonstrations began. It’s been cold, often snowy, usually with a wind chill of 20 degrees or less. Pretty uncomfortable. And they’ve been some of the best days of our lives.
We are proud of Wisconsin. We have new hope (dare we hope so much?) for America. According to Michael Moore , everyone is a Wisconsinite now. Welcome! Badgers of the world, unite!
Background to protest
Scott Walker provoked the demonstrations Friday, February 11, when he tabled his 144-page “Budget Repair Bill” and insisted it be passed the following week without significant alteration. The first thing that leapt out of the bill was its frontal assault on Wisconsin’s public service unions: the bill would eviscerate the unions and effectively eliminate the collective bargaining process.
Quickly it became apparent that there were many other right-wing dreams buried in the bill that would be instantly made law.
SB11 attacked public-sector pensions and health care (resulting in public service pay reductions of 8-10%); provided authority for the Walker administration (without further legislative consideration) to sell off public owned power plants on no-bid contracts; and it separated the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the State of Wisconsin University System.
There were many other far-reaching provisions as well, together with ominous undertones foretelling drastic cuts that would be included in the biennial budget still to come: cuts to local schools and services, and to Wisconsin’s very successful Medicare initiative (Badger Care). Many suspected that Wisconsin’s huge and fully-funded public service pension fund would soon have crosshairs on it.
Understanding spread that, first, most of the provisions had little or nothing to do with “repairing” the present-year budget; and, second, all were part of a national right-wing agenda best articulated by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and funded by billionaires such as the Koch brothers. (The latter, Charles and David, were heavy funders of Walker’s election campaign, and they had just opened a lobbying firm a block away from the Wisconsin Capitol.)
As all of this came out, the Budget Repair Bill seemed radical to the core in turning back Wisconsin’s progressive traditions and in transferring important legislative powers to the Governor’s administration.
Walker threw a match into this pail of gasoline by preemptively remarking that if there were worker trouble he would call out the state’s National Guard.
In the state Assembly, the Republican majority was strong enough to pass the bill without a single Democratic vote, or even the presence of a single Democrat. But in the Senate, while Republicans held a 19 to 14 advantage, at least one Democrat had to be in the chamber to count toward quorum to legally pass the bill.
The Democrats made themselves scarce. The Republican leader of the Senate instructed his father (since Walker’s election, the head of the State Patrol) to bring them in. Suddenly, on Thursday, February 17, all heard the news: the 14 Democratic Senators were safely out-of-state, in Illinois. The bill could not be passed.
Meanwhile, demonstrations had begun. They started small with a few of Madison’s “usual suspects” (people like myself) and members of the UW-Madison’s Teaching Assistants’ Association. But in a day or so protesters numbered in the thousands: unprecedented in recent history.
The numbers grew exponentially as understanding of the bill’s implications sank in. Teachers caught a collective cold; the schools had to close; high school students marched down in phalanxes to join the crowds. University students were there en masse, and parents brought their children. The Capitol’s marble rotunda became a gigantic resonator for the opposition: packed on three levels, festooned with signs, reverberating with drums and chants: “Walker is a weasel, not a badger!” “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” “Kill the Bill!”
And among the teachers, the parents, the school children, the university students, the retirees and other townspeople were: the unions! The unions really got it from day one: they knew that this battle had the significance of the 1981 air controller’s strike: a last ditch struggle to hold on to the remnants of our trade union movement (and with it, much of the progressive achievement of the twentieth century).
The unions knew this was not a local issue, not a Wisconsin-only issue, and not a budget issue. (Early on, the public service unions indicated they would agree to the salary cuts -- for health and pension payments -- that the Budget Repair bill demanded; they thus took the genuine deficit-reduction issues off the table.)
Walker had cunningly tried to separate the police and fire fighter unions from the rest by exempting them from the bill’s provisions. What a great moment it was (we were there, and up front) when a long line of fire fighters, many in uniform, carrying solidarity placards, marched in a file through the crowd which cheered them ecstatically. And this happened over and over again: fire fighters, police, prison workers condemned the anti-union provisions.
Taken in by a prankster, Walker said to a caller he thought to be David Koch that the demonstrations were dying down and consisted mainly of out-of-staters. (See the complete transcript of the call.)
He wished! The demonstrations were only getting going!
The joy of protest
What does it look and feel like? First, really huge crowds. Thursday, the 17th, when the 14 Senators fled, the crowd is 25,000. The next day, 40,000. On Saturday, 68,000. The following Saturday, more than 70,000. (This despite the constantly below-freezing temperatures). The wide streets that make the square around the Capitol are packed all the way around. The crowd moves slowly, drumming, chanting, waving signs. The procession moves (wouldn’t you know it!) in a leftward direction.
There are some pre-printed signs, mainly from the many (more than 60) unions that are participating. They predominated on the first day or so, but quickly were swamped by thousands of wonderful, whimsical hand-made signs. Each communicates its maker’s own sense of the essence of the problem or the solution.
Humor is adopted as a weapon by many. Plays are made on the name of Scott Walker’s corporate backers, the Koch brothers (the funders of Americans For Prosperity, which already is taking out ads and organizing bus tours to support Walker).
“Scottie, kick your Koch habit.” Or, referring to the infamous 20 minute phone conversation with “David Koch:” “Scott: Koch dealer on 2.”
Many, a little ribald for these pages, play on the Koch brothers’ name mispronounced. Many other signs, always greatly appreciated by the crowd, proclaim: “I voted for Walker. And am I sorry.” You see the figure “14” everywhere: “14 Heroes!” Or just “14.” We all know who they are.
By the time of Saturday’s big demonstration on March 5 (when Michael Moore spoke) the variety of hand-made signs has come to seem infinite. Even dogs are displaying signs, on the order of “I smell a weasel!” or “Bad Scottie! Bad! Bad!”
Inside and out, music and drumming has a spontaneous character. Many of the drums are plastic drywall tubs, sometimes with a tin can inside to impart a ring. We also saw pans, cow bells, snare drums, African drums, even a ukulele. South African vuvuzelas blare discordantly.
Here and there, inside and out, speeches are being given. Most loudspeaker systems are minimalist, hand-held. Some speakers (or, shouters) use only old-fashioned unamplified megaphones (probably made at the kitchen table an hour ago).
Amid the drumming and the chanting in the Capitol, most speeches can’t be heard by most people. But that doesn’t stop us from cheering and applauding. We feel sure the speech was right on, saying just what we think!
Getting warm In Madison (I don’t mean the weather)
Monday, February 28, a new stage was reached. The Capitol reverberated throughout with the people’s voices. Governor Walker would present his budget on Tuesday evening. How could the television-watching public be allowed to see and hear the tens of thousands of citizens that would be outside the chamber?
Solution: close the Capitol to the public. He did. That added more fuel to the fire. The Dane County sheriff withdrew his men and women from the job of closing the entrances, making the unhelpful statement: “My deputies are not a palace guard.”
The Capitol police, assigned the job of clearing the rotunda of the tens, sometimes hundreds, of protesters who had camped there for two weeks, declined to do so, saying the protest had been remarkably peaceful, safe and respectful, and they saw no necessity of arresting and dragging out the campers.
