Wisconsin labor, student groups organize protests against Walker's public union plans

[Cirque du So-What]

Wisconsin labor, student groups organize protests against Walker's public union plans
Kristian Knutsen on Friday 02/11/2011 7:35 pm


Wisconsin public employee unions and their supporters are currently engaged in planning their response to Governor Scott Walker's program to curtail negotiating and organizing rights via a budget bill announced Friday. Three public protests and lobbying efforts at the state Capitol in Madison are planned for next week, and at least one longer-term plan for a sustained campaign against the governor and his Republican and associated allies are in the works.

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"I think that the leadership within the labor movement in Wisconsin realizes how serious this is," says Ben Manski, a progressive activist and recent Green Party candidate for a state Assembly seat. "And to say that would be an understatement."

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"I really think it shows the governor has allowed himself to get carried away with delusions of his own authority," says Manski. "It will be important for all of us, meaning those who want to protect the Wisconsin tradition, that we act with discipline, that we not hold back, and that we not be provoked. I think it's clear the regime in the state Capitol is looking for trouble, and I think those statements about the National Guard were an incitement."

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"I think Gov. Walker hopes working people in general don’t get word about this," says Rickman. "But people are smart, and know that after they come for public sector unions, they're going to try to drag down working standards for everyone else in the state."

http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=32231

Dates & times of events are at the link, and here's a Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=166597126721378

Remember, those of you in Wisconsin: you're responsible for generating your own publicity concerning these protests. You're up against a complicit corporate media who will go to great lengths to ignore your efforts. Now if it was a dozen teabaggers outnumbered by their own porta-potties...

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[Cirque du So-What]

2. I'd appreciate input on the subject of providing support for protestors in Wisconsin

On the one hand, Scott's actions may embolden regressive governors in other states, where resistance will inevitably start organizing. Are progressives in each state going to be responsible for their own course of action, effectively left to fend for themselves singly against a united, national effort to quash their collective bargaining powers and make serious threats against them?

On the other hand, the repugs would likely make a huge deal out of assistance from outside Wisconsin, as I recall the diatribes against 'outside agitators' during the fight for civil rights in the '50s & '60s. I don't want the repugs to gain the upper hand through propaganda that attempts to portray an interstate organization as 'communists' or somesuch codswollop.

[HereSince1628]

3. The Bill that enables Walker is moving to fast for other than state action

No doubt this sort of thing is happening everywhere and there should be a national effort.

As for Wisconsin, there is some anxiety that the Bill may be passed and signed into law before Tuesday's protests. I'm not knowledgeable about legislative mechanisms that could slow it down, but Walker is out to steam roll state workers.

[starroute]

4. I don't think the 'outside agitators' label would hold up

The progressive northerners who went to the south during Mississippi Summer really were outsiders with no strong sense of Southern culture and traditions. That made it easy to spin them as elitist troublemakers.

But when it comes to Wisconsin, you're talking about people from other states who have essentially the same background and objectives as people there. The right might still trying to make something of it, but I don't think they'd get much traction.

Solidarity has to be the keyword. The whole idea of a union is that it's a "union" -- a coalition of people who'd be weak individually and have only their joined strength to rely on. So the more solidarity, and the more "union" the better.

[HereSince1628]

5. .

[fishwax]

6. k/r

:kick: