wisconsin updates

[bcbm]

continued from here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/wisconsin-war-declared-t150095/index.html?p=2042251#post2042251)

IFflNLSKorw

[bcbm]

please don't use such a giant font:(

[Red Commissar]

I'm not getting much on news today. Trying to skim through the twitter and other sites. Most news is either focused on Charlie Sheen, Libya, or the resignation of the NPR guy.

From what I gather a recent development seems to show what we all knew to begin with, that Walker is attempting to negotiate (or so his emails seem to show (http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/117584003.html)), with Dems that predictably retain much of the cuts and benefit reductions. Though I guess this is a change from his previous position of not straying from the mandate he had been given.

Still though, what he had put on the table seems to not back off on his attempts to curtail collective bargaining (in his case, restricting what public employees could negotiate over) and isn't willing to put it on this bill but rather future legislation so he doesn't disappoint his Tea Party cred. If I'm reading the update on the twitter feed correctly, it appears that they didn't go ahead with their plan to fine the Dems either, so it appears that they'll near their "compromise".

Rather interesting article about a 90 year old protester

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/117623253.html

Some photos from March 5
http://dane101.com/photos_the_rally_on_march_5_2011

[PhoenixAsh]

Perhaps these talks were all part of the big plan for gaining political support....

I mean...what are they giving up? Just one clause...though they eventually want that one clause as well...they get all of their other clauses pushed through...simply by resolving the biggest fear.

Offcourse he wanted everything...and perhaps they even expected to gain it...but I think its a sximple bussiness analysis of loss and gain to them.

Workers get to feel they actually accomplished something....and are somehow satisfied...and they get what they want as well....which is almost all of it, instead of all of it.

Its an age old tactic...sacrifice the most opposed part of your plan in exchange for all the rest. Eventually the politicians and burgeoisie representatives will find another way to get the other points they now "sacrificed" as well...

NEVER FALL FOR IT....

Its a tactic being used each and every fucking time. In workers contract negotiation, in union disputes, in politics, in sales contracts etc. etc.



Also...Walker is not campaigning for political office right now. His whole stance is to lobby for a better paying job after office. He is doing this not for political believe or voter support...he is doing this for his employers....the people who bought him so they can reward his loyalty.

[Red Commissar]

My reasoning is that because Walker can't hamfist the bill through by himself, he needs to maintain the support from the Republicans in his legislature, and those members are more worried about re-election and the images they are projecting to their constituents and backers. If he doesn't maintain his "appearances" it might mean some of those politicians worried about election prospects pull their support for the bill and settle for negotiating. The longer he drags this out the more contradictory and scatterbrained Tea Party agenda shows itself and with that goes the strategy many of those guys were riding on. And for their business and corporate ties who want a politician that can stay in office as long as possible. AFAIK support for Walker within Wisconsin has taken a significant hit, and those Republicans concerned with political future might not want to be on the ship if it begins sinking.

And of course the alternative the Dems have- retaining collective bargaining while scrapping benefits and pay- is no better either. The demonstrators know that and that is why they kicked off largely with out any impluse from the Democrats or Union suits. Those guys only jumped in later. That'll be the other issue, to make sure that these people continue even if the trade union or Dem suits claim victory by saying they "saved" collective bargaining.

[PhoenixAsh]

Perhaps your analysis is more correct than mine....but I know for sure you are absolutely right on that those protests need to continue.

[ckaihatsu]

Regarding the recent exchanges here, I'll note that there's an inherent objective material trade-off between progress and popularity -- we could visualize it as a standard normal curve, with the status quo being the most-populous bulge in the middle, with the leftward side tapering off, representing increasing progress, or quality of humaneness -- though with decreasing numbers for it.

Another illustration of political trajectories is the "taking the high road" metaphor -- meaning that one could put in more effort, or take pains, to effect a greater quality of action -- one that's more enlightened and progressive by the yardstick of humaneness.

The "low road" argument is that the "high road" isn't as accessible to as many people, so it may be better to "cut some corners" and simply make paths of participation more accessible to more people, at the expense of overall quality or high-mindedness.

I find all of this to be relative, obviously -- as revolutionaries I don't think we should carelessly sacrifice our own political positions in order to cater to the politics of the day, but hopefully the more-visible and more-populist displays that are around will serve as portals of entry in a *leftward* direction for people who are relatively new to politics.


Leftism -- Want, Get

http://postimage.org/image/pgx9pah0/


Interpersonal Meanings

http://postimage.org/image/1d5a6d1c4/

[Red Commissar]

http://www.channel3000.com/politics/27138601/detail.html

This was posted in one of the Twitter feeds I'm following. What do you guys make of it?

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.channel3000.com/politics/27138601/detail.html

This was posted in one of the Twitter feeds I'm following. What do you guys make of it?


Still a stalemate.

[PhoenixAsh]

MSNBC reports this as well.

Its not a stalemate anymore.




GOP rams anti-union bill through Wis. Senate

End run around Democratic senators who left state to prevent passage




MADISON, Wis. — Republicans pushed a provision stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights through the state Senate Wednesday evening by separating it from Gov. Scott Walker's controversial budget bill.
The action, if it stand, would have the effect of rendering moot a Democratic attempt to keep the provision from passing the Senate. The vote in the Senate was 18-1. No Democrats were present. All 14 Democrats had left the state to prevent passage of the overall budget bill in opposition to the collective bargaining rights.
The Senate is split 19-14 with Republicans in the majority. Because the union provision was part of a budget bill, Republicans in the Senate needed at least 20 senators present for a quorum.
By separating the anti-union measure from the budget bill, Republicans did not need 20 senators for a quorum.
Before the Senate floor vote, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald read the bill to a hastily created joint conference committee. Rep. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, objected, saying the committee's meeting was in violation of the state's open meetings law. But Fitzgerald went ahead with the vote, which was seen live on WisconsinEye, and the measure was approved.
Senate Democrats reportedly were meeting to decide how to respond. Some argue that Senate Republicans were violating legislative rules with the vote.
The stand-alone measure would have to be approved by both the Senate and the Assembly, the lower chamber. The Assembly was not in session Wednesday and it was not clear that it could be convened until Thursday.
Stripping out the collective-bargaining provisions into a "non-fiscal" bill raises questions about the governor's and the Republicans' argument that the issue of collective bargaining rights is crucial to the budget.
NBC News' Mike Taibbi, John Yang, Mark Murray Samira Puskar and Stephanie Himango, and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.


Madison, Wisconsin (CNN) -- A Wisconsin Republican official compared the protests over Gov. Scott Walker's attempts to curtail collective bargaining rights for public employees to the Holocaust on Wednesday, a remark he later conceded was "a bad word" to use. (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/09/wisconsin.protests/index.html)

[S.Artesian]

http://www.channel3000.com/politics/27138601/detail.html

This was posted in one of the Twitter feeds I'm following. What do you guys make of it?


If I read this right, then the state senate split out the collective bargaining issue from the other parts of the bill requiring money, or governing taxation, and have simply voted to end collective bargaining with the unions.

Sounds like they can do that. Sounds like they did do that. Now let's see what happens.

[PhoenixAsh]

the assembly still needs to vote on this...but I guess that will be a slam dunk.

And because they allowed it on wisonsineye it could be a legal argument it was not a secret meeting.

[S.Artesian]

I think people are going to react strongly, and the governor is going to call on the police to be the police.

This will get real ugly real quick.

General strike, a real general strike is about the only way to effectively respond.

[ckaihatsu]

If I read this right, then the state senate split out the collective bargaining issue from the other parts of the bill requiring money, or governing taxation, and have simply voted to end collective bargaining with the unions.

Sounds like they can do that. Sounds like they did do that. Now let's see what happens.


Looks like there's *some* procedural-type controversy over this end-run move -- but the dynamics are still in a state of stalemate, and we know that the system is fundamentally unable to resolve its own (inherent) contradictions.








Senate Democrats reportedly were meeting to decide how to respond. Some argue that Senate Republicans were violating legislative rules with the vote.





I think people are going to react strongly, and the governor is going to call on the police to be the police.

This will get real ugly real quick.

General strike, a real general strike is about the only way to effectively respond.


This is right on time -- the financial crisis of 2008 paved the way for this, a resulting *constitutional* crisis.

We saw the same thing in 2000, with the faltering economic fundamentals leading into the soft coup d'etat of the Bush (s)election, and culminating into completion with the 9/11 tragedy -- destruction being the only sound way to re-establish bourgeois order over its crisis-ridden system. (Like WWII "solving" the Great Depression, etc.)

[PhoenixAsh]

Seeing the way I feel about this...and I am not even directly involved...I think people will react with rage. I think this will not be over by a long shot at all.

I truely hope this will result in massive general strikes, solidarity strikes and demonstrations.

And I hope, I really do, the police will not cave to the Governor.

[Theory&Action]

So does that technically make every strike we are about to witness a wildcat strike?

:mad::che::mad:

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Well it just happened so we don't know. What will probably happen is like what S.Artesian said; people are going to be angry, police will be called in, the struggle continues.

[PhoenixAsh]

Madison, Wisconsin (CNN) -- Wisconsin's Republican-led state Senate passed Gov. Scott Walker's proposed restrictions on collective bargaining for public employees Wednesday, getting around a Democratic walkout by stripping financial provisions from the bill.
"Tonight, the Senate will be passing the items in the Budget Repair Bill that we can with the 19 members who actually do show up and do their jobs," Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, the chamber's Republican majority leader, said in a statement announcing the move.
The Senate's 14 Democrats had fled to Illinois to prevent the chamber from attaining a quorum and passing the collective bargaining measures, which they have called an unnecessary attack on the rights of public employees. Republicans were able to move ahead by voting only on the nonfinancial aspects of Walker's proposed bill, which requires fewer members for a quorum.
"The Senate Democrats have had three weeks to debate this bill and were offered repeated opportunities to come home, which they refused," Walker said in a statement on the vote. "In order to move the state forward, I applaud the Legislature's action today to stand up to the status quo and take a step in the right direction to balance the budget and reform government."
But the move drew howls of outrage from outside the chamber, where pro-union demonstrators chanted "Shame" and "You lied to Wisconsin" as the bill passed. Thousands more began to converge on the building, and a chorus of horns from passing cars echoed in the streets around the Capitol after the vote.
Walker and GOP lawmakers are trying to close a $137 million budget shortfall with a plan that calls for curbs on public employee union bargaining rights and requires public workers, with the exception of police and firefighters, to cover more of their retirement plans and health care premiums.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/img/3.0/mosaic/bttn_close.gif
http://edition.cnn.com/video/bestoftv/2011/03/09/exp.arena.wisc.grothman.cnn.214x122.jpg

http://edition.cnn.com/video/bestoftv/2011/03/09/exp.arena.wisc.grothman.cnn.214x122.jpgWisconsin senator: Dems given a chance
RELATED TOPICS


Collective Bargaining (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/Collective_Bargaining)
Scott Walker (Politician) (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/Scott_Walker_Politician)
Wisconsin (http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/Wisconsin)



Public employee unions agreed to financial concessions that they say will help meet the state's fiscal needs, but Walker has said the limits on public bargaining are a critical component of his plan. His bill, which already had passed the state Assembly, would bar public workers other than police and firefighters from bargaining for anything other than wages.
Raises would be capped to the rate of inflation, unless state voters approve. The legislation also would require unions to hold a new certification vote every year, and unions would no longer be allowed to collect dues from workers' paychecks.
Unions mobilized their supporters to oppose the bill, drawing tens of thousands of workers to rallies opposing Walker and supporting the fugitive Democrats. Many of them camped in the halls of the Capitol until police began closing the building after business hours.
Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the state AFL-CIO, said Wednesday night's maneuver "shows that Scott Walker and the Republicans have been lying throughout this entire process."
"None of the provisions that attacked workers' rights had anything to do with the budget," Neuenfeldt said. "Losing badly in the court of public opinion and failing to break the Democratic senators' principled stand, Scott Walker and the GOP have eviscerated both the letter and the spirit of the law and our democratic process to ram through their payback to their deep-pocketed friends."
The vote in the Senate was 18-1, with Republican state Sen. Dale Schultz -- who earlier had floated a compromise that neither side bought into -- the lone opponent. Outside, state Rep. Peter Barca argued that Republican leaders violated state open meetings laws by calling the chamber into session without proper notice -- a move he called "a naked abuse of power."
"The gig is now up. The fraud on the people of Wisconsin is now very clear. They are now going to pass a bill to take away people's rights," Barca, a Democrat, said.
And Sen. Mark Miller, the Democratic Senate leader, said Republicans "conspired to take government away from the people."
"In 30 minutes, 18 state senators undid 50 years of civil rights in Wisconsin," Miller said in a statement condemning the vote. "Their disrespect for the people of Wisconsin and their rights is an outrage that will never be forgotten."

[S.Artesian]

Man, now's the time to go to Madison... and not with any agenda, or "vanguardism" -- just to percolate the situation, just to bring up the notion of developing working class organizations that don't discriminate being union/non-union, private/public, unemployed/employed-- organizations of the whole class planning as a class for a struggle that involves all of society..... mobilizes workers, students, poor people in Milwaukee who are going to be cut off from Medicaid.. raising issues about community based health clinics tailored to the specific maladies of the population, developing preventative solutions, run by professionals but answering for the results to these general organizations of the class; same thing with public schools... run by the professionals to meet the needs of the youth, and adults, but responsible to the collective for the results.

That's a transitional program I could really get behind.

[ckaihatsu]

Wisconsin Senate passes union busting bill, workers outraged

By Staff

Madison, WI - This evening, March 9, Republican senators here pressed forward with legislation that strips public employees of their collective bargaining rights. Protestors are converging on state capitol building, where there is a heavy police presence.

Republicans made use of a parliamentary maneuver that separated bargaining rights for public workers from the budget bill, thus eliminating the requirement for the presence of a quorum that is required for votes on legislation that involves spending money.

Mary Bell, President of the Wisconsin Education Association Council states, “Tonight, Senate and Assembly Republicans pushed forward an extreme power grab with an unconscionable maneuver that split collective bargaining off from the fiscal items in the budget repair bill, rigging an 18-to-1 vote in the Senate. The Assembly will vote tomorrow.”

According to reports the vote will take place at 11 a.m. on March 10.

The editors of Fight Back News Service urge all of our readers to join the protests in Madison.

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[bcbm]

Man, now's the time to go to Madison...

for real yall, its a good time and i will buy you beers

[black magick hustla]

for real yall, its a good time and i will buy you beers
he will

[Sasha]

for real yall, its a good time and i will buy you beers

You see, walker is right, union fed fat cats, being able to pass around free beer. You are clearly not suffering like our poor walstreet millionaires who are working themselves to death. Time for an beer prohibition for union members.

[Sasha]

while i think this writer completely underestimates the ingrained total hate for "socialist" unions by the GOP she is probably partly right, this is also in a big way an struggle to undermine Obama's chances in 2012


The Truth About the War in Wisconsin

Posted by Goldy (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/ArticleArchives?author=4904583) on Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 3:18 PM


eLJdijPEBJE

In a "wait, did I say that outloud?" moment, Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald explains the real motivation for crushing public employee unions (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/09/wisconsin-senate-leader-admits-union-busting-bill-is-about-defeating-obama/):


"If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin."
This is, of course, all about defunding Democratic constituency groups so that the Republicans' corporatist patrons, post-Citizens-United, can dominate the airwaves unchallenged.



source: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/03/09/the-truth-about-the-war-in-wisconsin

[KC]

Thousands have stormed the capitol!!! The police fucking gave up guarding it!!!

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/185814_10150155087747835_500062834_8193199_4831511 _n.jpg

This is people occupying the entrance to the assembly room:

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/200528_10150155104157835_500062834_8193297_5491468 _n.jpg

If this is still going on and doesn't get broken up before tomorrow I'm coming back up after work tomorrow.

[RED DAVE]

Wow!

z7tM0ug53xQ

RED DAVE

[Thirsty Crow]

Thanks for showing that nowhere did I say walk into the crowd and denounce Moore as a liberal. Absolutely did say we are supposed to practice merciless criticism here.

I wonder, how did this point, which is fairly obvious, manage to produce a perfect shitstorm?

[S.Artesian]

Beats the hell out of me, comrade. Let's just say Hindsight and I got up each other's nose in too big a hurry.

He thought I was accusing him of being a "liberal lover," and I thought his responses were an attempt to portray criticism of Moore's populism as "ultra-leftism."

[Red Commissar]

An article I'm reading says that the demonstrators who were in the Assembly hallway were forced out by the police. I think the ones in the rotunda are still there though, but I would like some clarification.

Something amusing, at least to me, is that the State Republicans left the Capitol on public transportation. Yeah.

[bcbm]

iGdwsvj5k8Y

[Sasha]

Rally in Westlake to Show Solidarity with Wisconsin (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/03/10/rally-in-westlake-to-show-solidarity-with-wisconsin)

Posted by Goldy (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/ArticleArchives?author=4904583) on Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 11:39 AM

It started as an ad hoc organizing effort on Facebook late last night, a grassroots rally in solidarity with Wisconsin (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197642840259886&index=1), but at this point it looks like hundreds will converge on Seattle's West Lake Center this evening at 5:30 PM to demonstrate their support for workers and their outrage at the GOP's undemocratic coup.
So if you're mad as hell and don't want to take it anymore, show up and add your voice to the protest.

[RED DAVE]

Big surprise: young people are showing the way!


National School Walkout Planned for Friday, 3/11 by Madison, WI Students



March 10, 2011 08:55 AM EST

Some of the students in Madison, Wisconsin are encouraging students nationwide to participate in a national school walkout this Friday. They will march in solidarity to support the teachers in their schools and want students all over the nation to do so too. The GOP governor of Wisconsin has eliminated collective bargaining for teachers and other union members. This has sparked huge protests.

Opinions are very heated over this limiting of the rights for teachers. And now the younger generation in Madison has decided to follow a feet on the street protest movement. The protests in Egypt have energized people worldwide to take a stand and march about important issues.

The Nationwide Student Walkout was created by a group of students called the Wisconsin Students in Solidarity. The national walkout is planned for Friday, March 11 at 2 p.m. The announcement flyer says the location of the protests will be at “High schools nationwide!,” notes the Huffington Post. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/CaitlinO/wisconsin-gop-plan-advance-anti-union_n_833796_80154047.html) The students will protest about “the effects of collective bargaining elimination on public education… ” The Madison students say, “We are asking all students in the United States to walk out at 2 PM local time in solidarity with Wisconsin.” To learn more about this planned walkout go to a Facebook page here. (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_187367814637933)

The GOP has already voted to end collective bargaining in Wisconsin. There are many doubts raised about the legality of that vote. The Democrat leadership in Wisconsin is still in hiding and did not participate in the vote.

This student walkout will bring more publicity to the union busting moves going on in Wisconsin. What happened there may set an unfortunate precedent nationwide for the GOP trying to attack the power of the teacher unions.

It seems odd that the governor of Wisconsin gives huge tax breaks to big business but is raising a fuss over his budget now and insisting the budget problem could be solved by taking rights away from the union workers. The GOP favors businesses over people.

What do you think about the idea of a national school walkout? Will it just cost valuable education time or is it needed to show the world that teachers need full collective bargaining rights? Wisconsin has strong schools. Perhaps that will not be true for long. Governor Walker is trying to eliminate advanced placement classes in public schools. That is tragic; it will severely limit educational opportunities for students.http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979130098

RED DAVE

[the last donut of the night]

as i've said before, this is fucking swagged out

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Big surprise: young people are showing the way!

http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979130098

RED DAVE
Wow it would be a day that we have a minimum day on Friday for finals wouldn't it :cursing:

[Putzpie]

Big surprise: young people are showing the way!
[link]

RED DAVE

I'll be attending this :D

I'm hoping spread some class conciousness and leftist ideas around as well during the walk out.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/09/us-usa-budget-poll-idUSTRE7286DW20110309

» Print

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, use the Reprints tool at the top of any article or visit: www.reutersreprints.com.


Public prefers cutting defense spending: Reuters/Ipsos poll


Wed, Mar 9 2011

By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A majority of Americans prefer cutting defense spending to reduce the federal deficit rather than taking money from public retirement and health programs, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed.

The poll found 51 percent of Americans support reducing defense spending, and only 28 percent want to cut Medicare and Medicaid health programs for the elderly and poor. A mere 18 percent back cuts in the Social Security retirement program.

[...]

[S.Artesian]

^^^ Yes, but the bourgeoisie, they have a better solution... keep spending money on weapons of mass destruction and everybody dies before he or she can collect a pension... everyone except them of course.

[MilitantWorker]

the thread needs to be split-- please take all the sectarian babbling out I'm actually looking for updates on these events

[Klaatu]

All in all, I think, this is the start of the big swing of the political pendelum, back to the LEFT in America. That is, while Bush, Republicans, and their masters over at "FAUST NEWS" (selling-their-souls-to-the-devil-for-capitalism-and-facism) have had their way in these last two years, the TRUTH is that PEOPLE are getting pissed. It is one thing to cut taxes for billionaires, but quite another to THEN gut workers' wages, and ESPECIALLY THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.

And all of this from the party of "less government..."

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Not sure how far this may go, but the Madison IWW is really pursuing a General Strike. If you want any information on helping, contact: [email protected]

[Geiseric]

In san fransisco my mom's union had a big meeting having to do with this and other things but this was a major topic, just goes to show that people in Madison aren't alone in their struggle.

[Red Commissar]

All in all, I think, this is the start of the big swing of the political pendelum, back to the LEFT in America. That is, while Bush, Republicans, and their masters over at "FAUST NEWS" (selling-their-souls-to-the-devil-for-capitalism-and-facism) have had their way in these last two years, the TRUTH is that PEOPLE are getting pissed. It is one thing to cut taxes for billionaires, but quite another to THEN gut workers' wages, and ESPECIALLY THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.

And all of this from the party of "less government..."

Yeah, but like a pendulum it'll swing right back to the other end if this opportunity is squabbled. This has certainly given a great short-term boost, but it's necessary to make sure it goes beyond that. The way political winds blow and media operates, it's easy to make "big news" get forgotten in a matter of days.

[Red Commissar]

It is official now. Assembly has voted to pass the bill and Walker signed it into law.

N7_UHi4DW9E

[S.Artesian]

Of possible interest:



Bleeding Wisconsin

1. In 1854, the US Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The act, advertised as a compromise, was in fact a capitulation. The law proclaimed not equality, but the power of slave labor over free labor, and the power of slaveholders over the old order of the republic. The law embraced the spread of slavery into the territory purchased from France in 1803, thus annulling the Missouri Compromise, and allowing for the admission of new slave states to the Union.
For 35 years, the old parties of the North, whose vision and existence never extended beyond that of a merchants’ republic, had been accommodating to the slaveholders’ autarchy, presenting itself, and to itself, every capitulation as a compromise. In 1854 the capitulation to the slaveholders could no longer be disguised. The old parties represented only those interests opposed to capital’s free access to “free labor.”
In that same year, thirty people met in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin for the purpose of creating a new political party. This party was organized around a simple principle—that political compromise with a system that enslaved human labor was intolerable.
One hundred and fifty seven years later, that same party founded in that same state is still attempting to make amends for the wild idealism of its youth when it dared to oppose the emancipation of the laborers to the plantation class’ claim to ownership, to property in the laborers themselves.....


full available at: http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com (http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com/)

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Loved this description of events from a WSWS correspondent:

"...protesters who had sneaked inside the capitol through the windows opened the main doors, and thousands of people flooded into the building."

[ckaihatsu]

A general strike can lead to victory in Wisconsin -- Party for Socialism and Liberation


A general strike can lead to victory in Wisconsin
It has happened before, it can happen now

Follow the live tweets from the demonstration
By Jeff Bigelow

The writer is a union organizer.




Workers prepare for a general strike, Seattle, 1919.

Workers across most of Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America have experience in using general strikes in order to press for political demands. For example, in 1995, French workers forced the government to retreat at least temporarily from an attack on pensions. Huge general strikes and demonstrations have been held over the last year in Greece, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, Spain and Argentina.

The president and prime minister of Egypt were forced out of office by a movement that refused to be diverted from their goal when politicians engaged in political maneuvers. Even when they were ordered to disperse, the people stayed. Huge determined strikes were an integral part of their movement. Their victories inspired workers in Wisconsin and Ohio. Now Egypt is an example of what is possible.

Students, progressive people and unionized workers are looking for the next step to win the struggle in Wisconsin. Legal actions could be taken to delay the anti-union Wisconsin law. Its passage was based on a violation of the Open Meetings Act when the law was pushed through without proper notice. Other tactics being pursued include the recall of legislators and focusing on who will be elected or unelected in the future. Of course, struggles need to be waged in every arena, including the courts, the legislature and the election process. But what will be the most effective tactic that can lead to victory?

Preparations for a general strike

On Feb. 21, the Wisconsin South Central Federation of Labor passed a resolution calling for preparations in case a general strike was necessary. This central labor body represents 45,000 workers in the counties near Madison which are at the heart of the national struggle to protect basic rights for working people. The call for preparation reflects a serious attitude toward the struggle since preparation and planning are essential for winning.

Usually strikes are a tool used by workers to force a single employer to give concessions, such as to treat people fairly, pay a living wage and so on. Strikes are a part of an escalating set of tactics used to apply increasing pressure to force management to do the right thing.

A general strike escalates the pressure on a broader scale: sometimes on an industry, city or state-wide level. A general strike can also be a national action. A general strike is the principle "an injury to one is an injury to all" in practice. A victory for one union or section of labor is a victory for us all.

Click here to read the full article.

http://www2.pslweb.org/site/R?i=_CIGQ1cdeh2zCb6fkY5tbg..


Help PSL organizers continue to mobilize and report on the struggle in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest. Donate today—we can't do it without your help.

http://www2.pslweb.org/site/R?i=ljSMXqRBKdWMpPhZAL5weA..


Read more: Wisconsin workers fight back!

VIDEO: Workers, students speak out as Wisconsin anti-union bill is approved

Wisconsin Assembly passes anti-labor bill; workers step up the struggle

Labor can win in Wisconsin: Time for a general strike!

[ckaihatsu]

Support Wisconsin workers: Download general strike posters


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Show solidarity with the struggle in Wisconsin by downloading and printing these posters, supporting the call for a general strike. Hang them in your window, on your door, in your car or wherever they can be seen.


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Today, right-wing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed the anti-union bill that strips away collective bargaining rights from public sector workers.

But the people of Wisconsin are undeterred. They are fighting back. Right now, thousands of workers and students are pouring onto the steps of the state capitol building.

On Saturday, tens of thousands more will hit the streets in Madison. Unions, community organizations, anti-war activists and others are coming from across the state and nearby states to show their outrage. It is expected to be the biggest outpouring of support for working families yet.

Calls for a general strike are growing. Hundreds of people at the capitol are carrying signs reading, “Labor can win: Time for a general strike.” Progressive filmmaker Michael Moore called on students across the country to walk out in solidarity with Wisconsin.

And Joe Conway, president of the Madison firefighters’ union, voiced support for a general strike. When asked by a reporter what he thought about a general strike, Conway responded: “I’m in total agreement. We should start walking out tomorrow, the next day. … See how long they can last. … This is a nation-wide movement to attack all working men and women in Wisconsin and the United States.”

Download and print these posters. An injury to one is an injury to all!

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ANSWER organizers have been helping to organize from the epicenter of this historic labor battle.

Please help us at this critical moment of struggle by making an urgently needed donation. Your support will help cover the cost of organizers on the ground as well as the production of materials for the demonstrations.

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[RED DAVE]

My major criticism of ckaihatsu's two posts above is that they do not call for nationwide demonstrations. This is meant fraternally.

RED DAVE

[MarxistMan]

The thing is that most people are too existentialists. I mean we should think a bit more about how americans will capitalism in the near future. And I believe in the hard working revolutionary spirit of all americans. I believe that sooner or later people in the USA will overthrow the capitalist system. People in America are damn tired of paying bills to corporations, and services being so expensive by the private sector. The capitalist ideology is cornered. Most americans love Hugo Chavez, even Sean Penn, and many celebrities and people in the media are chaviztas. The free market ideology is fucked up. Its days are counted and are coming to an end in USA and in the world. Even comrade Bush was forced to get away from the free markets.

.



Thanks for showing that nowhere did I say walk into the crowd and denounce Moore as a liberal. Absolutely did say we are supposed to practice merciless criticism here.