A Dane County judge decided it was not legal to close the building to the public. He issued an injunction against the closure. This was overruled (not legally, of course) as Walker’s Department of Administration simply announced they were in compliance, but then did not open the building.
Some remarkable scenes ensued. Senator Glenn Grothman, a Tea Party Republican, left the Capitol for some reason and for some time could not get back in. He knocked on a window to attract the attention of his staff inside, and they assumed he was a demonstrator and ignored him. Meanwhile the crowd walked with him, wherever he went, and shouted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” (This was the refrain of the Democrats in the Assembly after the Budget Repair Bill there was passed -- or “passed” -- in a surprise vote at 1 a.m.
Finally, Grothman was rescued by a Democratic Assembly member who came out, calmed the crowd, and brought him back into the building. Afterwards, somewhat strangely, Grothman referred to the “slobs” who had “attacked” him, even though the crowd is dressed in pure Wisconsin and is almost embarrassingly middle class in character.
A Democratic Assembly member meanwhile was denied entrance to the Capitol completely; she had her official ID card but insisted it should not be required for her, as a Wisconsin citizen, to enter. Another Democratic Assembly member was tackled and taken to the floor by police (on video), even though he WAS showing his state ID card.
By the end of the week the Department of Administration had to retreat from their manifestly not-legal closure of the building. They then imposed a “security” system so elaborate as to make entrance an onerous, hour-long job. By Saturday March 5, this too was backed away from as a much more reasonable security check was administered by friendly police officers.
The Republican Senate then passed a resolution defining the absent 14 as in contempt, and ordering their arrest. But police spokesmen indicated they would not attempt to arrest them.
Still one more Walker initiative did not work out well. Probably feeding into Tea Party stereotypes involving long-haired, bad-smelling “radicals,” his administration announced that it would cost $7.5 million dollars to remove tape and repair other damage done to the beautiful Capitol building interior during the occupation.
Alas for Walker, both the painters union and an expert in landmark building preservation surveyed the building and reported that damages were slight to non-existent.
Finally, a Fox TV interview show about Madison by Bill O’Reilly cut in footage showing “unruly” (read dangerous Communist?) protesters. Unfortunately, in the scenes shown there was no snow, trees were leafed out, and palm trees could be seen. Oops: not Madison! (Ever since this report, some protesters have carried plastic palm trees.)
Beginning of a movement (or not?)
Where are we now? On Saturday, March 6, it is clear from speeches and conversations that most people feel that we are winning. Whistling in the graveyard? We can’t know for sure. But things seem to be swinging our way.
Walker was forced to present his biennial budget before getting the special powers provided in the Budget Repair Bill. Now, throughout Wisconsin communities are realizing the extent of the hit they are about to take, especially to their schools. Teachers all over Wisconsin are already getting layoff notices.
“Luxuries” like school athletic programs may have to go. Ambulance service may be cut. Smaller towns’ personnel budgets typically are about half police and firefighters and they are exempt from the anti-collective bargaining provisions (even if Walker gets them). Most communities already have multi-year contracts with their public workers anyway.
Demonstrations are beginning in the small towns. The polls make very bad reading for Republicans. Stay tuned.
My wife and I are old enough to remember the anti-Vietnam protests of the 60s. How does this compare? Larger, we would say, and happier. The participants are passionate about the issues: the attack on workers' rights to collective bargaining and on their pensions and health care; cutting Medicaid eligibility and funding; pushing a state deficit down to the local level; and pushing the deficits born mainly of tax concessions to the rich and the corporations onto the schools and the young.
But also, humor seems to bubble through it all, and there is an enormous sense of fellowship. The police have mainly been wonderful (that’s a contrast!). The crowds are a complete cross-section of Wisconsin’s working (or studying) population, and all ages are participating.
Everyone admits that, while they are campaigning seriously for the old Wisconsin (good schools, good government, clean government, union rights, democracy), they are also having the best time that they’ve had in a long time. Emma Goldman would have loved it.
Is this the beginning of a nationwide mobilization of the center and the left against right-wing extremism? All here in Madison hope so. We’ll have to wait to see. In the meantime, we feel that our protest here is, indeed, exactly “what democracy looks like!”
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
From The Rag Blog-Poverty in America and theattack on public sector unions
Poverty in America and the
attack on public sector unions
want to ask a basic question that unifies religious, labor, and community organizations at the core. Why in this, the richest country in the world, are people poor?
By Anne Lewis / The Rag Blog / March 10, 2011
The labor movement has rarely won anything without the social movement, and the social movement has rarely won anything without the labor movement. One often cited example is Dr. King’s 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom initiated by A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
If you have any doubts about the necessity of a combined effort, watch this archival film of John L. Lewis when he testified before Congress in 1947 about health care and pensions for miners paid by the coal companies.
The resulting welfare fund, hard fought at the grassroots level by miners and their families, was the most comprehensive health care that I can think of. I know because I was covered under it from the mid seventies to the eighties when it was lost under Reagan.
We frequently marginalize each other -- social movement folks saying unions don’t matter anymore and condemning labor “bureaucrats” and union folks saying that social movement people don’t care about workers and have grandiose ideas of their own power. Some of us get downright schizophrenic dividing our lives into two segments. It’s time we stop this nonsense. We need to speak a common language.
I want to ask a basic question that unifies religious, labor, and community organizations at the core. Why in this, the richest country in the world, are people poor? Please think about how you might respond.
That same question was posed to a wide segment of people, rich and poor, in 2001. The NPR survey provides an analysis of public response to welfare reform (many of us called it deform) during the Clinton administration.
Here’s a table that asks whether it’s circumstances that create poverty or poor people themselves not doing enough. The percentages describe poverty level -- we know it’s set way too low. In 2001 200% of poverty for a family of four was $34,000.
Then NPR asked folks to name the most important cause of poverty in the United States.
Number one is “the poor quality of public schools.”
At about the same time, the Heritage Foundation decided to prove poverty in the United States wasn’t a problem after all. The Heritage Foundation survey is titled, “Understanding Poverty in America.” Here’s the starting point.
The next bar graph compares the living space of poor people in the United States favorably to that of the average European.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.
Here are two more rational definitions of poverty:
Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation. -- United Nations
To meet nutritional requirements, to escape avoidable disease, to be sheltered, to be clothed, to be able to travel, and to be educated. -- Amartya Sen
Better, right? We’re at least getting to the idea of living well and a more humane definition. Notably lacking is the mention of labor unions and collective action, although you could make the argument that the United Nations definition pushes us in that direction with language about effective participation, dignity, and jobs. The lack of worker organization isn’t mentioned in the NPR study. Neither is discrimination, race, ethnicity, or gender or environment or workers’ rights.
Would you have named lack of unionization or lousy labor law or something like that as an important reason why poverty exists in this country?
In July 2002, union members overall had a 20% higher hourly wage ($20.65 vs. $16.42). In blue-collar industry it was $18.88 vs. $12.95; in service occupations, $16.22 vs. $8.98. That’s not counting benefits. Those ratios have remained constant.
Currently nearly one in three public workers are union members compared with 6.9 percent of the workers in private-sector industries. These organized workers are under siege in Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, Indiana, Ohio, and here in Texas. Many work in public schools and universities. The occupation of the Wisconsin capitol started with 2,000 graduate teaching assistants and union members from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on Feb. 14. The attack on these workers and on the work that they do is tightly connected -- and they are fighting back.
First, education is not, in and of itself, a cure for poverty. NPR poll aside, “Poor quality of public schools” is not the most important cause of poverty. We could go on and on about how good or bad our schools are, but lack of education is not the leading indicator of poverty.
As much as we’d like it to be so, there isn’t any substantial difference in the average wage of a high school graduate and a high school drop out. It’s considerably less than the boost from unionization. Remember unionization gave a worker at least a 20% boost in wages. A high school diploma gives a less than 15% boost.
The attack on teachers’ unions in this country has been absolutely barbaric and I believe it violates international standards of dignity and decency.
Unfortunately, the way we’ve been looking at education both at primary and secondary level is supply-side economics: improve the quality of workers through education and grow the quantity of quality workers-- all for the rich employers -- and they won’t be poor no more because the rich will take care of them. Well it doesn’t work that way any more than tax breaks for the rich have created an economy that benefits all of us.
All this talk about creating a competitive workforce for the global economy and endless debates about whether our public schools and universities do or don’t meet the demands of the marketplace is a bunch of hooey. But most folks believe this nonsense. Me too. When I think about our teen-age son’s future, I immediately think: will he finish high school; will his grades and SAT scores be high enough to get into a good college; what’s a high ranked college we can afford... and so on.
Even though I know darn well that there would be much better ways to go about making sure that our child has a good future -- make sure that his nutrition is good, introduce him to cultural expression, work to strengthen our community with public transportation, public space, libraries, and museums, fight for the rights of public school workers and quality public schools, and fight for the rights of all workers, especially their right to organize.
The attack on teachers’ unions in this country has been absolutely barbaric and I believe it violates international standards of dignity and decency. I also believe there are large elements of sexism involved here. 70% of public school teachers are women overall. In Texas about 82% of elementary and middle school teachers are female. At UT, about 80% of full professors are male and about 60% of lecturers are female.
Working conditions for teachers are really lousy. Think about being the only adult in front of a class of 20 eight-year-olds and having to pee. Forced overtime -- hours worked without pay are unbelievable -- and pay isn’t so great. Wisconsin teachers average about $40,000 a year. Lecturers in my department, which is unusually well paid, start at $6,500 a class and are only allowed two classes a semester and two semesters a year. That’s $26,000 a year for what works out to be full time work with an unpaid leave over the summer.
Still image from archival film of John Lewis testifying before Congress in 1947.
In 2002, No Child Left Behind began a new attack in the name of school reform by devaluing teachers in the name of accountability. It was really insidious. It told teachers what to say in their classrooms (teachers in low performance schools are scripted like actors these days); used corporate standardized tests to tell teachers what to teach; it bought curriculum prescribed by corporations (yes folks like Pearson Education, Houghlin Mifflin, and The Pet Goat publisher McGraw Hill use the language of illness as though kids are sick and they’re doctors); and emphasized charter schools and privatization as salvation. And it’s not just the Republicans. Think of Arne Duncan and the Race to the Top.
Now I would agree that our public schools have failed Latino and African American and working class children. That’s one of the reasons that so many parents fought for integration. We know that separate is not equal. Now we have further segregation of the schools in a system based on and currently exhibiting apartheid.
I don’t think the language is too extreme. A very interesting study explores the role of the Koch brothers of Wisconsin fame in defeating the Wake County, North Carolina, socio-economic integration plan. That plan was a model of quality education for all children for the country. The Kochs poured money into the school board race, cast the plan as communistic, and put in a new school board. They won and the children and teachers of Wake County lost big.
Then we have “Waiting for Superman,” which I watched at the Alamo Drafthouse South with a “progressive” Austin audience who giggled at those lazy teachers, cried and then rejoiced with the poor little black child who won a school lottery, and really dug the idea that the problem with the public school system was teacher tenure and their union. I resorted to drink.
Here’s a cartoon from Saving Our Schools from Superman that sums up the movie.
Saving our schools from Superman
At UT, our buildings are plastered with plaques that reveal the connections between the corporate world and higher education. We have the Accenture Endowed Excellence Fund; the Arthur Anderson and Co. Centennial Professorship; Austin Smiles Endowed Fellowship in Speech Pathology; Bank of America Centennial Professorship in Petroleum Engineering; Enstar Chair for Free Enterprise; La Quinta Motor Inns, Inc. Centennial Professorship in Nursing; the BP Exploration Classroom Endowment; Conoco Phillips Faculty Fellowship in Law; and so on.
We have a University President whose three legislative priorities are:
no disproportionate cuts (I guess it’s okay to cut education as long as we also let folks die on the streets);
support for the Texas Competitive Knowledge Fund (dollar match for external research support);
and a new engineering building.
We have a legislature and a state governor that doen't believe in public services at all -- not education, not health care -- not for children, not for the disabled, not for the elderly. They’re cutting off college scholarships and denying the rights of immigrants as well as working class students an education.
That’s the external world. The internal one at the University of Texas, Austin is that the budget crunch is used as an excuse to do what the higher-ups have wanted to do all along. Raise tuitions and cut programs that serve students and lay off lecturers, graduate students, and staff (we’re down to once a month office cleanings). Do away with the Identity Studies Centers that we fought to bring to the University -- African American, Asian, Mexican American, women, and gender. Forget undergraduate education and turn us into an elite research institution.
We need to join every progressive force in this country into a movement that will finally put an end to the systemic destruction of educational opportunity and workers’ rights.
Before I summarize this rant, I wanted you to see a scene from an interview I did with the Director of Public Affairs, Martin Fox, at the National Right to Work Committee. That’s one of the main organizations that the Koch brothers fund and hang out with.
The clip is from a documentary I made in the context of the Pittston coal strike, which was about health care for retired and disabled miners and widows. “Justice in the Coalfields” is about the contradictions between individual and collective rights and what justice means.
The clip begins with a map of right to work states -- you’ll be hearing a lot about that in the next few months. It ends with Bradley McKenzie who led a student walkout in support of the miners. He became a non-union coal miner because there were no union jobs, but his ideas express solidarity at its core. In between is Martin Fox who handled press communications for the Committee at the time.
Martin Fox was a proud member of the National Rifle Association. I know this because I watched him get in his car, with a customized license plate that read “GETAGUN.” Martin Fox is now President of the National Pro Life Alliance and a priest. He holds forth on unions on his blog.
Who has the power to challenge these obscene thugs who have taken over our country? Who wants to challenge them?
Well we do. The “we” is organized labor -- public worker unions. Really, we’re not providing state “services.” We’re providing public necessities. We’re helping the social movement create a vision of a more decent world that includes the working class. And when we collectively fight for ourselves to have decent pay and decent working conditions and democratic control in the work place, we’re not in contradiction with the public good. We’re supporting it.
There are a lot of us. The Texas State Employees Union TSEU-CWA local 1686 has 12,000 members in Texas. We have large numbers of women and African Americans and Latinos. Discrimination has been slightly less in the public sector and these workers are more likely to join a union because of a history of struggle. AFT has 57,000 members in Texas and TSTA has 65,000 members. And there are state workers organized by AFSCME and other unions.
Those of us in the labor movement and those of us in the social movement have got to get to know each other. We need to practice democracy together and work together. We need to join every progressive force in this country into a movement that will finally put an end to the systemic destruction of educational opportunity and workers’ rights.
There’s a great line at the end of a Committees of Correspondence statement on Wisconsin:
And to the workers of Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio: our heartfelt thanks -- may your occupation of the statehouses foretell the day when you become the governors.
[Anne Lewis is an independent filmmaker associated with Appalshop, senior lecturer at UT-Austin, and member of TSEU-CWA Local 6186 and NABET-CWA. She is the associate director of Harlan County, U.S.A and the producer/director of Fast Food Women, To Save the Land and People, Morristown: in the air and sun, and a number of other social issue and cultural documentaries. Her website is annelewis.org.]
The Rag Blog
Posted by thorne dreyer at 8:15 AM
attack on public sector unions
want to ask a basic question that unifies religious, labor, and community organizations at the core. Why in this, the richest country in the world, are people poor?
By Anne Lewis / The Rag Blog / March 10, 2011
The labor movement has rarely won anything without the social movement, and the social movement has rarely won anything without the labor movement. One often cited example is Dr. King’s 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom initiated by A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
If you have any doubts about the necessity of a combined effort, watch this archival film of John L. Lewis when he testified before Congress in 1947 about health care and pensions for miners paid by the coal companies.
The resulting welfare fund, hard fought at the grassroots level by miners and their families, was the most comprehensive health care that I can think of. I know because I was covered under it from the mid seventies to the eighties when it was lost under Reagan.
We frequently marginalize each other -- social movement folks saying unions don’t matter anymore and condemning labor “bureaucrats” and union folks saying that social movement people don’t care about workers and have grandiose ideas of their own power. Some of us get downright schizophrenic dividing our lives into two segments. It’s time we stop this nonsense. We need to speak a common language.
I want to ask a basic question that unifies religious, labor, and community organizations at the core. Why in this, the richest country in the world, are people poor? Please think about how you might respond.
That same question was posed to a wide segment of people, rich and poor, in 2001. The NPR survey provides an analysis of public response to welfare reform (many of us called it deform) during the Clinton administration.
Here’s a table that asks whether it’s circumstances that create poverty or poor people themselves not doing enough. The percentages describe poverty level -- we know it’s set way too low. In 2001 200% of poverty for a family of four was $34,000.
Then NPR asked folks to name the most important cause of poverty in the United States.
Number one is “the poor quality of public schools.”
At about the same time, the Heritage Foundation decided to prove poverty in the United States wasn’t a problem after all. The Heritage Foundation survey is titled, “Understanding Poverty in America.” Here’s the starting point.
The next bar graph compares the living space of poor people in the United States favorably to that of the average European.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.
Here are two more rational definitions of poverty:
Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation. -- United Nations
To meet nutritional requirements, to escape avoidable disease, to be sheltered, to be clothed, to be able to travel, and to be educated. -- Amartya Sen
Better, right? We’re at least getting to the idea of living well and a more humane definition. Notably lacking is the mention of labor unions and collective action, although you could make the argument that the United Nations definition pushes us in that direction with language about effective participation, dignity, and jobs. The lack of worker organization isn’t mentioned in the NPR study. Neither is discrimination, race, ethnicity, or gender or environment or workers’ rights.
Would you have named lack of unionization or lousy labor law or something like that as an important reason why poverty exists in this country?
In July 2002, union members overall had a 20% higher hourly wage ($20.65 vs. $16.42). In blue-collar industry it was $18.88 vs. $12.95; in service occupations, $16.22 vs. $8.98. That’s not counting benefits. Those ratios have remained constant.
Currently nearly one in three public workers are union members compared with 6.9 percent of the workers in private-sector industries. These organized workers are under siege in Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, Indiana, Ohio, and here in Texas. Many work in public schools and universities. The occupation of the Wisconsin capitol started with 2,000 graduate teaching assistants and union members from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on Feb. 14. The attack on these workers and on the work that they do is tightly connected -- and they are fighting back.
First, education is not, in and of itself, a cure for poverty. NPR poll aside, “Poor quality of public schools” is not the most important cause of poverty. We could go on and on about how good or bad our schools are, but lack of education is not the leading indicator of poverty.
As much as we’d like it to be so, there isn’t any substantial difference in the average wage of a high school graduate and a high school drop out. It’s considerably less than the boost from unionization. Remember unionization gave a worker at least a 20% boost in wages. A high school diploma gives a less than 15% boost.
The attack on teachers’ unions in this country has been absolutely barbaric and I believe it violates international standards of dignity and decency.
Unfortunately, the way we’ve been looking at education both at primary and secondary level is supply-side economics: improve the quality of workers through education and grow the quantity of quality workers-- all for the rich employers -- and they won’t be poor no more because the rich will take care of them. Well it doesn’t work that way any more than tax breaks for the rich have created an economy that benefits all of us.
All this talk about creating a competitive workforce for the global economy and endless debates about whether our public schools and universities do or don’t meet the demands of the marketplace is a bunch of hooey. But most folks believe this nonsense. Me too. When I think about our teen-age son’s future, I immediately think: will he finish high school; will his grades and SAT scores be high enough to get into a good college; what’s a high ranked college we can afford... and so on.
Even though I know darn well that there would be much better ways to go about making sure that our child has a good future -- make sure that his nutrition is good, introduce him to cultural expression, work to strengthen our community with public transportation, public space, libraries, and museums, fight for the rights of public school workers and quality public schools, and fight for the rights of all workers, especially their right to organize.
The attack on teachers’ unions in this country has been absolutely barbaric and I believe it violates international standards of dignity and decency. I also believe there are large elements of sexism involved here. 70% of public school teachers are women overall. In Texas about 82% of elementary and middle school teachers are female. At UT, about 80% of full professors are male and about 60% of lecturers are female.
Working conditions for teachers are really lousy. Think about being the only adult in front of a class of 20 eight-year-olds and having to pee. Forced overtime -- hours worked without pay are unbelievable -- and pay isn’t so great. Wisconsin teachers average about $40,000 a year. Lecturers in my department, which is unusually well paid, start at $6,500 a class and are only allowed two classes a semester and two semesters a year. That’s $26,000 a year for what works out to be full time work with an unpaid leave over the summer.
Still image from archival film of John Lewis testifying before Congress in 1947.
In 2002, No Child Left Behind began a new attack in the name of school reform by devaluing teachers in the name of accountability. It was really insidious. It told teachers what to say in their classrooms (teachers in low performance schools are scripted like actors these days); used corporate standardized tests to tell teachers what to teach; it bought curriculum prescribed by corporations (yes folks like Pearson Education, Houghlin Mifflin, and The Pet Goat publisher McGraw Hill use the language of illness as though kids are sick and they’re doctors); and emphasized charter schools and privatization as salvation. And it’s not just the Republicans. Think of Arne Duncan and the Race to the Top.
Now I would agree that our public schools have failed Latino and African American and working class children. That’s one of the reasons that so many parents fought for integration. We know that separate is not equal. Now we have further segregation of the schools in a system based on and currently exhibiting apartheid.
I don’t think the language is too extreme. A very interesting study explores the role of the Koch brothers of Wisconsin fame in defeating the Wake County, North Carolina, socio-economic integration plan. That plan was a model of quality education for all children for the country. The Kochs poured money into the school board race, cast the plan as communistic, and put in a new school board. They won and the children and teachers of Wake County lost big.
Then we have “Waiting for Superman,” which I watched at the Alamo Drafthouse South with a “progressive” Austin audience who giggled at those lazy teachers, cried and then rejoiced with the poor little black child who won a school lottery, and really dug the idea that the problem with the public school system was teacher tenure and their union. I resorted to drink.
Here’s a cartoon from Saving Our Schools from Superman that sums up the movie.
Saving our schools from Superman
At UT, our buildings are plastered with plaques that reveal the connections between the corporate world and higher education. We have the Accenture Endowed Excellence Fund; the Arthur Anderson and Co. Centennial Professorship; Austin Smiles Endowed Fellowship in Speech Pathology; Bank of America Centennial Professorship in Petroleum Engineering; Enstar Chair for Free Enterprise; La Quinta Motor Inns, Inc. Centennial Professorship in Nursing; the BP Exploration Classroom Endowment; Conoco Phillips Faculty Fellowship in Law; and so on.
We have a University President whose three legislative priorities are:
no disproportionate cuts (I guess it’s okay to cut education as long as we also let folks die on the streets);
support for the Texas Competitive Knowledge Fund (dollar match for external research support);
and a new engineering building.
We have a legislature and a state governor that doen't believe in public services at all -- not education, not health care -- not for children, not for the disabled, not for the elderly. They’re cutting off college scholarships and denying the rights of immigrants as well as working class students an education.
That’s the external world. The internal one at the University of Texas, Austin is that the budget crunch is used as an excuse to do what the higher-ups have wanted to do all along. Raise tuitions and cut programs that serve students and lay off lecturers, graduate students, and staff (we’re down to once a month office cleanings). Do away with the Identity Studies Centers that we fought to bring to the University -- African American, Asian, Mexican American, women, and gender. Forget undergraduate education and turn us into an elite research institution.
We need to join every progressive force in this country into a movement that will finally put an end to the systemic destruction of educational opportunity and workers’ rights.
Before I summarize this rant, I wanted you to see a scene from an interview I did with the Director of Public Affairs, Martin Fox, at the National Right to Work Committee. That’s one of the main organizations that the Koch brothers fund and hang out with.
The clip is from a documentary I made in the context of the Pittston coal strike, which was about health care for retired and disabled miners and widows. “Justice in the Coalfields” is about the contradictions between individual and collective rights and what justice means.
The clip begins with a map of right to work states -- you’ll be hearing a lot about that in the next few months. It ends with Bradley McKenzie who led a student walkout in support of the miners. He became a non-union coal miner because there were no union jobs, but his ideas express solidarity at its core. In between is Martin Fox who handled press communications for the Committee at the time.
Martin Fox was a proud member of the National Rifle Association. I know this because I watched him get in his car, with a customized license plate that read “GETAGUN.” Martin Fox is now President of the National Pro Life Alliance and a priest. He holds forth on unions on his blog.
Who has the power to challenge these obscene thugs who have taken over our country? Who wants to challenge them?
Well we do. The “we” is organized labor -- public worker unions. Really, we’re not providing state “services.” We’re providing public necessities. We’re helping the social movement create a vision of a more decent world that includes the working class. And when we collectively fight for ourselves to have decent pay and decent working conditions and democratic control in the work place, we’re not in contradiction with the public good. We’re supporting it.
There are a lot of us. The Texas State Employees Union TSEU-CWA local 1686 has 12,000 members in Texas. We have large numbers of women and African Americans and Latinos. Discrimination has been slightly less in the public sector and these workers are more likely to join a union because of a history of struggle. AFT has 57,000 members in Texas and TSTA has 65,000 members. And there are state workers organized by AFSCME and other unions.
Those of us in the labor movement and those of us in the social movement have got to get to know each other. We need to practice democracy together and work together. We need to join every progressive force in this country into a movement that will finally put an end to the systemic destruction of educational opportunity and workers’ rights.
There’s a great line at the end of a Committees of Correspondence statement on Wisconsin:
And to the workers of Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio: our heartfelt thanks -- may your occupation of the statehouses foretell the day when you become the governors.
[Anne Lewis is an independent filmmaker associated with Appalshop, senior lecturer at UT-Austin, and member of TSEU-CWA Local 6186 and NABET-CWA. She is the associate director of Harlan County, U.S.A and the producer/director of Fast Food Women, To Save the Land and People, Morristown: in the air and sun, and a number of other social issue and cultural documentaries. Her website is annelewis.org.]
The Rag Blog
Posted by thorne dreyer at 8:15 AM
From The SteveLendmanBlog-Corporate Coup d'Etat in Wisconsin
Corporate Coup d'Etat in Wisconsin
Corporate Coup d'Etat in Wisconsin - by Stephen Lendman
Ralph Nader calls Washington corporate-occupied territory - "every department agency controlled by the overwhelming presence of corporate lobbyists, corporate executives in high government positions, turning the government against its own people."
Nader also said corporations don't just control government, they are the government. "The corporation IS the government!" They bought and own it at the federal, state and local levels, running it like their private fiefdom at the expense of working Americans, systematically stripping them of hard-won rights.
They have 10,000 Political Action Committees and 35,000 full-time lobbyists. "Just imagine," says Nader, "even the Labor Department is not controlled by trade unions - it's (owned and) controlled by corporations."
In 1938, Franklin Roosevelt defined the problem, saying:
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power."
Today it's more virulent and pervasive than anything Roosevelt could have imagined, using corrupted politicians to smash worker rights.
It's more evidence of America's fake democracy and the criminal class running it. Politicians are bought like toothpaste. Mock elections pretend to be real. Behind the scenes power players control everything, supported by brazen media misreporting, whether about war and peace, the rule of law, or other vital issues, including worker rights.
Overnight on March 9, fascist Republicans erased them in five minutes, in violation of Wisconsin's open meetings law, requiring "24 hours prior to the commencement of (special sessions) unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical."
The measure had nothing to do with budget-balancing. It's corporate ordered union busting. Wisconsin is a microcosm of America, ground zero, now breached as well as Ohio. Expect other states to follow. Public and private sector workers nationwide are losing out - betrayed by brazen politicians and corrupted union bosses, selling out rank and file members for self-enrichment and privilege.
On March 9, New York Times writer Monica Davey headlined, "Wisconsin Senate Limits Bargaining by Public Workers," saying:
The 23-day "bitter political standoff in Wisconsin over Gov. Walker's bid to sharply curtail (public worker) collective bargaining (rights) ended abruptly Wednesday night as" on-the-take Senate Republicans rammed through an illegitimate bill, voting 18 - 1 - with no debate or Democrat members present.
On March 10, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (JS) writers Patrick Marley and Lee Bergquist headlined, "Maneuver ignites furious protests," saying:
Republicans secretly "devised a plan to get around the impasse and hurriedly approved the bill late in the day." Some financial issues were removed to be voted on separately. Included were provisions raising worker healthcare and pension contributions. Democrat Senator Bob Jauch called it 'political thuggery,' saying 'it's akin to political hara-kiri. I think it's political suicide.' "
The measure gives Walker dictatorial power over BadgerCare health coverage for low-paid Wisconsinites earning too much for Medicaid. It also makes 37 civil service jobs political appointments.
Moreover, state and local public employees must pay half their annual pensions cost contributions, and minimally 12.6% of healthcare premiums. In addition, future pay raises are pegged to annual CPI increases, a rigged index not reflecting true inflation. Greater ones may only be approved by statewide referendum, a cumbersome process taking time.
Further, unions must hold annual votes to let workers decide whether or not to be members, and state authorities no longer will collect union dues from paychecks.
On March 10, Wisconsin's Republican controlled State Assembly easily passed the measure 53 - 42. Walker will sign it into law - by diktat, not democracy.
On March 10, JS writers Lee Bergquist, Jason Stein and Bill Glauber headlined, "Demonstrators crowd Capitol in wild scene after Senate vote," saying:
"Protesters took back control of the Capitol on Wednesday night after Senate Republicans" stripped their collective bargaining rights. "Surging past security, (they) reclaimed the Capitol rotunda...."
Others outside chanted, "Let us in." Inside, they yelled, "You lied to Wisconsin" and "Kill the Bill." In a shocking act of betrayal, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), representing 98,000 public education employees, instructed teachers to return to classrooms, instead of calling for a general strike to shut down the entire state until the bill is reversed. Growing numbers of teachers and other workers demand one.
Ahead of the Senate vote, email exchanges between Walker and Democrats suggested a deal, involving union certification votes triannually instead of as approved as well as other compromises. All along Democrats, like union bosses, planned capitulation, but needed enough cover to fool constituents.
On March 10, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal gave Walker op-ed space to headline, "Why I'm Fighting in Wisconsin," claiming:
He's doing it "to avoid mass teacher layoffs and reward our best performers," when, in fact, he and other Democrat and Republican governors and lawmakers are destroying public education in their states, and making public university tuitions unaffordable for millions of aspiring students with inadequate family and personal resources to afford them.
Nonetheless, Walker claimed the bill's passage is "good for the Badger State's hard-working taxpayers. It will also be good for state and local government employees who overwhelmingly want to do their jobs well....Our (union busting) bill is a commitment to the future so our children won't face even more dire consequences than we face today, and teachers (won't have to be) laid off (so) government (can) work for" everyone in Wisconsin.
It's instructive to remember journalist IF Stone's admonition to young journalists, telling them:
"All governments lie," or at other times, saying, "All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed." Who better than Walker and Obama prove it. Like other corrupted politicians, the president is no friend of labor.
A Final Comment
Wisconsin Republicans' Wednesday night putch was preceded a week earlier by Walker demanding at least $1.5 billion in budget cuts, besides earlier ones enacted, including:
-- $1.25 billion from schools and local governments, including $900 million in education funding (or $500 per student), exposing his real education agenda;
-- $500 million from Medicaid at the expense of a million needy Wisconsinites dependent on it; and
-- $250 million from the University of Wisconsin, besides sharp tuition hikes, wage and benefit reductions, separating the main Madison campus from others, and possibly privatizing the system, ruining it by selling it off to profiteers.
Now, with collective bargaining gone, all other rights are threatened, except one - a mass action general strike, shutting down the state, staying out until Walker's coup is reversed. Protests aren't enough. Inflicting pain on politicians and corporate interests is crucial. Nothing less can work with firm non-negotiable demands for:
-- restoring collective bargaining rights;
-- social spending increases, not cuts, especially for healthcare, education, and aid to Wisconsin's most needy;
-- recalling all Democrat and Republican politicians, eligible under state law, requiring one year in office before possible; and
-- replacing corrupted union bosses who sold out their rank and file members for self-enrichment and privilege.
Negotiations failed. Mobilized, committed, unified mass action is essential as quickly as possible. On Wisconsin! Then take the campaign nationwide, especially to ground zero in Washington, the heart of corrupted power.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive
Corporate Coup d'Etat in Wisconsin - by Stephen Lendman
Ralph Nader calls Washington corporate-occupied territory - "every department agency controlled by the overwhelming presence of corporate lobbyists, corporate executives in high government positions, turning the government against its own people."
Nader also said corporations don't just control government, they are the government. "The corporation IS the government!" They bought and own it at the federal, state and local levels, running it like their private fiefdom at the expense of working Americans, systematically stripping them of hard-won rights.
They have 10,000 Political Action Committees and 35,000 full-time lobbyists. "Just imagine," says Nader, "even the Labor Department is not controlled by trade unions - it's (owned and) controlled by corporations."
In 1938, Franklin Roosevelt defined the problem, saying:
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power."
Today it's more virulent and pervasive than anything Roosevelt could have imagined, using corrupted politicians to smash worker rights.
It's more evidence of America's fake democracy and the criminal class running it. Politicians are bought like toothpaste. Mock elections pretend to be real. Behind the scenes power players control everything, supported by brazen media misreporting, whether about war and peace, the rule of law, or other vital issues, including worker rights.
Overnight on March 9, fascist Republicans erased them in five minutes, in violation of Wisconsin's open meetings law, requiring "24 hours prior to the commencement of (special sessions) unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical."
The measure had nothing to do with budget-balancing. It's corporate ordered union busting. Wisconsin is a microcosm of America, ground zero, now breached as well as Ohio. Expect other states to follow. Public and private sector workers nationwide are losing out - betrayed by brazen politicians and corrupted union bosses, selling out rank and file members for self-enrichment and privilege.
On March 9, New York Times writer Monica Davey headlined, "Wisconsin Senate Limits Bargaining by Public Workers," saying:
The 23-day "bitter political standoff in Wisconsin over Gov. Walker's bid to sharply curtail (public worker) collective bargaining (rights) ended abruptly Wednesday night as" on-the-take Senate Republicans rammed through an illegitimate bill, voting 18 - 1 - with no debate or Democrat members present.
On March 10, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (JS) writers Patrick Marley and Lee Bergquist headlined, "Maneuver ignites furious protests," saying:
Republicans secretly "devised a plan to get around the impasse and hurriedly approved the bill late in the day." Some financial issues were removed to be voted on separately. Included were provisions raising worker healthcare and pension contributions. Democrat Senator Bob Jauch called it 'political thuggery,' saying 'it's akin to political hara-kiri. I think it's political suicide.' "
The measure gives Walker dictatorial power over BadgerCare health coverage for low-paid Wisconsinites earning too much for Medicaid. It also makes 37 civil service jobs political appointments.
Moreover, state and local public employees must pay half their annual pensions cost contributions, and minimally 12.6% of healthcare premiums. In addition, future pay raises are pegged to annual CPI increases, a rigged index not reflecting true inflation. Greater ones may only be approved by statewide referendum, a cumbersome process taking time.
Further, unions must hold annual votes to let workers decide whether or not to be members, and state authorities no longer will collect union dues from paychecks.
On March 10, Wisconsin's Republican controlled State Assembly easily passed the measure 53 - 42. Walker will sign it into law - by diktat, not democracy.
