Public Employee Press

The battle is national
We are one with Wisconsin

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

More than 100,000 union supporters protested peacefully at the Madison, Wis., state capitol in February when Republican Gov. Scott Walker tried to revoke collective bargaining rights for the state's 175,000 public employees, including 60,000 members of AFSCME, DC 37's national union.

Like many states, Wisconsin faces huge deficits. Republicans came to power there in 2010, goaded by Tea Partiers and financed by the billionaire Koch brothers, and they immediately began using the economic crisis as a bludgeon, blaming public service workers for the fiscal shortfalls.

A decade ago Republicans wrapped themselves in the flag and cozied up to the 9/11 first-responders. Fast-forward to 2011 and the Republicans have rabidly turned on public employees. Rather than call out Wall Street for the avarice that plunged the world into recession, Republican leaders talk of shared sacrifice as they give tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy and scapegoat unions, members' health benefits and retirees' modest pensions.

"Walker must go!" chanted tens of thousands of Wisconsin public employees marching around the state capitol. "Their solidarity and energy was unforgettable. I have never experienced anything like it in my life," said DC 37 clerical worker Sallie Stallings, who went to Madison with a group of supporters from Office and Professional Employees Local 153.

"This was a wake-up call for all working people, but especially younger ones, to get involved," Stallings said. Supportive e-mails and blogs lined the capitol's walls as unionists camped out for nights. "Police did not stop our activities because they sided with us."

The governors of Ohio, Indiana, Florida, New Jersey, and Wisconsin tried to roll back hard-won collective bargaining rights so they could cut health insurance and pensions and impose longer hours on workers with no voice at the negotiating table. Nationwide, 744 such bills target public workers' rights.

Wisconsin: Labour's battleground

This Republican drive to destroy public employee unions, the heart of today's labor movement, would remove the countervailing force to an oligarchy of the richest Americans, suppress democracy and eviscerate the middle class.

"We are not going to let radical politicians in Wisconsin destroy what Americans have fought for generations to win," said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Working Americans agree and overwhelmingly support labor unions and collective bargaining. AFSCME, DC 37's parent union, was formed in 1932 in Wisconsin, which in 1959 public service workers made the first state to grant bargaining rights.

"We should be pulling together to create jobs, but Walker and his Republican legislators are attacking working families and the middle class, using our real economic problems as an excuse to cripple services," McEntee said.

Galvanized by the struggle, AFSCME members nationwide contributed to support their Wisconsin brothers and sisters. DC 37 members and locals gave almost $50,000, including $3,000 from an Education Fund bake sale.

To block a vote on the anti-union bill, 12 Democratic legislators left the state, but Walker pushed it through anyway. AFSCME and allies collected enough signatures to force recall votes on five of the eight Wisconsin senators who abetted Walker. On April 1, a judge froze the legislation while she weighs whether Republicans passed the law illegally.