And we do have to call junk, junk, and bullshit, bullshit anywhere. So yeah, I would advocate somebody, anybody who calls himself a Marxist challenging Moore right in front of all those loving workers, about "good jobs/good wages/good bourgeoisie/good capitalism," on his patriotic disinformation about the history of US "democracy."

Right there, and to his face. People have done tougher things than that, like challenge the Black Panther Party's endorsement of certain Democrats for the US Congress... right in the middle of an anti-war rally when a BPP spokesperson tried to make such an endorsement. Guess what? The person making the challenge received an ovation.... and lived to tell about it. Imagine that.

And again you never answer the challenges to your original assertions about Moore "moving workers to the left," "introducing new ideas."

On your ignore list? Aww... that hurts. How will the wolf survive?

[ckaihatsu]

The thing is that most people are too existentialists.


I'll interpret 'existentialist' here to mean "passive" -- I think it's easy to forget that there's no one else here but us, so each and every one of us has roughly the same claim to being active in the ongoing construction of the social world, moving forward. Beyond the individual basis is the aggregate, and thus we have politics.

Hopefully this post-neoconservative era will give people the breathing room to be more decisive on how real societal progress can be collectively achieved -- my concern right now is that the near-term future will be one in which these widespread yet localized popular struggles "hit the ceiling" of their respective political consciousnesses and just slump back down to being back under the thumb of the more-encompassing bourgeois control.

The prevailing multiculturalism of our contemporary world is impressive and shouldn't be taken lightly, but it's nothing to settle for, either. It's always tempting to be cultural tourists in such a world but we should also re-focus on *how* that world is being run -- or, rather, catastrophically mismanaged by those at all levels who are content to leave the issue of social progress to the dwindling inertia and vagaries of the market mechanism and the atrocious political policies it enables.

[StalinFanboy]

I'll be attending this :D

I'm hoping spread some class conciousness and leftist ideas around as well during the walk out.

Yeah I personally carry a small bag of it with me to sprinkle on people so that they will become revolutionary.

[ckaihatsu]

Workers cannot live with these attacks. The capitulation of the unions must be rejected and preparations made now to unite the full strength of the working class in a general strike. This should be based on the following demands:

* Total rejection of all economic concessions and social spending cuts. Instead of cuts, social spending should be increased in response to the crisis facing millions of people throughout the country.

* Unequivocal rejection of any and all restrictions on the legal right of workers to negotiate and strike to defend and improve their standard of living.

* A substantial increase in taxes on corporate profits and the income of the rich to close the budget deficit and the cost of new and essential social spending.

* The immediate resignation of Walker and his reactionary administration. The governor has deliberately made himself the political spearhead of the corporate attack on the working class and the use of dictatorial methods.

Preparation for such a struggle must begin by electing rank-and-file strike committees, independent of the trade union apparatus, in every workplace. These committees should mobilize the support of public- and private-sector workers, young people, the unemployed, retirees and all those opposed to the attacks on democratic rights, wages and social services.


http://wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/pers-m12.shtml

[Impulse97]

Can anybody tell me when the next big Madison rally is? Today is not fucking working out. Fuck living over 2hrs away and not having a car.:cursing:

[Red Commissar]

Can anybody tell me when the next big Madison rally is? Today is not fucking working out. Fuck living over 2hrs away and not having a car.:cursing:

Not sure. I would like to know as well because Saturday, according to this article here, was a big day.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/13/usa-wisconsin-idUSN1227540420110313

Police estimates that anywhere between 85,000-100,000 protested today in Madison. This is the largest such protest since the Vietnam War in the area.

Here's an interesting video, a "tractorcade"

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Part 1 of 8 of this, other parts are in related videos

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The main character from the TV show Monk, Tony Shalhoub (A Wisconsin native), gives a speech to demonstrators outside the capitol.

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Another video from the demonstration

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[Paulappaul]

I wrote a blog on Wisconsin, hoping to engage some discussion, check it out!

[Ele'ill]

Solidarity from Portland

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[Red Commissar]

More vids and a picture from yesterday:

http://a.yfrog.com/img610/9484/cieau.jpg

Anonymous found their way there
http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/large/256813773.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0ZRYP5X5F6FSMBCCSE82&Expires=1300062896&Signature=jVmDSjyCSEHCgdprs4OXR2G7zMo%3D

Democrats are trying to jump in unsurprisingly to cash in on the energy... we'll see how that turns out. Hopefully people won't be fooled.

Time lapse of yesterday's demos in front of the capitol

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Some processions of firefighters
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In front of the capitol
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Another shot

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Some people in the streets

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Some guys singing "Solidarity Forever"
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[bcbm]

in multiple bars across madison last night there were spontaneous outbreaks of "solidarity forever" and other labor songs

[the last donut of the night]

in multiple bars across madison last night there were spontaneous outbreaks of "solidarity forever" and other labor songs

are the bartenders giving out free brewskis as signs of solidarity


i'd like a free brewski

[bcbm]

i wish

[ckaihatsu]

SDS in Madison Protest, 150,000 March

By Jacob Flom

Madison, WI - Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) led a student contingent in the March 12 Madison, Wisconsin rally of 150,000. SDS chapters from Wisconsin, Illinois and Maryland marched in support of workers. Milwaukee students showed solidarity with their teachers and other campus workers, joining their buses to Madison and holding a giant banner demanding "No cuts to education!" Governor Scott Walker's union busting and budget measures will be devastating to public education in Wisconsin as he plans to slash $1 billion in state funding from public schools. Students at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM) are planning to bring the energy back from Madison on Monday, March 14, with the third walkout at UWM this semester, demanding a stop to tuition hikes, budget cuts, privatization and union busting.

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[Red Commissar]

I found a nice video- its a bit long but its talking to some people on the streets.

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SEP seems to have uploaded a similar video

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[MarxistMan]

Hey my friend: try these sites for updates on middle east and international politics: http://www.whatreallyhappened http://www.informationclearinghouse.info http://www.marxist.com http://www.wsws.org http://www.counterpunch.org http://www.workers.org http://www.rwor.org http://www.globalresearch.ca and http://www.commondreams.org

.



I'm not getting much on news today. Trying to skim through the twitter and other sites. Most news is either focused on Charlie Sheen, Libya, or the resignation of the NPR guy.

From what I gather a recent development seems to show what we all knew to begin with, that Walker is attempting to negotiate (or so his emails seem to show (http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/117584003.html)), with Dems that predictably retain much of the cuts and benefit reductions. Though I guess this is a change from his previous position of not straying from the mandate he had been given.

Still though, what he had put on the table seems to not back off on his attempts to curtail collective bargaining (in his case, restricting what public employees could negotiate over) and isn't willing to put it on this bill but rather future legislation so he doesn't disappoint his Tea Party cred. If I'm reading the update on the twitter feed correctly, it appears that they didn't go ahead with their plan to fine the Dems either, so it appears that they'll near their "compromise".

Rather interesting article about a 90 year old protester

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/117623253.html

Some photos from March 5
http://dane101.com/photos_the_rally_on_march_5_2011

[Os Cangaceiros]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/milwaukee-afscme-leader-union-to-redirect-efforts-to-recalls----and-no-talk-of-strikes.php



"But again, I want to just make this very clear. If the intent was by Governor Walker and his fellow De-- Republicans, excuse me, in the legislature, to destroy the union movement in the public sector in WIsconsin, it's going to fail," he said. "We are going to change, and we are going to adapt, and we will continue to do what we do, and that is represent people in the workplace. And if the bargaining table is taken away from us, we will replace that with much more political and legislative activity."

Wainscott asked Abelson whether one particular activity could be undertaken by public unions: strikes.

"No. I mean, look, public sector workers in Wisconsin are committed and dedicated to the citizens we serve," said Abelson. "And there has been no talk of a general strike, there has been no talk of targeted strikes, or job actions or anything else. Our dispute is not with our employers. Our dispute is with the Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate, the Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly, and Governor Walker."

[bcbm]

weiners

[Sasha]

farmer giving a powerfull speech, "an injury to one is an injury to al"
cKOvqXoWB7s

[YSR]

There is a movement afoot in Madison and around WI to organize for a general strike. Rank-and-filers and community groups are meeting to discuss what a general strike might look like and how to make it happen. Stay tuned.

[ChrisK]

ISO report from yesterday about the workers refusing to back down. A funny little moment in here where a democrat chides the workers for not voting which is how to change things. Also, an interesting report on speeches being made, which are of interest for their emphasizing the role of strikes in improving workers rights. Also makes mention of the possibility of a general strike.

The struggle will continue

Nicole Colson reports from Madison on a huge demonstration against Scott Walker's union-busting law--and the discussion about what comes next in the fight for our rights.

March 14, 2011

MORE THAN 150,000 workers, students and retirees jammed the grounds of Wisconsin's Capitol building to protest Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting law that all but eliminates the right of public employees to collective bargaining, imposes an effective wage cut on state employees of as much as 7 percent, and makes sweeping changes to Wisconsin's health care programs for the poor.

After weeks of protest that included the inspiring takeover of the Capitol building by students and workers, almost daily demonstrations in Madison and across the state, and Democratic senators fleeing the state to hold up the bill, Walker used a legal loophole last week to push through the bill's most controversial provisions--a direct assault on organized labor.

The mood on Saturday was both anger at Walker and the Republicans--and upbeat at the massive turnout. The 14 Democratic senators, returning to the state for the first time since leaving to avoid giving Walker a quorum to pass the bill, were given a heroes' welcome, with frequent chants of "Thank you" from the crowd and signs proclaiming love for the "Fab 14."

But Democratic officials and labor leaders were mostly successful in shifting attention away from the furious sentiment for stepping up the fight with workers' actions. Instead, the most popular chants on Saturday were not for "General strike!" but "Recall!"--a campaign to unseat at least eight Republican senators and eventually Walker himself.

Hopefully, the recalls will succeed in kicking out the anti-union Republicans--but in the meanwhile, Walker and Co. will try to implement their law, and the mass movement that erupted against the anti-labor law should confront them. Thus, the question of where the struggle should go from here hung over the March 12 protest in Madison.

Certainly, the struggle in Wisconsin will continue, as activists who are losing most union rights strategize over how to keep the union strong on the job despite the fact that management has no legal obligation to negotiate. Meanwhile, workers in other states are sizing up the lessons of Wisconsin.

If business-backed Republicans keep pushing anti-union legislation despite vast protests, labor will have to take even more decisive action to defeat these attacks. The proposal of a general strike--debated in Wisconsin over the last three weeks--will continue to get a hearing.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IN ANY case, the struggle in Wisconsin and beyond will go foreword with a profound sense of solidarity.

Large numbers of unionists from across Wisconsin and the Midwest traveled to Madison for the March 12 protest, including members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Teamsters, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Service Employees International Union, National Nurses United (NNU), Madison Teachers Inc., the Teaching Assistants' Association at the University of Wisconsin, and many others.

In a display of the pride they take as the workers who make Wisconsin run, members of the United Steelworkers wore their hardhats, while Madison firefighters turned out in their work jackets.

Many of those who aren't in public-sector unions--or even in unions at all--came out to show their support because they recognize the importance of the historic struggle in Wisconsin, and the drive to carry out the same attacks on private-sector workers as well as workers in other states across the country in the name of "austerity."

Among the pre-printed signs reading "Blame Wall Street, No Concessions" from the NNU, and those from the AFL-CIO with a blue fist against a red background and the words "Stand With Wisconsin" were thousands of creative homemade signs, often ridiculing Walker as a weasel, not a badger (the state's official animal mascot). One sign featured a picture of the governor that read "Does this ass make my sign look big?" and another read, "Get your head out of your Walker."

Signs from AFSCME warned, "Walker, your pink slip is coming," while others called for recalling the governor and taxing the rich. A teacher carried a sign reading "I'm a teacher, not a freeloader."

Even family pets got into the act--with dogs wearing signs reading "Koch sniffing dog" (a reference to the billionaire right-wing brothers who backed Walker's campaign for governor and recently set up a lobbying office in Madison) and "Animals for the Ethical Treatment of People." Rising struggles around the globe were mentioned as well, with signs reading "Egypt, Libya, Madison, Wis.: Civil unrest is best."

Earlier, more than 50 farmers turned out with their tractors for a "tractorcade" around the Capitol, organized by the Wisconsin Farmers Union and Family Farm Defenders (and complete with signs comparing Walker to the manure spreaders).

As the crowd began to fill in the grounds around the Capitol and the surrounding streets, it was clear that people from all walks of life were in attendance. Teachers, including members of Madison Teachers Inc., made up a large presence in the crowd. "So many of the unions being targeted are pink-collar jobs--teachers, social workers, nurses, which are female-dominated--so we see this as an attack on women as well," said Colleen Berry, a teacher from New London, Wis., who recently received a layoff notice along with her entire district.

One of the best speeches of the day came from left-wing actor Susan Sarandon, who told the crowd, "This is more than a demonstration. This is a movement...The Constitution does not grant workers the right to form a union, to have safe working conditions, or to work less than 12 hours a day. These things had to be fought for and won by workers themselves: going on strike, defying the law, defying the courts and relying on each other."

The firefighters were also out in force among the crowd, many dressed in their jackets, helmets and other gear. From the beginning, firefighters have stood in defense of other workers--despite the fact that Walker's bill specifically exempts both them and police. "They were trying to divide labor and separate the firefighters. Well, we stand up for our brothers and sisters in the unions. Solidarity is what it's all about," said Dave Bathke, a firefighter and EMT instructor in Waukesha County.

Bathke said his grandfather had been an educator who fought for the right to collective bargaining in the 1950s. He explained:

[Walker] felt he could divide and conquer, but we know we're next. So that's why we're standing here in solidarity with our union brothers and sisters. I've been here since the start, and the turnout today is sending a strong message.

It better send a strong message to Gov. Walker and his Republican cronies to wake up. We will not tolerate being terrorized, or this genocide on workers' rights. Take a look around--these people will all be voting yes to recall him and to recall his Republican counterparts.

Protester Michael Mulvey, a math teacher of nine years, had Scott Walker's son as a student two years ago. He held a sign that read: "Scott, I taught your son algebra. Now you want to slash funding for my kid's schools while giving tax breaks to your corporate buddies. That's shared sacrifice?" As Mulvey said, "Scott Walker doesn't care about ordinary people in Wisconsin. He only cares about his corporate buddies, and that's why I'm out here today."

He added: "[The turnout] is excellent. It just shows how angry people are. I believe that it also shows that a wave is coming over Wisconsin. This isn't going to stand. We're going to recall all these Senate Republicans, and I think in less than a year's time, we'll be recalling Scott Walker."