On March 10, JS writers Lee Bergquist, Jason Stein and Bill Glauber headlined, "Demonstrators crowd Capitol in wild scene after Senate vote," saying:
"Protesters took back control of the Capitol on Wednesday night after Senate Republicans" stripped their collective bargaining rights. "Surging past security, (they) reclaimed the Capitol rotunda...."
Others outside chanted, "Let us in." Inside, they yelled, "You lied to Wisconsin" and "Kill the Bill." In a shocking act of betrayal, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), representing 98,000 public education employees, instructed teachers to return to classrooms, instead of calling for a general strike to shut down the entire state until the bill is reversed. Growing numbers of teachers and other workers demand one.
Ahead of the Senate vote, email exchanges between Walker and Democrats suggested a deal, involving union certification votes triannually instead of as approved as well as other compromises. All along Democrats, like union bosses, planned capitulation, but needed enough cover to fool constituents.
On March 10, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal gave Walker op-ed space to headline, "Why I'm Fighting in Wisconsin," claiming:
He's doing it "to avoid mass teacher layoffs and reward our best performers," when, in fact, he and other Democrat and Republican governors and lawmakers are destroying public education in their states, and making public university tuitions unaffordable for millions of aspiring students with inadequate family and personal resources to afford them.
Nonetheless, Walker claimed the bill's passage is "good for the Badger State's hard-working taxpayers. It will also be good for state and local government employees who overwhelmingly want to do their jobs well....Our (union busting) bill is a commitment to the future so our children won't face even more dire consequences than we face today, and teachers (won't have to be) laid off (so) government (can) work for" everyone in Wisconsin.
It's instructive to remember journalist IF Stone's admonition to young journalists, telling them:
"All governments lie," or at other times, saying, "All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed." Who better than Walker and Obama prove it. Like other corrupted politicians, the president is no friend of labor.
A Final Comment
Wisconsin Republicans' Wednesday night putch was preceded a week earlier by Walker demanding at least $1.5 billion in budget cuts, besides earlier ones enacted, including:
-- $1.25 billion from schools and local governments, including $900 million in education funding (or $500 per student), exposing his real education agenda;
-- $500 million from Medicaid at the expense of a million needy Wisconsinites dependent on it; and
-- $250 million from the University of Wisconsin, besides sharp tuition hikes, wage and benefit reductions, separating the main Madison campus from others, and possibly privatizing the system, ruining it by selling it off to profiteers.
Now, with collective bargaining gone, all other rights are threatened, except one - a mass action general strike, shutting down the state, staying out until Walker's coup is reversed. Protests aren't enough. Inflicting pain on politicians and corporate interests is crucial. Nothing less can work with firm non-negotiable demands for:
-- restoring collective bargaining rights;
-- social spending increases, not cuts, especially for healthcare, education, and aid to Wisconsin's most needy;
-- recalling all Democrat and Republican politicians, eligible under state law, requiring one year in office before possible; and
-- replacing corrupted union bosses who sold out their rank and file members for self-enrichment and privilege.
Negotiations failed. Mobilized, committed, unified mass action is essential as quickly as possible. On Wisconsin! Then take the campaign nationwide, especially to ground zero in Washington, the heart of corrupted power.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive
Thursday, March 10, 2011
From The Wisconsin War-Zone- The Lines Are Further Drawn- The Fight For A General Strike Of All Labor In Wisconsin Is Directly Posed-And Solidarity Actions By Those Outside The State- Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Get To It
Click on the headline to link to an AP report on the latest turn of events in the struggle by Wisconsin public workers unions to retain their collective bargaining rights against a right-wing directed onslaught to eliminate them.
Markin comment:
Over the past few week as the events concerning the fate of collective bargaining rights, the core of any union’s reason for existence, of Wisconsin’s public workers unions have unfolded I had joined the voices of those who have argued that passage of the ant-iunion legislation by the Republican Senate majority should trigger the call for a one day general strike of all Wisconsin as the start of a push back. Well that day has arrived and every pro-labor militant from Madison to Cairo (Illinois or Egypt, it matters not) should be joining their voices in that call, and agitating in their unions and other organization to carry it out. The lines could not be more clearly drawn, the survival of the Wisconsin public workers unions are at stake, the survival of all public workers unions are now at stake, and the survival of unionism in the United States as well. This is only the start of the right-wing onslaught. Let Wisconsin’s labor response make it the end. Fight for a one day general strike now!
******
Friday, March 04, 2011
On The Question Of General Strikes In Defense Of The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions- Don't Mourn, Organize- A Short Note
Click on the headline to link to a James P.Cannon Internet Archive online article about the lessons of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934 mentioned in the post below.
Markin comment:
Recently, in the wake of the front-line struggle of the Wisconsin public workers unions (now heightened by the latest news that the Ohio Senate has also voted to curb collective bargaining rights in that state), I, along with others, have been agitating for a one day general strike by organized labor, unorganized, but desperately in need of being organized, workers, and other allies, in support of those efforts. I have also placed the propaganda of others, individuals and organizations, who are advocating this same general position in this space, and will continue to do so as I see it come up as I scan the leftist universe. Before I go on, just to make things clear on this issue, I would draw the reader’s attention to the distinction between propagandizing, the general task for communist organizers in this period pushing issues on behalf our communist future, and agitation which requires/requests some immediate action. The events in the public sector labor movement over the past several weeks, as they have rapidly unfolded, call for immediate action whether we can cause any motion on the issue or not.
That said, I would also note that I have framed my call to action in terms of posing the question of a general strike, the objective need for such action. That proposition is the axis of intervention for leftist and trade union militants today. And that is the rub. Of course, right this minute (and as the Ohio situation foretells maybe only this minute), any such one day general strike would, of necessity, have to be centered in Wisconsin, and the tactical choices would have to be made on the ground there ( how to make the strike effective, what unions to call in, what places to shut down, etc.). My original posting did not make a distinction on location(s)though, and I make none now, about whether such a strike would be localized or not. Certainly, given the centrally of the collective bargaining principle to the lifeblood of any union, and the drumbeat of other states like Ohio, it can hardly be precluded that it could not be a wider strike than just in Wisconsin.
And that is the rub, again. I am perfectly aware, after a lifetime of oppositional politics of one sort or another, that it is one thing to call for an action and another to have it heeded by some mass organization that can do something about it, or even have it taken for more than its propaganda value. And it is the somewhat fantastic quality of the proposition to many trade unionists that I have been running up against in my own efforts to present this demand. Now, as I have noted previously, in France this kind of strike is something of an art form, and other European working classes are catching on to the idea. Moreover, in the old days the anarchists, when they had some authority in the working class in places like Spain,thought nothing of calling such strikes. And some Marxists, like the martyred Rosa Luxemburg, saw the political general strike as the central strategic piece in the working class taking state power. However the low level of political consciousness here, or lack of it, or even of solid trade union consciousness, is what the substance of this note is about.
