United States: Walker rams through bill, workers fight back

March 12, 2011

Issue

Police estimated up to 100,000 people marched in Madison on March 12 against the anti-union law.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed into law a bill that bans collective bargaining by most of the state’s public sector workers right on March 11.

High school students in the capital, Madison, walked out of school in protest the same day — the second straight day of student strikes in the city. TheUptake.org said that day that students across the country walked out of classes in response to a call from Madison students for a national strike.

Democracy Now! reported on March 11 that the AFL/CIO trade union federation has announced plans for a referendum to recall Walker as governor.

There are also growing calls from within the union movement for a general strike.

Reuters said on March 12 that up to 100,000 people had joined a demonstration in Madison that day against the law. TheUptake.org said Wisconsin farmers were joining the protest in solidarity — taking their tractors to the streets.

Defying weeks of protests, including the occupation since February 14 of the state’s Capitol building in Madison, Republican senators passed the bill on March 9.

Walker’s proposed budget, which combined the anti-union measures with savage spending cuts, had been stalled for three weeks after all 14 Democrat senators fled the state — denying the senate quorum.

However, Republicans separated out the anti-union measures from the rest of the budget “repair” bill — claiming it was only budget measures that required the Democrat senators to be present for the vote.

Associated Press said on March 10 that “protesters in the gallery [of the assembly building] erupted into screams of ‘Shame! Shame! Shame!’.”

The New York Times said the leader of the Wisconsin Senate Democrats Mark Miller said in response to the bill’s passing: “In 30 minutes, 18 state senators undid 50 years of civil rights in Wisconsin.”

Condemning the tactics used by republican lawmakers, Miller said: “Their disrespect for the people of Wisconsin and their rights is an outrage that will never be forgotten.”

Walker appeared completely unmoved by workers’ outrage. AP reported that, in advance of the vote, Walker said: “We were willing to talk, we were willing to work, but in the end at some point the public wants us to move forward.”

Meanwhile, members of the public staging a sit-in at the Capitol building were forcibly dragged out by police.

Lee Sustar described the scene at the Capitol building after the budget measures were passed in a March 10 SocialistWorker.org article: “The immediate reaction to the legislative sneak attack was furious. Thousands of protestors swarmed into the Capitol building in Madison — six days after an occupation had ended.

“‘General strike!’ was among the most popular chants, along with ‘This is what democracy looks like!’.”

Calls for a general strike, something not seen in Wisconsin since 1934, have come from numerous quarters.

Wisconsin’s South Central Federation of Labor voted in February to organise a general strike if the bill became law.

Sustar said that Joe Conway, president of Madison Local 311 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, expressed his support for the idea.

Conway said: “I’m in total agreement. We should start walking out tomorrow and the next day, and see how long they can last.”

However, fears remain that union leaders may back down and compromise.

Sustar said: “Whether or not the anger of the union rank and file will push union officials into action is unclear … Top union leaders have been in a reactive mode, rather than leading.”

Sustar reported J. Eric Cobb, executive director of the Building Trades Council of South Central Wisconsin, as saying “Right now, what I am seeing from the labor leadership is a lack of response.”

Filmmaker Michael Moore issued a call on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show on March 9 for people from a cross the country to descend on Madison to join protests. He said: “This is a class war.”

On March 5, Moore gave a speech to tens of thousands of protesters in Madison that answered Walker’s claim the state must cut spending due to a budget deficit.

Moore accused a minority of obscenely wealthy elites of defrauding US society and precipitating the continuing fiscal crises.

To cries of “shame”, Moore said: “The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich …

“Four hundred obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer ‘bailout’ of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined.”

Moore described the accumulation and concentration of the US’s economic resources into the hands of the capitalist elite as a “financial coup d’etat”.

He said: “We have indeed surrendered our precious democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic.”

Moore said: “By trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement — a movement that is becoming a massive, non-violent revolt across the country. We all knew there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us.”

As Wisconsin emerged from winter into spring, fury over the proposed budget measures has roused workers into action in a way not seen for decades.

Wisconsin has a long history of class struggle. The first socialist congressperson to be elected (in 1910) to the US House of Representatives, Victor Berger, hailed from Wisconsin.

The union movement also has strong roots in Wisconsin. Wisconsinhistory.org said the state’s “first labor unions were formed in Milwaukee, the bricklayers in 1847 and the carpenters in 1848”.

Writing for the Milwaukee Leader on May 24, 1930, Jessie Stephen compiled a report on the Perry family of Wisconsin.

A lifelong union activist, 71-year-old Julius Perry recalled his father’s passion for workers’ struggles in labour’s earliest years.

Perry said his father was motivated “to join with his fellow workers in the struggle for human betterment … My father’s spirit of unionism and rebellion must have been passed on to me… [as union members] we just rebelled against unjust conditions and walked out.”

Stephen described Perry’s spirit of class solidarity. Perry said he hoped “his children and his children’s children will carry on the tradition … and that with their help some day a co-operative commonwealth by which the workers will receive complete justice will be established under the banner of the brotherhood of man”.

More than 80 years later, with anti-union and austerity bills being proposed in states across the US, this spirit of rebellion and dream of a fairer society is reawakening in Wisconsin.