Many of those in attendance spoke of what it will mean for working people if Walker is able to get away with gutting their union rights. Last month, in a prank phone call in which he thought he was talking to one of the billionaire right-wing Koch brothers, Walker was recorded talking about Ronald Reagan's attack on the air traffic controllers' union PATCO [1]. It was, Walker said, "one of the most defining moments of his political career."

Those who turned out on Saturday know how high the stakes are. As Jim Anton, a member of IBEW Local 890 from Williams Bay, Wis., said:

An injury to one is an injury to all. If they break one union, they can break them all. We learned that 30 years ago when Reagan kicked out the air traffic controllers. We should have stood up then, and we didn't. Now's the time. Enough is enough...

I think that this has educated people--that they've looked back and found that because of unions, you have an eight-hour day. You have weekends off. You've have health care. You have the benefits that a union will bring.

What's in store for Wisconsin workers could be seen in a hasty tentative agreement between the union, Madison Teachers Inc., and the Madison Metropolitan School District--made at 3 a.m. the morning of the march. The agreement is an attempt to preserve a contract for the next two years before Walker's law goes into effect--but at the cost of a huge retreat.

The school board reportedly squeezed $23 million in concessions from teachers over the next two years. If members ratify the contract, wages will be frozen, and workers will contribute 50 percent of the total money going to pension plans. "That figure, according to district officials, is believed to be very close to the 12 percent overall contribution that Gov. Walker's 'budget repair bill' was calling for," according to Channel3000.com [2].

In an added slap in the face, teachers will also be docked pay for the four days that they walked off the job to protest at the Capitol last month.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THROUGHOUT THE day, the focus from labor leaders and politicians on the stage was on the idea of recalling Walker and the Republicans.

Typical of that sentiment was Sen. Chris Larson of Milwaukee, who told the crowd, "Now...we trade in our rally signs for clipboards, and we take to the streets to recall the Republicans, and in one year, we recall the governor that refuses to listen."

Rev. Jesse Jackson joined in the chorus of those focused on recall, invoking the civil rights struggle to argue that people should remember the slaying of Martin Luther King on April 4, but then, on April 5, go to the polls to oust right-wing state Supreme Court justice David Prosser in favor of veteran Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg.

The recall effort may well succeed in ousting some Republicans--and it is a way of keeping pressure on them. But it's no substitute for the protests, occupations and workers' actions that have revived the U.S. labor movement overnight. Even if it succeeds, recall campaigns will take months, if not years, to win, since Wisconsin politicians cannot be recalled until after they serve a full year in office.

An electoral effort that demobilizes workers will only strengthen the hands of Walker and public-sector managers who are itching to show who's boss. The solidarity seen on the streets and the occupation of the Capitol has to be shown on the job, too, in order to defend the unions and make them effective fighters for workers' rights, whatever the law says.

And as many activists point out, electing Democrats is no guarantee that austerity measures will be rolled back and the right to collective bargaining restored. In many states--such as California, New York and Illinois--it is Democratic governors and legislators who are leading the charge to cut the pensions and benefits of public-sector unions. President Barack Obama himself targeted public-sector workers by seeking a three-year wage freeze on federal employees outside the defense and national security sectors.

As Aurora Insurriaga, a retired United Steelworkers member who traveled from Chicago, pointed out:

I'm here trying to bring attention to all of the influence that big corporations have over our politicians, who are selling our citizens down the river...and I include the Democrats in that. We need to get rid of all corporate lobbying...What has Obama done? He said he'd be out here [walking the picket line] with the people, but he hasn't put his shoes on.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEYOND THESE considerations, any effort to distill what has happened in Wisconsin--the occupations, protests, the job actions and the pride that workers have taken in their fight against the cuts--into a recall campaign ignores the radical transformation in how many Wisconsin workers now see themselves.

On stage, one Democrat asked the crowd, "How many of you vote?" Alluding to the recall campaign, she added, "We're going to make a change."

But Wisconsin workers already have made a change--whether or not Walker was able to ram through the bill. They have glimpsed the fact that they don't have to accept the attack on their jobs, families and living standards. And they have begun to be transformed by the struggles they've taken part in over the past month.

According to Dale Peterson, an animal caretaker at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and member of AFSCME Local 171, who carried a sign that read "Don't call me a union thug! I prefer 'Goon' and/or a 'good citizen of Wisconsin'":

[I]t's turned people like us who used to say, "I support it but I'm not going," and encouraged us to come out and fight. I'm disappointed with Walker and the Republicans, but also the local corporate media. But I'm more resolved than angry...I'm here in the trenches, and we're going to keep going, and I think a lot of people here feel the same way. The next step is recall...elections can happen as early as May, and they will happen...There will be hell to pay and it will be paid...

People keep calling for rallies and job actions, and are doing the education and internal organizing that hasn't happened over the past 40 years. We're not ready for a general strike, but I support job actions here and there...to keep the momentum going. A general strike--that's the trump card, but now is not the time to play it.

Other protesters echoed the same sentiments. "I believe it's going to take a general strike from the people to stop this," Tim Levesque, a member of Steelworkers Local 6500, District 6, from Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, stated. He added:

If we can act now peacefully, I think we can make a big change. My family and I came here from Ontario. What's happening here in Wisconsin, if these bills pass, it'll be like a wave across the U.S. and Canada...We need to come together.

There is enough material resources to provide a decent standard of living for everybody and not just the few rich people who run the world. A victory here might show us in Canada that it can be done, so it's important for this bill to be demolished.

"I think there are three things going on," said Jim Anton, the IBEW member. "There's the recall of the senators and Walker, that could shift that body; there's the court battles; and then there's the general strike that could, and may, happen. " But, he added, "It would take the organization of all these people to put it together. "

In the meantime, Walker and the Republicans are dreaming if they think signing the bill is going to make the anger directed at them dissipate. At a Sunday invitation-only fundraiser for the governor in Washburn, Wis., Walker was greeted by as many as 5,000 angry protesters chanting "Shame!" at every car that drove in.

Wisconsin workers are proving to Walker that they aren't going to back down.

[KC]

BTW my friend took this at the capitol building, thought it was awesome enough to share:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WJQGzkYIQKA/TWc2E4oxUhI/AAAAAAAAAEs/iTaLTGgd8TE/s1600/110218PJgen1646F01.jpg

[Paulappaul]

STOP ADVOCATING A GENERAL STRIKE AND ADVOCATE FOR A WILDCAT STRIKE:

a commentary I posted on Libcom,

I hear alot of Libertarian Communists calling for a General Strike right now in both England and in Wisconsin. Here's my thoughts:


A General strike is not a Wildcat Strike. Looking at the most revolutionary advances of the working last in the last 50 or 60 so years we've seen everything from city wide, state wide and nation wide Wildcat strikes which have crippled the national capitalist. We seen a redefining of the traditional tactics of striking. What separates in large part, the Mass Strike or Wildcat Strike from the General Strike? Chiefly the Trade Union form. Such unions are themselves, parts of the Capitalist system, inherently tied to it for its survival and reproducing its formations, specifically through abiding by the Division of Labor and in producing a system of hierarchy reflecting Bourgeois Democracy and with it, all its bureaucracy which we've seen to fatal to revolutionary movements . General Strikes are approved forms of action by the Ruling Class themselves. They are predetermined, prefigured and inherently antithetical to working class spontaneity and the goal for anything beyond reform.


A Wildcat strike is a strike by an Industry of Workers without the consent of the State or Unions. A Mass Strike is an extension to this wherein a Wildcat Strike is adopted by an entire class, rather then by a single industry. Such a Strike is carried out by the whole Class and is exercised through a Workers' Council or Workers' Union.



The tactic for revolution lies in the Mass Strike of Wisconsin workers. In taking the issue into their own hands and with it, disposing the Capitalist System of Rulership. Stop advocating for a General Strike and call for real action that will truly awaken the workers.

Check out my blog for some theses I typed up relating to this!

[RebelDog]

Tonight on Al Jazeera (7-30pm GMT) Ralph Nader is discussing the future of US labour unions. Get it on satellite and cable or watch a live stream here: http://english.aljazeera.net/

[ckaihatsu]

(Thanks to Labor Beat for this....)


http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/03/18/judge-halts-implementation-of-anti-union-law-in-wisconsin/



Judge Halts Implementation of Anti-Union Law in Wisconsin

By: David Dayen Friday March 18, 2011 9:10 am




According to news reporter Jessica Arp, a Dane County judge in Wisconsin has halted the implementation of Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union law. Judge Maryann Sumi said that the prosecution was likely to succeed on their claim that the conference committee for the bill, which stripped collective bargaining from most state workers, violated open meeting requirements.

Sumi stressed that she was not judging on the merits of the legislation, but on the specifics of the open meeting requirements. Wisconsin law requires that public meetings are announced with 24 hours notice, 2 hours if there’s some extenuating circumstance which prevents advanced planning. The meeting in question, the conference committee, actually had less than two hours notice. “I have been shown no rule that overrides the statutory requirement,” Judge Sumi said.

The legislature in Wisconsin could simply re-do the conference committee, under the rules, and pass the bill again. Since they believe it’s a “non-fiscal” bill, quorum requirements would not apply. Alternatively, with the Fab 14 Senators back in Madison, they could just pass the budget repair bill they wanted all along, and have the quorum to do so, unless the Democrats leave the state again.

But this temporary restraining order will stop the implementation scheduled for March 25. And it drags out the process once again, keeping it in the headlines. This is not at all what Scott Walker and the Republicans facing recall elections wanted to see.

In addition, it gives time for other legal cases to be brought. There could be municipal challenges that the law’s changes in pension contributions violates “home rule” provisions that allow the cities and towns to govern their own pensions for their workers.

Meanwhile, the labor assault in the states continued this week, as Oklahoma became the latest to eliminate collective bargaining for state workers, reversing a 2004 bill that allowed unionization in municipalities. Like Scott Walker’s bill in Wisconsin, it exempts police and firefighters, but strips collective bargaining for “non-uniform” public employees. Four cities which had agreements before 2004 will get to keep them.

Clearly, this is a coordinated effort to bust unions across the country. But in Wisconsin, for the time being, they’ve been stopped.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Tonight on Al Jazeera (7-30pm GMT) Ralph Nader is discussing the future of US labour unions. Get it on satellite and cable or watch a live stream here: http://english.aljazeera.net/

Is he going to congratulate Walker for a job well done?

"...when his own workers at one of his magazines, Multinational Monitor, got fed up with cruel working conditions and started agitating for a union of their own, Nader busted the union with all of the hardball techniques used by corporate owners across America. Workers at Public Citizen, another Nader group, also tried to form a union because of 60 to 80 hour work weeks, salaries that ranged from $13,000 down, and other difficult working conditions and were blocked by Nader, who remains unapologetic to this day." - http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm

[ckaihatsu]

The Battle of Wisconsin: What Next?
Statement by the Editorial Board of The Organizer Newspaper

An editorial in the March 12-13, 2011, issue of the International Herald Tribune summarized a wing of the U.S. ruling class's assessment of the new situation facing the labor-student resistance movement in Wisconsin in the aftermath of the Republicans' late-hour putsch to strip unions of their collective-bargaining rights. It read, in part:

"The unions have lost the battle for their rights. Š The outcome was probably inevitable given the Republican success in the 2010 elections. Now union members have to make sure they do not stay away from the polls again when their rights are at stake."

But the battle in Wisconsin is far from over.
Eric Cobb, executive director of the Building Trades Council of South Central Wisconsin, underscored this point: "We have not lost the battle in Wisconsin. Like my grandfather said: 'It ain't over yet'."

A Chicago labor activist who has been intimately involved with the resistance struggle in Wisconsin chimed in on a similar note:

"There is a mood [in Wisconsin] which I haven't seen before. At the rally this past Saturday [March 12] of well over 100,000 people, someone said, 'This is Pearl Harbor,' which is telling. Something big has been ignited. Yes, a particular right-wing attack took place and their formal objective was achieved, for now, but much more than that happened. A Republican Pyrrhic victory barely describes it. Wisconsin is echoing within like a rung bell with protests, boycotts, recall campaigns, etc., which are not abating. The general strike is still on the drawing board."

Media's Crafted Message

The mainstream media that covered the March 12 rally in Wisconsin only reported on the big welcome that the 14 Democratic Party senators received. They failed to note that their three-week trip to Illinois was the result of a mass upsurge that witnessed a non-stop occupation of the State Capitol and continuous mobilizations of tens of thousands of people -- with two rallies of about 150,000 people.

The media also failed to highlight the fighting mood of the people who turned out on March 12 and who proclaimed in their banners, picket signs and speeches that the struggle is very much alive. They ignored the large contingent of unionists and students marching in the "No Concessions, No Cuts!" contingent organized by National Nurses United.

This should come as no surprise. The message of the liberal wing of the corporate class is simple: Get off the streets and wait till 2012, when you can go vote for the Democrats.

Unfortunately, this perspective has been relayed by many top union leaders, who have sought to channel the explosive mass movement -- with its potential to develop into a general strike to force Governor Walker to retreat -- into the "acceptable channels" of an electoral recall campaign against the Republicans.

But the movement from below that launched the resistance struggle in Wisconsin does not want to get off the streets. Wisconsin organizers are planning mass protests, sickouts and more on April 4 -- the nationwide No Business As Usual Day of Action called by Communications Workers of America (CWA) International President Larry Cohen that has been supported by the AFL-CIO Executive Council.

Why Voters Stayed Home

The editors of the International Herald Tribune warn voters in Wisconsin not to stay away from the polls in 2012, as they did in 2010.

But why was there a huge voter abstention in 2010 in Wisconsin and across the country? We should remember that 29 million of the 63 million people who had voted for Obama in 2008 stayed home in 2010. This is nearly one out of every two Obama voters.

People voted with their feet in 2010 because of the refusal by Obama to deliver the "change" he had promised. They were angry that Obama and the Democrats essentially carried out the policies of Bush, bailing out Wall Street and the banks at the expense of Main Street. [See back articles in The Organizer newspaper on this question.]