Although the Wisconsin public workers unions have galvanized segments of the American labor movement, particularly the organized sector (those who see what is coming down the road for them-or who have already been the subject of such victimizations in the roller coaster process of the de-industrialization of America) the hard fact is that it has been a very, very long time since this labor movement has seen a general strike. You have to go back to the 1930s and the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934, or to the San Francisco General Strike of that same year to even been able to provide an example to illustrate how it could take place in this country. That, my friends, is over seventy-five years ago, a long time in anybody’s political book and, more importantly, a couple of generations removed from the actual experience. Hell, it has been as far back as the period immediately after World War II since we have seen massive nation-wide industrial strikes. The closest situation that I can think of that would be widely remembered today, and that was also somewhat successful and well supported, was the UPS strike in the 1990s. All of this points to one conclusion, our class struggle skills are now rather rusty, and it shows.
How? Well, first look at the propaganda of various leftist and socialist groups. They, correctly, call for solidarity, for defense rallies and for more marches in support of the Wisconsin struggle. But I have seen relevantly little open advocacy for a one day general strike. That is damning. But here is the real kicker, the one that should give us all pause. The most recent Wisconsin support rally in Boston was attended by many trade union militants, many known (known to me from struggles over the years) leftist activists, and surprisingly, a significant segment of older, not currently active political ex-militants who either came out for old times sake, or understood that this is a do or die struggle and they wanted to help show their support. In short, a perfect audience before which a speaker could expect to get a favorable response on a call for a political general strike. And that call that day, was made not by me, and not by other socialists or communists, but by a militant from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a well-known union with plenty of militants in it. The response: a few claps in a crowd of over two thousand.
Time has been, is, and will be our enemy here as we struggle to win these pubic workers union fights. Why? Our sense of leftist legitimacy, our class struggle sense has so atrophied over the past several decades that people, political people, trade union political people and even leftist political people have lost their capacity to struggle to win. Still, the objective situation in Wisconsin, hell, in Boston and Columbus, requires that we continue to fight around a class struggle axis. And central to that fight- Fight for a one day general strike in support of the Wisconsin public workers unions!
Markin comment:
Over the past few week as the events concerning the fate of collective bargaining rights, the core of any union’s reason for existence, of Wisconsin’s public workers unions have unfolded I had joined the voices of those who have argued that passage of the ant-iunion legislation by the Republican Senate majority should trigger the call for a one day general strike of all Wisconsin as the start of a push back. Well that day has arrived and every pro-labor militant from Madison to Cairo (Illinois or Egypt, it matters not) should be joining their voices in that call, and agitating in their unions and other organization to carry it out. The lines could not be more clearly drawn, the survival of the Wisconsin public workers unions are at stake, the survival of all public workers unions are now at stake, and the survival of unionism in the United States as well. This is only the start of the right-wing onslaught. Let Wisconsin’s labor response make it the end. Fight for a one day general strike now!
******
Friday, March 04, 2011
On The Question Of General Strikes In Defense Of The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions- Don't Mourn, Organize- A Short Note
Click on the headline to link to a James P.Cannon Internet Archive online article about the lessons of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934 mentioned in the post below.
Markin comment:
Recently, in the wake of the front-line struggle of the Wisconsin public workers unions (now heightened by the latest news that the Ohio Senate has also voted to curb collective bargaining rights in that state), I, along with others, have been agitating for a one day general strike by organized labor, unorganized, but desperately in need of being organized, workers, and other allies, in support of those efforts. I have also placed the propaganda of others, individuals and organizations, who are advocating this same general position in this space, and will continue to do so as I see it come up as I scan the leftist universe. Before I go on, just to make things clear on this issue, I would draw the reader’s attention to the distinction between propagandizing, the general task for communist organizers in this period pushing issues on behalf our communist future, and agitation which requires/requests some immediate action. The events in the public sector labor movement over the past several weeks, as they have rapidly unfolded, call for immediate action whether we can cause any motion on the issue or not.
That said, I would also note that I have framed my call to action in terms of posing the question of a general strike, the objective need for such action. That proposition is the axis of intervention for leftist and trade union militants today. And that is the rub. Of course, right this minute (and as the Ohio situation foretells maybe only this minute), any such one day general strike would, of necessity, have to be centered in Wisconsin, and the tactical choices would have to be made on the ground there ( how to make the strike effective, what unions to call in, what places to shut down, etc.). My original posting did not make a distinction on location(s)though, and I make none now, about whether such a strike would be localized or not. Certainly, given the centrally of the collective bargaining principle to the lifeblood of any union, and the drumbeat of other states like Ohio, it can hardly be precluded that it could not be a wider strike than just in Wisconsin.
And that is the rub, again. I am perfectly aware, after a lifetime of oppositional politics of one sort or another, that it is one thing to call for an action and another to have it heeded by some mass organization that can do something about it, or even have it taken for more than its propaganda value. And it is the somewhat fantastic quality of the proposition to many trade unionists that I have been running up against in my own efforts to present this demand. Now, as I have noted previously, in France this kind of strike is something of an art form, and other European working classes are catching on to the idea. Moreover, in the old days the anarchists, when they had some authority in the working class in places like Spain,thought nothing of calling such strikes. And some Marxists, like the martyred Rosa Luxemburg, saw the political general strike as the central strategic piece in the working class taking state power. However the low level of political consciousness here, or lack of it, or even of solid trade union consciousness, is what the substance of this note is about.
Although the Wisconsin public workers unions have galvanized segments of the American labor movement, particularly the organized sector (those who see what is coming down the road for them-or who have already been the subject of such victimizations in the roller coaster process of the de-industrialization of America) the hard fact is that it has been a very, very long time since this labor movement has seen a general strike. You have to go back to the 1930s and the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934, or to the San Francisco General Strike of that same year to even been able to provide an example to illustrate how it could take place in this country. That, my friends, is over seventy-five years ago, a long time in anybody’s political book and, more importantly, a couple of generations removed from the actual experience. Hell, it has been as far back as the period immediately after World War II since we have seen massive nation-wide industrial strikes. The closest situation that I can think of that would be widely remembered today, and that was also somewhat successful and well supported, was the UPS strike in the 1990s. All of this points to one conclusion, our class struggle skills are now rather rusty, and it shows.
How? Well, first look at the propaganda of various leftist and socialist groups. They, correctly, call for solidarity, for defense rallies and for more marches in support of the Wisconsin struggle. But I have seen relevantly little open advocacy for a one day general strike. That is damning. But here is the real kicker, the one that should give us all pause. The most recent Wisconsin support rally in Boston was attended by many trade union militants, many known (known to me from struggles over the years) leftist activists, and surprisingly, a significant segment of older, not currently active political ex-militants who either came out for old times sake, or understood that this is a do or die struggle and they wanted to help show their support. In short, a perfect audience before which a speaker could expect to get a favorable response on a call for a political general strike. And that call that day, was made not by me, and not by other socialists or communists, but by a militant from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a well-known union with plenty of militants in it. The response: a few claps in a crowd of over two thousand.
Time has been, is, and will be our enemy here as we struggle to win these pubic workers union fights. Why? Our sense of leftist legitimacy, our class struggle sense has so atrophied over the past several decades that people, political people, trade union political people and even leftist political people have lost their capacity to struggle to win. Still, the objective situation in Wisconsin, hell, in Boston and Columbus, requires that we continue to fight around a class struggle axis. And central to that fight- Fight for a one day general strike in support of the Wisconsin public workers unions!
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