In Wisconsin, the Democratic majority in the lame-duck session last December refused to pass a budget that recognized state workers' full bargaining rights. The situation in Wisconsin would not be what it is today if key Democratic state legislators had not caved in to the blackmail of then Governor-elect Walker in the first place.
On Dec. 15, 2010, before the Republicans took over the legislature, the 17 contracts running from July 2009 to June 2011 for tens of thousands of workers -- all of which did not include the union-busting provisions pushed by Walker -- were stalled in the state legislature when outgoing Senate Majority leader Russ Decker (D-Wausau) and Sen. Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) voted with the Republicans against the contracts.

And though many of these same Democrats were compelled by the mass movement to oppose the attacks on collective-bargaining rights, they have been up front about the supposed need to impose Draconian budget cuts to address the state's deficit -- something that should have been strongly opposed by the top leaders of the labor movement, but was not.
Instead of pulling out all the stops to push back the assault on trade union rights, the top trade union officialdom spent most of their time and energy pleading with the Wisconsin legislators to remove the union-busting attacks in exchange for which the unions would accept hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts. AFT President Randi Weingarten actually flew to Wisconsin to offer $100 million in givebacks to try to secure this rotten deal.

The main role of the Democrats in Wisconsin and beyond is precisely to co-opt the labor movement into accepting the cuts. Throughout the country, Democratic governors such as Jerry Brown in California and Andrew Cuomo in New York are directly taking the offensive in pushing for devastating austerity cuts. That is why the very existence of public services and a fighting labor movement requires that the unions and their allies immediately end their subordination to the Democrats.

Battle Can and Must Be Won

The battle of Wisconsin can and must be won on the streets, in the workplaces, and on the picket line.

On March 4-5, an Emergency Labor Meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, gathered 96 union leaders and activists from 26 states nationwide. One of the decisions taken by this gathering was to promote mass demonstrations and industrial actions, where possible, on April 4 to fight both the union-busting and the concessionary budget-cut attacks on working people in Wisconsin and all over the country.

The ELM also urged unionists and activists to mobilize around demands such as "Tax the Rich and the Corporations! Make Wall Street Pay for the Crisis They Created! Create 27 Million Full-Time Jobs! End the Wars and Redirect the War Funding to Create Jobs and Meet Human Needs!"

Responding to this call, the San Francisco Labor Council voted on March 14 to mobilize all its affiliates in a No Business As Usual march and rally on April 4. It also approved the following resolution, which must now be transformed from words into action:

"Whereas, the San Francisco Labor Council Executive Committee is calling for a mobilization in San Francisco on April 4, 2011 against union-busting and the budget cuts;

"Therefore be it Resolved, that in the event that a Council affiliate votes to engage in an industrial action on April 4, the San Francisco Labor Council will call on all its affiliates with fax blast, e-mail, phone etc. to support such action by engaging, wherever possible, in work stoppages, sick-outs and any other solidarity actions."

This resolution by the San Francisco Labor Council and this fighting perspective outlined at the Cleveland Emergency Labor Meeting point the way forward.

A sleeping giant has awakened. The time to fight back and reverse the attacks on working people is now.

* * * * * * * * * *

THE ORGANIZER
P.O. Box 40009
San Francisco, CA 94140
Tel. 415-641-8616
Email: [email protected]

[RATM-Eubie]

Is the protest still going on?

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Highway banner:

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/189973_10150128352408577_558193576_6450669_2422813 _n.jpg

[General Lud]

I'm sure you are aware that isn't Wisconsin.

[Paulappaul]

How do you know General?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Further to a story posted above, from PR Watch:


Wisconsin Judge Halts Union-Busting Bill

Submitted by Brendan Fischer on March 18, 2011 - 1:54pm

A second judge has castigated Wisconsin Republicans for excluding the public from the legislative process. Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi has issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of Governor Walker's union-busting bill on grounds that the conference committee's rushed passage of the bill on March 9 likely violated state Open Meeting laws.

While both chambers of the State Legislature passed the bill and Governor Walker has signed it, the bill does not become law until it is published by Secretary of State Doug LaFollette. The decision bars LaFollette from publication until a full hearing takes place on Tuesday, March 29. Judge Sumi, appointed to the bench by a Republican governor in 1998, is the second judge to issue a temporary restraining order against the state, following Judge John Albert's decision earlier this month requiring access to the Capitol building.

The Lawsuit

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne brought the case challenging the March 9 vote on grounds that it violated Open Meetings laws. Those laws state that public notice of meetings must be issued 24 hours in advance, and while there is an exception when "for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical," there still must be two hours advance notice. Republican leaders gave only one hour and forty minutes advance notice for the Joint Conference Committee meeting that amended the "budget repair bill," and no notice for the subsequent Senate floor vote that passed it.

In finding against the state, Judge Sumi's ruling emphasized the importance of open government in a democracy. "This was something that would and did catch the public unaware," Sumi said, "in what ended up being a closed session of a body in propelling legislation forward."

According to Phil Neuenfeldt, President of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, "Judge Sumi confirmed today what we knew all along – that the bill stripping hundreds of thousands of hard working Wisconsinites of their voice on the job was rammed through illegally in the dark of the night."

Illegal March 9 Meeting

The March 9 vote occurred after weeks of massive protests bill supporters may not have anticipated. Governor Walker introduced his union-busting budget repair bill on February 11 and expected to force it through the legislature with minimal review or consideration. Senate Democrats stymied that effort, depriving the Senate of the quorum necessary for passing budget bills by taking an out-of-state-trip. The delay allowed the public to understand the bill's harsh impact on working families and Wisconsin communities, and opposition to the bill grew as GOP poll numbers declined. On March 9, after weeks of massive protests, and after weeks of Governor Walker insisting that union-busting was a necessary budget measure, Wisconsin Republicans amended the bill to make it "non-budgetary" and only limit collective bargaining. While this exposed union-busting as a purely ideological pursuit, it also allowed the Senate to pass the bill without Democrats. All of this may have been unethical and illegitimate but only the lack of notice has been deemed illegal.

Despite Judge Sumi's rebuke, it appears that the Republican-controlled legislature can pass an identical bill that complies with Open Meeting requirements if Governor Walker calls a Special Session. Spokespersons for Governor Walker and legislative leaders have not stated they will do so but their lawyers are expected to appeal. Governor Walker's office issued a statement saying "[t]his legislation is still working through the legal process. We are confident the provisions of the budget repair bill will become law in the near future."

Still, many bill opponents see the decision as a victory. "State employees believe that nobody is above the law. We are gratified to see some of our so-called 'leaders' finally held accountable for their illegal actions," says Marty Beil, head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union AFSCME. "They may think they can get away with ignoring the vast majority of Wisconsin citizens by attacking worker freedoms, but they simply cannot continue ignoring the law if we want to continue calling our state a democracy."

Continuing Legal Challenges

While Judge Sumi will decide whether to permanently enjoin the law on March 29, the state's Republican leadership is also facing other legal challenges. Because the Capitol building was in lockdown while the legislature voted on the union-busting bill, Judge John Albert is considering whether Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch is in contempt of Albert's Capitol access order. In late May, Judge Albert will decide whether to make permanent his temporary restraining order guaranteeing an open Capitol building. Additionally, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission is considering an unfair labor practices complaint from the state employee union AFSCME, alleging Governor Walker has violated his duty to bargain in good faith.

Unfortunately, successful legal challenges may not stop Wisconsin Republicans from passing legislation attacking workers and Wisconsin's poor. But successful lawsuits demonstrate how state GOP members are growing desperate in their attempts to pass laws paying-back their corporate campaign backers.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/10372

And:


Recall Gets Personal and Senator's Girlfriend Gets State Job

Submitted by Jennifer Page on March 15, 2011 - 2:39pm

Republican state Senator Randy Hopper now knows exactly what it feels like to have his dirty laundry aired for the world to see. It's not pretty.

The two-year senator from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin is in the midst of efforts to recall him from office for his actions against worker rights and fair procedures, and the Milwaukee-based WTMJ-TV has received a letter from his estranged wife accusing him of having an affair with a young woman he supervised. In the Wisconsin Senate, Hopper serves on the "Children and Families and Workforce Development Committee."

Hopper's record in the Senate includes his support for the efforts of Scott Walker, the controversial new governor, to reduce taxes for businesses while cutting rights and benefits of employees. Notably, along with Republican Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald, Hopper co-sponsored a bill to benefit millionaire businessmen by cutting taxes on capital gains and thus cutting revenues for the state. Hopper's proposal, Senate Bill 28, sought to change Wisconsin law, which already provided an income tax exclusion for individuals for 60 percent of the net capital gains realized from the sale of assets held for at least one year.

But Hopper wanted even more. Under his proposed law, "an individual; an individual partner or member of a partnership, limited liability company, or limited liability partnership; or an individual shareholder of a tax−option corporation (claimant) may subtract from federal adjusted gross income the amount of capital gain, not to exceed $10,000,000 in a taxable year, realized from the sale of any asset held more than one year" if they invest the gain in a Wisconsin business (with no limitation on that business then paying the millions back to the investor as salary or other income). That is, Hopper sought to use his post in the Senate to allow businesses or CEOs literally to write-off up to $10,000,000 in income to avoid taxes on that income, and that give-away would apply to any number of CEOs and businesses in the state, reducing by millions of dollars the tax revenues needed to pay for essential services and benefits for children and families in Wisconsin. The bill did not pass during his first term in the Senate.

Hopper's wife states that the adulterous affair has proceeded while he has been living outside of his voting district. For a full year. The TMJ Web site reported that: "TMJ4 received a letter from a woman claiming to be Randy Hopper's wife, Alysia Hopper. The letter arrived on a letterhead envelope from Alysia Hopper's business. The letter claims Randy Hopper, "started an affair in January 2010 with a then 25 year old Republican aide." It claims "Randy moved out" and "now lives mostly in Madison."

Wisconsin state law requires a legislature to live in the Senate district he or she represents. But, The Green Bay Press Gazette reported that "a Government Accountability Board spokesman said the law permits a temporary absence as long as the lawmaker intends to move back into the district."

And even though the state is deeply in debt, the women in the middle of the ugly marital dispute has been given a position with the state.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Valerie Cass, Hopper's 25-year-old girlfriend, was "hired on Feb. 7 as a communications specialist with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing. She is being paid $20.35 per hour. The job is considered a temporary post."

"According to a Madison TV report, Cass received a substantial pay raise over her predecessor."

Cass was a previous staff member in the state Senate, campaign work for U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner and also worked for Persuasion Partners, a Republican campaign consulting firm.

David Carlson, Department of Regulation and Licensing spokesperson, maintains there was no influence on the decision to hire Cass.

"Ms. Cass' name was among many forwarded to DRL by the Governor's Transition Team as potential candidates for positions with the department," said Carlson. She was then recommended by Keith Gilkes, Walker's chief of staff and hired by Secretary Dave Ross, a Walker cabinet member.

Hopper is one of the several legislators who are facing recall efforts as a result of their support for Governor Walker's budget-repair bill. Hopper may be one of the most vulnerable senators of the 16, as recall supporters begin to collect petition signatures to force a new election. Petitioners from the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board March have been out in force gathering signatures for a recall 2. The Capitol Times in Madison says that "by law, the committee has 60 days to collect 15,629 signatures to recall the Republican lawmaker." Their recall plea was submitted on March 2. Alysia Hopper promises to sign the petition to recall him. (Some of the senators facing recall have voted for legislation undermining the rights of employees; others have been targeted by pro-Walker supporters, including anti-labor activists from Utah, as CMD has reported.)

Hopper has apparently set up a campaign office, as an undisclosed location in Fond du Lac, in anticipation of the recall. Mike Trevey of TMJ4 reported that, "Hopper campaign spokesman Jeff Harvey indicated, "Senator Hopper maintains an apartment in the district where he lives and works. He and his wife separated roughly a year ago and are divorcing, which is a private family matter."

But the online Fond du Lac County property tax map shows the address is not an apartment. It is a roughly $600,000 home owned by a high-ranking employee of Hopper's media company, Mountain Dog Media. That is a big "apartment." Hopper is the owner of CHR "Z95.5" KFIZ and AC "K107" WFON in Fond du Lac, and all-sports "ESPN 950" WCLB in Sheboygan. Matt Phillips, Hopper's policy advisor, says Hopper's official address will be his family home that he shared with his family until their divorce is final.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/10355

[bcbm]

How do you know General?

green deciduous trees in march?

[black magick hustla]

the day i live through a wildcat strike i will need new underwears because im just gonna cream on myself

[RED DAVE]

In the absence of any follow-up on the Madison actions, the Right is out for blood.

Wisconsin Union Law Published Despite Court Order

Mar 26, 2011 – 8:27 AM

Scott Bauer
AP
MADISON, Wis. -- Wisconsin Republicans insist that the anti-union law that sparked weeks of protests at the state Capitol and that is being challenged in court takes effect Saturday because a state office decided to post it online. The head of the office that posted it and a court order temporarily blocking the law's implementation suggest otherwise.

The saga surrounding Gov. Scott Walker's push to strip most public employees of nearly all of their collective bargaining rights took another unexpected, and confusing, turn Friday when the Legislative Reference Bureau posted the law online, despite a court order blocking its publication while challenges to the law are considered.

The drama behind Gov. Scott Walker's push to strip most public employees' collective bargaining rights took another twist when the Legislative Reference Bureau posted the law online despite a court order blocking its publication while challenges to the law are considered.

That order specifically bars Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the law, which is the last step before a law takes effect. This is typically done by the Reference Bureau within 10 working days after it's signed by the governor, on a date set by the secretary of state. Walker signed the collective bargaining measure March 11 and La Follette initially designated Friday as the date of publication. But after the restraining order was issued, La Follette notified the Reference Bureau that he was rescinding that publication date.

La Follette said Friday that he didn't know what the law's online publication meant, and that he's not taking any action because of the court order.

Ultimately, the state Supreme Court will likely decide the law's fate. A state appeals court earlier in the week asked the Supreme Court to take up one of several lawsuits challenging its approval.

Dane County Circuit Judge Sarah O'Brien refused to take up a request for emergency action made late Friday by the Democratic district attorney, Ismael Ozanne, saying there was no "critical urgency" in her addressing the posting because the temporary restraining order preserves the status quo. She said she didn't know what effect the online posting had, and that the issue could wait until a previously scheduled hearing Tuesday in one of the lawsuits challenging the law's legitimacy.

But Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who said he went to the Reference Bureau with the idea, wasted no time in saying that the law's online publication meant it would take effect Saturday. His brother, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, agreed, according to a spokesman.

"It's my opinion it's published, it's on the legislative website, it's law," Scott Fitzgerald said. "It was clear to me after our discussions this morning, if it in fact it is posted and it says published and there's a specific date on it, it would be very hard to argue this was not law."

Steve Miller, the Reference Bureau's director, disagreed, insisting that posting the law online was simply a procedural step and that the law wouldn't take effect until La Follette orders it published in a newspaper.

"It's not implementation at all," Miller said. "It's simply a matter of forwarding an official copy to the secretary of state."

Scott Grosz, a staff attorney for the nonpartisan Legislative Council, said the law's publication meets certain obligations under the law, but that nothing can happen until La Follette acts.

"And at this time the secretary's actions remain subject to the temporary restraining order," Grosz said in a memo to Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca.

Walker signed the collective bargaining measure March 11 and La Follette had designated Friday as the date of publication. But after the judge's restraining order, La Follette sent a letter to the Reference Bureau saying he was rescinding the publication date he had set.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice issued a statement saying it would evaluate how the publication of the law, which it said was lawful, affects the pending lawsuit. The bureau's action did not require anything to be done by La Follette and he was not in violation of the court's order, the DOJ statement said.

The statement did not say whether the action means the law takes effect Saturday.

Ozanne, the Dane County district attorney whose lawsuit challenging the law led to the restraining order, said the bureau's action didn't change the status quo but ultimately it would be up to a court to decide what it means.

That lawsuit and two others allege lawmakers broke the state open meetings law by hastily calling a special committee meeting to put the bill in a form that the Senate could pass it without any Democrats present. All 14 Senate Democrats had fled the state three weeks earlier to block a vote on the measure by preventing quorum.

The new law requires nearly all public sector workers, including teachers, to contribute more to their pensions and health insurance, changes that amount to an average 8 percent pay cut. It also strips them of their ability to collectively bargain for anything except wages no higher than inflation.

Consideration of the proposal spurred massive protests that grew to more than 85,000 people the day after Walker signed the measure and made Wisconsin the national focus of the fight over union rights.

Union leaders were outraged with the latest twist in the ongoing saga.

"This is another sign that the governor and Legislature are in a desperate power grab to take away the voice of teachers, support staff, nurses, home health care workers and other public employees," said Mary Bell, president of the statewide teachers' union. "These tactics are not in the Wisconsin tradition of open government and do not represent the will of the people."

Marty Beil, executive director of the state's largest public employee union, said he didn't think the action meant the law was going to take effect.

"It's craziness. These guys are off the wall. They're drunk with some kind of power or misconception of reality," Beil said, referring to Walker and Scott Fitzgerald.

Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, called the action an "illegal backdoor maneuver."

"This is a dark day for Wisconsin and a travesty to our democracy," he said.http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/26/wisconsin-union-law-published-despite-court-order/?icid=maing|main5|dl1|sec3_lnk3|51924 (http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/26/wisconsin-union-law-published-despite-court-order/?icid=maing%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec3_lnk3%7C51924)

RED DAVE

[PhoenixAsh]

so...if there is a restraining order to publish...and it is published... Isn't there a violation of the law?

Its also very disconcernig to read this union guy saying this is craziness...far off the wal. Thats ostrich politics.... They eare doing it...and so far are getting away with it. So get moving! damned it.

[Os Cangaceiros]

God this is disappointing. The law being beaten through the courts will work out nicely for the hack union leaders. All the talk about labor action in response to the bill seems to have amounted to nothing.

[Sasha]

backclash time! (yes its an dem serving backclash and not an revolutionary but still, its nice to see it)


Big Day Today in Wisconsin (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/04/05/big-day-today-in-wisconsin)

Posted by Goldy (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/ArticleArchives?author=4904583) on Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 12:54 PM

Today is election day in Wisconsin, the first one since Tea Party Gov. Scott Walker set out on his anti-worker/anti-union crusade. And the outcome couldn't be more critical.
Under normal circumstances the only challenger with the strength to take out an incumbent state supreme court justice is the Angel of Death, but conservative Justice David Prosser could well become the first electoral victim of the anti-Walker backlash that's been sweeping through Wisconsin. And while there's been little polling on which to base predictions, anecdotal reports suggest that turnout is unusually strong, particularly in Democratic precincts... and that's gotta bode well for challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg.
At stake is more than just bragging rights. Conservatives currently hold a 4-3 majority on the state's highest court, which a Kloppenburg victory would presumably flip. And that could control how the court rules when Walker's arguably unconstitutional legislation finally comes before it.
Either way, there's a movement afoot in Wisconsin that could end up revitalizing the progressive base and redefining the terms of the 2012 election. Enough signatures have already been gathered to hold recall votes on two Republican state senators, and they're only halfway toward the 60-day deadline. Within a few months, Wisconsin Democrats could potentially flip control of both the senate and the supreme court. And then Walker himself is eligible for recall come January.
Interesting times.

[bcbm]

7500 votes for republican incumbent suddenly turn up two days after the election...

[PhoenixAsh]

GIdEGIWsQnk


Yes...somebody made a mistake. Apparently. Suddenly. Conveniently. Coincidentally. Yes they did. Sure.

[S.Artesian]

We should be clear about this: Ever since the Voting Rights Act passed, the bourgeoisie have been involved with restoring the exclusion to voting that used to be simply assumed as the basis for "republican government."

This is just another version of that, and should tell us how stupid it is to vote for Democrats, or Greens, or liberals... as the bourgeoisie are more than willing, committed, to suppressing the outcome of voting, ignoring votes, laws, rules, etc.

So when somebody tells you to vote for the justice vs. that justice, or this Obama vs. that McCain, keep in mind how insignificant the chances are of anything coming of the vote.

[ckaihatsu]

---





[...]

The latest turn of events in the judicial election underscores the dead-end of the perspective promoted by the unions and their left-liberal allies of channeling working class opposition to Walker’s attacks behind the Democratic Party. The unions opposed calls for a general strike and closed down strikes and mass protests in favor of electoral campaigns—first the judicial election and then efforts to recall Republican state senators.

The focus on the Supreme Court election and recall drives was from the beginning a diversion, whose main purpose was to demobilize the working class. The unions insisted from the outset that they would not oppose Walker’s demands for sweeping cuts in public workers’ wages and benefits and sought to offer up these concessions in return for Walker dropping provisions that threaten the unions’ income flow—including an end to the dues checkoff and yearly elections for union certification.

The Democrats, for their part, made clear that they supported cuts in wages and benefits and attacks on health care, education and other social services.

Absent the mass industrial mobilization and independent political organization of the working class, the ruling elite will impose by any means—legal or illegal—measures to further impoverish working people and criminalize all forms of collective working class resistance.

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/wisc-a09.shtml

[Ele'ill]

How about we mainstream the failures of engaging in party politics. A mainstream user friendly site which only serves to document how party politics and internal system reforms fail the working class over and over again. No in-depth political assessment is necessary here- just the crystal clear listing of events throughout history up until current events and into the future.

[Rocky Rococo]

One of the stupidest possible political moves is to divert movement politics into standard partisan electoral politics. For one thing, just engaging in "politics as usual" takes the shine off of any new and rising political movement, such as what emerged in Wisconsin. One of the reasons people respond so passionately to movement politics like that which emerged in Madison is because precisely isn't politics as usual.

Of course, it's precisely the function of the Democratic party in the US hegemonic system to be the spider web that entangles any new progressive movement in the estalished politics as usual for the deliberate purpose of bleeding away the legitimacy of movement politics.

[ckaihatsu]

One of the stupidest possible political moves is to divert movement politics into standard partisan electoral politics. For one thing, just engaging in "politics as usual" takes the shine off of any new and rising political movement, such as what emerged in Wisconsin. One of the reasons people respond so passionately to movement politics like that which emerged in Madison is because precisely isn't politics as usual.

Of course, it's precisely the function of the Democratic party in the US hegemonic system to be the spider web that entangles any new progressive movement in the estalished politics as usual for the deliberate purpose of bleeding away the legitimacy of movement politics.


Hey, c'mon people, turn that frown *upside-down*! Look, we're going to just set up a few of these colorful festival tents up next week in Tahrir Square and Madison's capitol building to see if you, the public, would vote for Hosni Mubarak and Scott Walker if they just happened to be on the same ticket -- y'know, to see how you feel about them *these* days.... Okay, free pencils for those who fill out a survey form!

= D


x D

[Red Commissar]

Well, this was going to happen I think. There were people in the movement who tried to get people to dispel their anger at the ballot box after the anti-Union provisions were signed in to law. Haven't people learned that it rarely brings what they desire? Really though it's odd that they just happen to find all those votes from what appears to be an entire town out of the blue

Though I'm worried at this juncture that people would understandably get disillusioned and apathetic and let Walker continue his shit unopposed. I hope that won't happen.

[agnixie]

Well, this was going to happen I think. There were people in the movement who tried to get people to dispel their anger at the ballot box after the anti-Union provisions were signed in to law. Haven't people learned that it rarely brings what they desire? Really though it's odd that they just happen to find all those votes from what appears to be an entire town out of the blue

Though I'm worried at this juncture that people would understandably get disillusioned and apathetic and let Walker continue his shit unopposed. I hope that won't happen.

Cynically, I think the state of the economy will determine whether it goes on or goes apathetic. If things go critical (as they seem likely to), I can see people going for another round, especially as the proposed model for the midwest is going to turn them into the south.

[ckaihatsu]

Though I'm worried at this juncture that people would understandably get disillusioned and apathetic and let Walker continue his shit unopposed. I hope that won't happen.





Cynically, I think the state of the economy will determine whether it goes on or goes apathetic. If things go critical (as they seem likely to), I can see people going for another round, especially as the proposed model for the midwest is going to turn them into the south.


At *best* this continuing downslide in the U.S. economy will force the question of nation-or-class within the general population, particularly among trade unionists. (What we saw in the radical protest at Madison's capitol building was fence-sitting *populism* -- an unresolved position.)

So far, the politics of the downslide lead into the narrative put forth by the "pragmatic" Right wherein the logic of the shrinking budget trumps all else, situated solely within the confines of the nation-state apparatus. Since the U.S. isn't an up-and-coming BRIC nation there's no reason to expect real growth (GDP) anytime soon -- it's no wonder uncertainty and nationalist anxiety are prevailing right now, absent a full shift of consciousness into the *working class* camp.

[ckaihatsu]

These two diagrams apply to the current situation....


Ideologies & Operations -- Left Centrifugalism

http://postimage.org/image/1g4s6wax0/

http://postimage.org/image/2cvo2d7fo/


[3] Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals

http://postimage.org/image/34modgv1g/

[ckaihatsu]

ImmigrantNews!

I.W.U. Informing, Organazing and Fighting since 2006
Donate HERE





**** English version ****
*Español mas abajo *

International Workers Day Rally

For Immigrant, Public Workers’s and All People's Rights

Let's Show Scott Walker that We will Win Through Unity!

Sunday May 1 Brittingham Park starting at 1 Afternoon

On May First, Immigrant Workers Union is organizing this year's May Day Rally. In this way, Madison will join a long list of cities from coast to coast in defense of immigrant rights and solidarity with public employees.

The Government of Scott Walker has proposed a budget that directly affects working class and immigrant families in Wisconsin. It seeks to remove food aid (food stamps) to documented immigrants, increase tuition and for undocumented students will pay like international student which is between two and three times the normal price for at UW Madison or MATC technical school. They have also proposed cuts in public health and education that will very seriously affect working families, especially lowincome workers.

Aditionaly, Rep. Pridemore has spent months preparing a version of the Arizona law that would force local police to ask for papers to those who "look" undocumented and are charged for any kind of infraction, including misdemeanor traffic violations like accidentally running a red light.

During the months of February and March, hundreds of thousands of workers protested at the Capitol against Governor Walker's attacks. On May Day, unions will support immigrant communities to form an even larger unity in the fight for our rights. The working class needs to go out again and join the public employees to stop the attacks on our families. This May Day will be essential to our future; Milwaukee and Madison are the main points in the defense of immigrant and working class families throughout the state.

Come and join in the rally on Sunday May 1st at 1pm at Brittingham Park (at the intersection of West Washington Ave and Park St.)
For more information: www.unniondetrabajadores.org






**** Spanish Version ****

Gran Marcha del Día Internacional de los Trabajadores

Por Derechos para los Trabajadores Inmigrantes y para los Trabajadores Públicos

El Domingo 1 de Mayo partiendo del Parque Brittingham a la 1 de la Tarde

El próximo domingo Primero de Mayo se dará cita la marcha por los derechos de los trabajadores, Madison así se unirá a una larga lista de ciudades de costa a costa en defensa de los derechos de los inmigrantes y en solidaridad con los trabajadores públicos.

El Gobierno de Scott Walker ha propuesto un presupuesto que afecta directamente a los inmigrantes de Wisconsin. Pretende quitar la ayuda alimentaria (estampillas de comida) a los inmigrantes con papeles, también acaba con el sueño de nuestra juventud obligando a nuestros jóvenes a pagar a precio de estudiante internacional que supone entre dos y tres veces el precio normal por una colegiatura en UW Madison o en la escuela técnica MATC. Además, ha planteado recortes en la sanidad y la educación pública que afectaran muy gravemente a la comunidad trabajadora especialmente indocumentada.

Finalmente, el presente gobierno de Wisconsin lleva meses preparando una versión de la ley de Arizona la que obligaría a la policía local a pedir papeles a aquellos que “parezcan” indocumentados y hayan cometido una infracción de cualquier tipo incluyendo una falta leve de trafico como pasarse una luz roja.

Durante los meses de Febrero y Marzo cientos de miles de trabajadores han protestado contra los ataques del nuevo gobernador Scott Walker alrededor del Capitolio. En el Primero de Mayo las uniones apoyaran a las comunidades inmigrantes para formar una unidad aun más grande en la lucha por nuestros derechos. La comunidad inmigrante necesita salir a la calle una vez más y unirse a los trabajadores públicos para detener los ataques a las familias trabajadoras.

Este Primero de Mayo será esencial para nuestro futuro, Milwaukee y Madison serán los puntos centrales en la defensa de las familias trabajadoras en todo el estado.
Ven y participa en la gran marcha el Próximo domingo 1 de mayo a partir de la 1 de la Tarde en el Parque Brittinham (en la intercepción de Washington y Park St.)

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MAY DAY RALLY
SUNDAY MAY FIRST Starting 1PM @ Brittinghan Park ending at the Capitol

MAY DAY RALLY ENDORSEMENTS
Immigrant Workers Union, Building Trades Council of South Central Wisconsin,Progressive Dane, AFSCME Local 1871, Industrial Workers of the World , International Socialist Organization, Chicago & MidWest Regional Joint Board of Worker's United, Workers International League, Local 171, We Are Wisconsin (State and Dane County), Workers Rights Center, and more in the way.

Support the International Workers Day Please send us an email to [email protected] to add your name in the list of organizations.


PEOPLE'S RIGHTS FOR A BROAD STRONG PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT
PEOPLE’S RIGHTS
A just taxation system in which corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share
Living wage jobs
The right to collectively organize and bargain
Quality, affordable public education in the public domain
Quality and affordable healthcare
Protection of our environment
Access to healthy food and quality housing
A secure retirement
Strengthened human, civil and immigrant rights
FOR ALL

more at www.peoplesrightscampaign.org

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[Sasha]

Three Down in Wisconsin (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/04/18/three-down-in-wisconsin)

Posted by Goldy (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/ArticleArchives?author=4904583) on Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 2:33 PM

Wisconsin Democrats filed a third recall petition (http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_7573e862-6971-11e0-9a86-001cc4c002e0.html) today, putting control of the state senate into serious play. Republicans currently hold a 19-14 advantage, so a three vote pickup would flip control.
And according to the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, the Dems have plenty of cushion (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/can-dems-take-back-wisconsin-state-senate/2011/03/03/AF9P7r0D_blog.html) to spare:

Graeme Zielinski, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, tells me that Dems will file 23,931 signatures. That means Dems have collected 162% of the 14,733 required.
This comes after Dems recently announced that they had collected 145 percent of the signatures required to trigger a recall election against GOP state senator Dan Kapanke, and over 150 percent of the number required against senator Randy Hopper.
Republicans are also attempting to recall several Democratic senators, but have yet to announce any progress just one week before the deadline. Yeah sure, there are still the recall election battles to wage, but all in all, it's a pretty stunning developing. In fact, as Sargent points out, unprecedented:

It’s worth noting that even though there have been only four recall elections triggered in the state’s entire history, Wisconsin Dems are on the verge of managing it three times in a matter of months. It’s yet another way that this year’s events in Wisconsin are unprecedented.
Thank you again, Gov. Walker, for reminding Democrats why they are Democrats.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Yay Democrats! Wait a second...Yay Democrats?

[Sasha]

Fuck democrats, this is offcourse working-class anger funneled completely the wrong way but the fact remains that, by now 4 recall petitions managed to get more than enough signatures shows there is still.tremendous anger there.
You have to understand that to force a recall you have 60 days to get support signatures from 25% of the voters.
This is so difficult that before this it only happend 4 times since Wisconsin got statehood. In a few weeks they managed to at least double that number.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Sorry I thought for a second that you were the one who said "Thank you again, Gov. Walker, for reminding Democrats why they are Democrats." Which is what made me go wtf :confused:.

[MattShizzle]

I absolutely will not buy anything made in Wisconsin as long as this goes on. A general strike of ALL workers in the State would make trash like Walker either think twice or do something really repressive to anger people even more.

[ckaihatsu]

Fuck democrats, this is offcourse working-class anger funneled completely the wrong way but the fact remains that, by now 4 recall petitions managed to get more than enough signatures shows there is still.tremendous anger there.
You have to understand that to force a recall you have 60 days to get support signatures from 25% of the voters.
This is so difficult that before this it only happend 4 times since Wisconsin got statehood. In a few weeks they managed to at least double that number.


What's the bureaucratic process for removing capitalism from the economy?

[MattShizzle]

A bunch of guns and puting the bureaucrats in favor of capitalism against the wall. And the exploiter pig capitalists themselves. :)

[ckaihatsu]

A bunch of guns and puting the bureaucrats in favor of capitalism against the wall. And the exploiter pig capitalists themselves. :)


I just haven't heard any updates lately about how else the workers there are responding to the budget cuts and attacks on the trade unions -- the momentum seems to have been redirected and spun around into judicial maneuvers and electoral reformism. The protests at the capitol building already feel like they took place an entire generation ago...(!)

[Sasha]

Wisconsin Teachers Retiring en Masse in Response to Union Busting (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/04/25/wisconsin-teachers-retiring-en-masse-in-response-to-union-busting)

Posted by Goldy (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/ArticleArchives?author=4904583) on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 12:23 PM

Republicans love to argue that government should be operated more like a business. Well, welcome to the world of market incentives (http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/article_3e051bf8-6d18-11e0-a33e-001cc4c03286.html):

As of the April 15 deadline, 138 Madison teachers have decided to retire, Superintendent Dan Nerad said. That's a 62 percent increase over the average number of retirements over the previous five years.
The district plans to fill all of the positions, Nerad said, though the loss of so many more veteran teachers than usual could have a more noticeable effect on students and novice teachers.
"A lot of these people have been working with generations of students and influencing people for a long, long time," Nerad said. "Our intention is to replace them with knowledgeable people, but as a rule they will be less experienced."
See, it's not just capital that's mobile. So too is labor. And when you mistreat and/or under-compensate your workers, they'll move on to better opportunities elsewhere. But economic incentives aside, fuck... I wouldn't work for an employer who didn't respect me. Would you?
That's why school districts throughout Wisconsin are seeing higher than normal retirement rates, while state public employee retirement rates are up 80 percent over last year. And while no doubt in this economy they'll eventually fill all these open jobs, they'll fill 'em with less experienced, less qualified workers, ultimately meaning a lesser education for Wisconsin children. Because in the free market, you get what you pay for.

[ckaihatsu]

Thanks -- pretty sad that there's not even a collective response to the Republican attack -- what ever happened to the South Central Wisconsin trade union organization that initiated preparations for a general strike? Things have really slumped since then.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

What ever happened to the South Central Wisconsin trade union organization that initiated preparations for a general strike? .

This is what happened, surprise, surprise:

http://thetbf.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/labor-gets-fucked-and-labor-leadership-does-gasp-nothing/

[ckaihatsu]

Labor leadership couldn’t agree more. The Wisconsin Education Association Council issued a statement urging its members not to go to the capitol to protest, but instead to go back to work, assuring its workers that they would “not back down.”




The message was clear: workers were not to be allowed to devise their own strategy or take their own initiative in this fight. The Democrats would do that for them.


Yeah, I remember this part now -- I guess I was expecting to at least see some kind of ad-hoc rank-and-file statement in response to this unilateral directive. Instead there's only been silence and self-imposed attrition.

[ckaihatsu]

Interview with NANCY WOHLFORTH on Lessons of Wisconsin and Challenges Facing the U.S. Labor Movement Today


INTERVIEW WITH NANCY WOHLFORTH

[Note: The following interview with Nancy Wohlforth, member of the National Executive Committee of the AFL-CIO, is reprinted here from ILC International Newsletter No. 34 (April 29, 2011.) The interview was conducted on April 16, 2011, by Daniel Gluckstein, co-coordinator of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC). Sister Wohlforth is also a member of the newly formed Coordinating Committee of the ILC. She will a participant in the ILC's Annual Conference in Geneva on June 4-5. This year's ILC Conference in Defense of the ILO Conventions and the Independence of the Trade Unions is being held on the occasion of the 100th Annual Assembly of the International Labor Organization -- Editors]

QUESTION: You will be present at the ILC Conference in Defense of the Conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and for the Independence of the Trade Unions, which will be held in Geneva on June 4-5. Some weeks ago, working people throughout the world saw what happened in Wisconsin. What are the lessons that can be drawn from the mass mobilization in Wisconsin regarding the right of trade unions to exist and bargain collectively?

NANCY WOHLFORTH: The lessons are two. The first lesson is build from the bottom up, from the rank and file, to make no concessions, to organize around the issue of "No Concessions!" and organize the fightback against the leadership of the legislators, not just the governor. And find some of the legislators who the unions elected to tell them that if they are going to get elected again, they must stand with us in the trade union movement.

The second lesson is to go to all the unions, and say: "We are all one. We are all in this struggle together. It is not just the public sector workers." We must build a collective leadership out of the rank and file, together with the elected local leaders, all coming together to make decisions as a group -- not as one union here, one union there. In Wisconsin, the building trades, which is usually a much more conservative group, joined with the student movement to fight back against the governor and against the legislators. And they helped get the 14 Democratic senators out of Wisconsin, and they supported them out of state.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian workers supported the Wisconsin workers by sending them pictures and money -- and there was a beginning of understanding that globalization is here to stay and that we are all in this struggle together. Again, this is not just the fight of a public sector worker; it is the fight of a carpenter, an office worker, or a private sector. This globalization process is affecting all of us.

Though the right wing won in Wisconsin -- they took away collective bargaining -- I believe it's a temporary victory. I think we will ultimately win it back if we keep the struggle going, if we keep fighting. And right now, the union movement has sent all its organizers to keep the struggle going, which is very good.

QUESTION: But at this stage, the fightback the occurred in Wisconsin is not going on all across the United States?

NANCY WOHLFORTH: No. There have been mobilizations in Ohio, for instance, but not on the scale of what happened in Wisconsin -- largely because of a lack of young people and of leadership from below, from the local union leaderships.

Wisconsin is historically one of the strongest union states in the United States. My father was one of the founders of the public sector union in Wisconsin in the 1930s. In Milwaukee, we had the right to collective bargaining way before the state gave collective bargaining. The rest of the state did not get this right till the 1970s.

In California, we have the possibility on the ground to duplicate what happened in Wisconsin. If the leadership is willing to fight. I think that they have to, and that they will. There is a lot of strength in the big unions in California. The teachers and the school employees are two of the major unions, representing close to 750,000 members, and the leaderships are to the left of the other unions. So I think there will be a fight there.

QUESTION: In Wisconsin and other states where Republicans are out to smash collective bargaining rights, we saw prominent trade union leaders offer to make huge concessions and to accept budget cuts of up to $300 million in exchange for pledges from legislators to back off on their attacks on collective bargaining. What is your assessment of this strategy?

NANCY WOHLFORTH: There is a widespread belief that there is no money and that therefore we must make concessions in order to keep our jobs, our healthcare, our pensions ... and now our collective-bargaining rights.

There are a number of unions, including National Nurses United, that have been campaigning for funding to be redirected from the Defense budget to the states, so that there is sufficient funding in states across the nation to create jobs and fund social services. But the top leaders of the unions have held back from raising this issue because it directly confronts President Obama. It confronts the war in Afghanistan, where we will be spending trillions of dollars unless we stop this war. This is the big problem.

There is a split within the leadership of the unions over this question, though the bulk of the unions are with Obama and are unwilling to challenge the wars and the war spending. So the movement from below can go two ways. It can go to demoralization, or it can go to continued fightback. If California fights back, it believe the struggle we witnessed in Wisconsin can revive in the other states.

QUESTION: When you say if California fights back, you mean on the line of "no cuts, no concessions"?

NANCY WOHLFORTH: Yes. No concessions on pensions and no concessions on healthcare. We must keep the pensions and the health care. That's critical. But just as important, it is critical that people be out in the streets raising the demands for "No Concessions" -- raising the idea that we must fight back, that we cannot accept these concessions.

When former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was in office, we in the California Labor Federation stated out position unambiguously: "No Concessions on health care!" We have held the line on health care to this day.

The pensions are public in California -- in the public schools and public hospitals. We must wage a struggle to keep this public pension system.

QUESTION: As far as I understand, the attacks waged in Wisconsin and 12 or 13 other states are not only the result of the pressure from the Tea Party movement. These attacks would not have been possible if the Obama administration itself had not paved the way for these attacks?

NANCY WOHLFORTH: Correct. The Obama administration said it was for collective bargaining. True enough. But did they do anything? No. Did they give speeches, did they show up at rallies? No.

When he ran for office, Obama said that wherever collective-bargaining rights were under attack he would "put on his walking shoes" and be "on every picket line." He said he would campaign tirelessly on behalf of the trade union movement.

But Obama and his administration did nothing, absolutely nothing, to fight these attacks and advance the workers' demands.

Now they claim behind the scenes that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Obama were meeting to try and cut a deal to save collective bargaining -- I have no idea if this is true ... by giving concessions. That was the idea: "We will save our collective bargaining by giving all these concessions." But how can this be considered acceptable: "If you give up everything in advance, if you have nothing left to bargain, what's the use of collective bargaining?" It's an empty shell.

Maybe some day it will make it a little easier to get back what we gave up; this is their line: "It will make it easier down the road." But this entire approach makes the unions look irrelevant. A worker will ask: "Why should I be joining you. Why should I join the union if in fact I cannot gain anything, I cannot gain any of my demands or even preserve what I have won. Why should I join a union that is not willing to put up a fightback?"

QUESTION: The idea here, which is also the idea of the International Labor Organization (ILO), is to say that by these kinds of concessions, they are preserving the "general interest" -- that is, the common interests of everybody, workers and bosses alike. Is it the same line of argument in the United States?

NANCY WOHLFORTH: Yes. Very similar. The argument is that in order for us to have anything, we must go along with the concessions, because, again, there is no money. There must be a "shared sacrifice." Of course, there really is no sharing here. The government has given billions to Wall Street to bail it out, and billions more to General Motors to bail them out. But Wall Street and the corporations are paying us back peanuts, at the very same time that they pay themselves big bonuses and pay no taxes.

And this, in turn, means that we can't give billions to the schools, to the public sector employees, and to all the other people who desperately need it. It makes no sense. The government find billions to bail out the banks. And remember that, theoretically, they were going to lend this money to the corporations, to the small business, to the mortgage people to stimulate the economy. Š But they did nothing of the sort.

What they have done is pocket trillions of dollars. They have trillions of dollars literally sitting in their coffers. And their line is: "We are waiting to see what happens with the tax cuts. If the tax cuts are OK, then they will release some funds." But you can be sure these will not be funds for housing, they are not going to make that "mistake." But they are going to release some funds, to do what, I don't know.

They surely don't want to release these funds to the State to use on public sector employees. They clearly want to do away with civil servants. They want the right to fire whomever, hire whomever, get rid of seniority, get rid of grievances, and get rid of all the rights that we have won over the years.

About the only funding we are seeing to support the public sector is the funding for charter schools or for "Race to the Top" -- where you get a maximum of dollars when you perform well on forging tests. These funds are ultimately aimed at privatizing public education.

QUESTION: Is trade union movement in the United States become weaker under the Obama administration?

NANCY WOHLFORTH: Yes, and I'm extremely worried about that. We are now perhaps 7% to 7.5 % in the private sector, and about 36% in the public sector -- which is why the right wing is going after public sector unions with such a vengeance. But the percentage of the organized workforce keeps going down -- and this is because the unions have not mounted a fightback.

Under the New Deal there were the bonus marches. It was a real fightback movement. We have done none of that. Nobody sees the unions doing those things -- until Wisconsin. We did see the emergence of a fightback in Wisconsin, which inspired unionists all across the United States. We saw the local leadership and the rank and file challenging the gang of politicians that had screwed them.

But even in Wisconsin things are going to be rough for the unions. The unions have set out to fund a campaign to recall the Republican senators who voted for Governor Scott Walker's attacks. It won't be easy to raise this money from union members in Wisconsin who have lost their jobs, or have to pay a lot more for their health-care coverage or whose pensions are frozen. A union member will ask: Why should I pay more $30 more a month to recall politicians when the unions did not stand up to stop the attacks on my pensions or health care.

As for Obama, millions of people who voted for him -- especially youth, Latinos, African American workers -- are very sad and despondent. They say Obama is being screwed by the Republicans. They blame the Tea Party and the racists for all the problems, not understanding that it's the entire system that's at fault.

QUESTION: But at the same time, millions of people who voted for Obama in November 2008 abstained in the November 2010 election. ...

NANCY WOHLFORTH: Yes. The progressive voters did not turn out to vote, while the Tea Party people turned out all their people. This is why Tea Party people got elected in Wisconsin. If the Obama people who had voted in 2008 had gone out and voted in 2010, that would not have happened.

QUESTION: So the discussion is going on in the trade union movement about all these issues?

NANCY WOHLFORTH: Yes. It's getting a little bit more heated internally. There has been real discussion about the need to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and slash the Defense budget. At the same time, we are now entering the 2012 election period, and there will be renewed pressure to re-elect Obama. We will be told this is the most important election in our lives. We will be told to re-elect Obama because there is no alternative -- and the reality is that the alternative is very frightening.

Of course, the growing popular support for the Tea Party and the drift of mainstream politics to the right is all happening because of the lack of leadership in the trade union movement, because there has not been leadership at the local level to help workers understand that the cause of all our problems is Wall Street and the wars.

Instead, what's happening is the corporations are taking advantage of this situation to explain that the main problem is the deficit -- and that we have to reduce government spending to close the deficit. This is crazy. It's going to continue to kill jobs. And Obama will continue to go down the path of cutting entitlements and killing jobs, because the unions are not standing up forcefully and building the fightback.

The situation is very bad. Wisconsin showed that when there is a leadership willing to fight back, the workers will be inspired and willing to fight. We now have a challenge before us of extending this fight to California. This is the challenge ahead. There is still time to turn things around. But we are running out of time.




ILC <[email protected]> Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:57 AM

INTERVIEW WITH NANCY WOHLFORTH

[Note: The following interview with Nancy Wohlforth, member of the National Executive Committee of the AFL-CIO, is reprinted here from ILC International Newsletter No. 34 (April 29, 2011.) The interview was conducted on April 16, 2011, by Daniel Gluckstein, co-coordinator of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC). Sister Wohlforth is also a member of the newly formed Coordinating Committee of the ILC. She will be a participant in the ILC's Annual Conference in Geneva on June 4-5. This year's ILC Conference in Defense of the ILO Conventions and the Independence of the Trade Unions is being held on the occasion of the 100th Annual Assembly of the International Labor Organization. -- Editors]
[Quoted text hidden]

[YSR]

Thanks -- pretty sad that there's not even a collective response to the Republican attack -- what ever happened to the South Central Wisconsin trade union organization that initiated preparations for a general strike? Things have really slumped since then.

Yo this was a group that was heavily influenced/made up of IWW members from Madison. They weren't union leadership, but rank-and-file participants in their regional labor federation. They did some educational presentations about what a general strike would mean when the energy was really high but for reasons that many others have commented on they were unable to move things by themselves. We simply don't have enough organization in the class in the States to mount something as serious as a GS just yet, at least that's the lesson I get from the WI experience.

[ckaihatsu]

Huge Protest in Madison Says to Governor Walker: "We Reject Your Budget"


By Staff

Madison, WI - "Governor Scott Walker, we reject your budget!" said Ben Mansky said to the roar of applause at a huge rally here, May 14. "Time for you to step down!"

The We Are Wisconsin rally at the state capitol drew over 20,000 people as protest activities continue all throughout Wisconsin to counter Governor Scott Walker's war on the poor and working people.

Governor Walker began his assault on organized labor last February when, just days into office, he attempted to rush through an emergency budget repair bill. The emergency budget bill intends to cripple unions with language that would virtually eliminate collective bargaining for most public sector unions in the state. Hundreds of thousands rose up, surrounded and occupied the state capitol. After finally forcing the bill through the assembly and senate weeks later, Gov. Walker still finds his bill tied up in the courts.

The rally was brought together by the We Are Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Wave coalitions. Protesters were there not only to defeat the budget repair bill, but also the proposed budget that intends to cut hundreds of millions from public education, decrease taxes for the rich and increase taxes to the sum of $49 million for the poor.

Another strong message at the rally was the need for support of immigrant rights. Latinos and immigrants to Wisconsin are facing an attack that may look to turn Wisconsin into the next Arizona. A march in Milwaukee on May 1 was the largest May Day rally in the country.

Christian, an undocumented high school student from Milwaukee, representing Youth Empowered in the Struggle, the youth wing of Voces de la Fronterra spoke at the rally, "We have been marching with you for months.”


Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]
Sent to [email protected]: unsubscribe | update profile | forward to a friend

[General Lud]

I showed this (shit, I still can't link, never mind) video of the Madison protests to my Korean girlfriend...who...is socialist minded herself...but perhaps far enough away from the context of the events to make a simple, but yet poignt statement.

"It looks like a party"

Which, hot damn, it does look like a party...which leads me to think, what went wrong in Madison was those that filled the capitol, went for the party (the celebratory nature of it all, and the capital D democratic type) over actual politics of the situation.

It's hard to make revolution on the cool. Is revolution cool? That is the primary question to be answered, should one wish to understand revolutionary activity in the US today. Is revolution cool? I guess with Madison, it wasn’t cool enough.

[ckaihatsu]

I showed this (shit, I still can't link, never mind) video of the Madison protests to my Korean girlfriend...who...is socialist minded herself...but perhaps far enough away from the context of the events to make a simple, but yet poignt statement.

"It looks like a party"

Which, hot damn, it does look like a party...which leads me to think, what went wrong in Madison was those that filled the capitol, went for the party (the celebratory nature of it all, and the capital D democratic type) over actual politics of the situation.

It's hard to make revolution on the cool. Is revolution cool? That is the primary question to be answered, should one wish to understand revolutionary activity in the US today. Is revolution cool? I guess with Madison, it wasn’t cool enough.


Yeah, this is a good point / topic -- offhand I'd say yes-and-no to it....

The *coolest* part of it was probably just that it was in Madison, which is a very cool college town and probably one of the choicier nearby get-away places for any Chicagoan. On the decidedly *un-cool* side of things was that this all took place in the dead of winter, so that pretty much eliminated any 'resort' appeal that may otherwise be present during the warmer months.

I wouldn't dismiss the seriousness of those who were there, though. I went up for the better part of a day in late February with a group -- one of the earlier days of the ongoing occupation of the capitol building. It was pretty solid with rank-and-file trade unionists, I would say, at a glance, with students and left-liberal / populist political types, as well as the expected presence of revolutionaries with newspapers. It really wasn't 'celebratory' -- there was mostly a lot of focused, directed political chants going on steadily, inside of an overall impromptu-variegated-convention kind of atmosphere.

I got into a handful of conversations with some who commented on my sign's slogan, or its indication of where I hailed from. No one there took politics lightly or seemed to be in it for the "scene" of it in any light-minded way, though the overall (populist-nationalist) politics espoused were far from what was needed to be effective against the onslaught of dogmatic Republican budget-cutting attacks.

If anything, the tone coming from this *latest* protest is more of what should have happened right away, back in February. It's more to the point to be defensive about the *budget* itself than about a more-procedural, shell-game diversion about the legalistic "official" "right" of trade unions to collectively bargain. (Meaning, of course, that the power to collectively bargain is found in the rank-and-file's willingness to strike and fight, *whatever* the present conditions happen to be.)

If revolution is cool, then it's on par with the coolness of the Che t-shirt that someone is wearing -- there's still the person *wearing* the t-shirt underneath...(!)

[Sasha]

WI Judge Strikes Down Walker’s Anti-Union Law

Eric Kleefeld (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/eric_kleefeld/2011/05/22-week/) | May 26, 2011, 11:57AM

[/URL]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/assets_c/2011/05/ScottWalker-MiddleofSpeaking-cropped-proto-custom_2.jpg
Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI)



Dane County (Madison) Judge Maryann Sumi -- who had previously blocked Wisconsin's controversial anti-union law from taking effect, pending litigation -- has now formally ruled that the manner in which the bill was passed violated the state's Open Meetings law, and that the law itself is therefore not valid.
"This case is the exemplar of values protected by the Open Meetings Law: transparency in government, the right of citizens to participate in their government, and respect for the rule of law," Sumi wrote in her decision, WisPolitics (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftpmdc.talkingpointsmemo. com%2F2011%2F05%2Fwi-judge-strikes-down-walkers-anti-union-law.php&src=sp) reports. "It is not the court's business to determine whether 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 is good public policy or bad public policy; that is the business of the Legislature. It is this court's responsibility, however, to apply the rule of law to the facts before it."
The matter revolves around a key conference committee used to advance the bill -- and to get around the state Senate Dems' walkout from the state -- and whether it violated the state's Open-Meetings law by failing to give proper 24-hours notice. Therefore, it is ruling on procedural grounds, rather than on the substance of the bill itself.
Thus, Republicans have always had an option if they wished to avoid this litigation: Pass the bill again, giving full notice of all relevant hearings and legislative procedures. They have resisted that avenue, believing that to do so would be an admission of guilt on the Open Meetings law when they really concede no such thing. But in recent weeks, they have begun to talk up this very possibility (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/wisconsin-republicans-threaten-end-run-around-courts-if-they-block-union-busting-effort.php) as court action dragged on.
Two months ago, Sumi blocked the law on procedural grounds (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/judge-blocks-wisconsins-union-busting-bill-on-procedural-grounds.php), issuing a temporary restraining order on the grounds the plaintiff, the Dane County District Attorney, had a likelihood of success in his complaint.
The Walker administration then made multiple attempts (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/wis-republicans-publish-anti-union-law----in-apparent-defiance-of-court-order.php) to disregard the ruling (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/walkers-office-were-still-enforcing-anti-union-law----court-order-doesnt-apply-to-us.php) and implement the law anyway, before ultimately backing down (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/finally-walker-administration-suspends-anti-union-law-after-judges-third-order-against-it.php) in the face of repeated orders.


source: [url]http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/wi-judge-strikes-down-walkers-anti-union-law.php?ref=fpa

[ckaihatsu]

Again and again, union leaders have made it clear that their opposition to Walker and the Republicans wasn’t about the money or cuts, but only about the right to “collectively bargain.” To the union apparatus, this does not mean defending living standards and conditions of worker but preserving their position to hand over the hard-won gains of public employees while continuing to collect dues from workers.

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/jun2011/wisc-j04.shtml

[ckaihatsu]

1) The trade union movement failed to raise the call to end the war in Afghanistan, bring the 50,000 troops home from Iraq, and cut the enormous military Defense budget. Such actions by the federal government would create a huge surplus that would eliminate all budget cuts and restore and add needed infrastructure, jobs, education, etc., both on the federal and state levels. This is the struggle waged by US Labor Against the War through its New Priorities campaign, which emphasizes moving the war monies to the federal and state governments.

2) The trade unions failed to raise the call to tax the rich and the corporations. Such funds, just like the redirecting of military spending to meet human needs, could also create a real federal public works jobs program -- a program not seen since the days of the New Deal in the 1930s. We do not and we must not accept unemployment.

These two factors pose the question of the independence of the trade unions in relation to the employers and the corporate-dominated parties. It is not the role of the unions, for instance, to propose giving $100 million in concessions in the wages and working conditions of public-sector workers in exchange for pledges to save collective bargaining, as some unions proposed in Wisconsin. The role of the trade unions is to fight against all attacks against the workers, whether it's the attacks on our collective-bargaining rights or it's the attacks on our jobs, wages and working conditions.

Raising the demands of tax the rich and corporations and bringing the war dollars home, moreover, requires a truly independent labor movement willing to challenge and confront the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.

http://www.unionbook.org/profiles/blogs/presentation-by-nancy

[Os Cangaceiros]

welp, looks like the law has been upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/us/politics/15wisconsin.html).

[Leftsolidarity]

Were any comrades at the protest in Madison today? I sadly wasn't able to make it.

[S.Artesian]

welp, looks like the law has been upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/us/politics/15wisconsin.html).


Yes, the bourgeoisie did what they said they would do. Now it's up to the workers to deliver on what they said they would do-- take the capital; organize a general strike; prevent the business of government, that business and government from moving forward.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yes, the bourgeoisie did what they said they would do. Now it's up to the workers to deliver on what they said they would do-- take the capital; organize a general strike; prevent the business of government, that business and government from moving forward.

I agree 100%. I just hope that people collectively see through the b.s. that's told to them by their union leadership, about how we should fight this through voting for dems next election cycle or whatever. Those were the same toads who (in one case that I specifically remember) publicly stated that a general strike was basically out of the question, and that the law was going to be beaten in the courts. We've seen how well that worked.

[bcbm]

Yes, the bourgeoisie did what they said they would do. Now it's up to the workers to deliver on what they said they would do-- take the capital; organize a general strike; prevent the business of government, that business and government from moving forward.

but those sort of actions could scare away swing voters in the recall elections!

[S.Artesian]

Exactly. And that's the roll the Democrats play, they're a one party popular front, subordinating the interests of the workers to mythical swing voters, to "due process" of law, etc. etc.

This is where the Democrats earn their money.

[heyjoe]

the wisconsin supreme court decided the same case the same day that they took it. They along with the legislators and of course the governor, arent even bothering to hide the fact that they are bought and paid for anymore. They are right up front about it.