Wisconsin Matters

blog.aflcio.org — The incredible response and mobilizations against the coordinated attacks on workers’ rights and middle-class jobs in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana have grabbed most of the media spotlight during the past few weeks. But there are other serious assaults under way in dozens of states, pushed by corporate CEOs and their Republican puppets. Perhaps flying lowest under the radar is one of the most drastic measures, one that even its own supporters blatantly call Michigan’s “financial martial law.”

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truth-out.org — The protests in Wisconsin have focused on whether the state of Wisconsin will take away the right of government workers to bargain collectively. However, government does not "give" workers the right to strike, nor the right to bargain collectively. That right is inherent in every human being's right to decide what he or she will, or will not, do. No power short of death can take away this inherent right. Gov. Scott Walker and his Republican Legislature may be able to rescind the rules that govern strikes and collective bargaining, but they cannot take away the right to strike or bargain collectively.

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nytimes.com — From the debates in Wisconsin and elsewhere about public sector unions, you might get the impression that we’re going bust because teachers are overpaid. That’s a pernicious fallacy. A basic educational challenge is not that teachers are raking it in, but that they are underpaid. If we want to compete with other countries, and chip away at poverty across America, then we need to pay teachers more so as to attract better people into the profession.

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nytimes.com — The overreach by Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and Republicans elsewhere has finally revealed their true agenda to blue-collar voters who either voted for them last year or who stayed home. These voters are not going to benefit from a crippled union movement; they live next door to the teachers and nurses and D.M.V. clerks who are about to lose what little clout they had in the state capital. Many have suffered during the recession and have watched in pain as private-sector unions have been battered to the point of ineffectiveness. They understand the power play that took place this week. The place to exercise some power of their own is at the voting booth.

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alternet.org — When Wisconsin Republicans did an end run around Democrats on Wednesday night in order to pass a bill that would strip public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights, they showed themselves to be liars. This was supposed to be about balancing Wisconsin's budget, remember? The collective bargaining rights revocation was all of a piece with an ironically named "Budget Repair Bill," and Gov. Scott Walker, darling of billionaire union-hater David Koch and his astroturf group, Americans For Prosperity, swore up and down that it was only the budget he cared about in this fight. Make no mistake: This fight was, from the beginning, all about an attempt to destroy unions. When G.O.P. senators couldn't get what they wanted in an open process, they resorted to goon-squad democracy. You got a problem wi' dat?

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huffingtonpost.com — Thank you for making a world where once there were only a few thousand people who would stand up to prevent the oppression of middle class workers and now there will be hundreds of thousands. You have breathed new life into the worker's rights movement and given us a national stage for our struggle. Thank you for showing the whole world just how far you and other conservatives are willing to go to serve your ideology instead of your constituents. This stark example of your rhetoric being contradicted by your actions was a wakeup call that we all needed to keep motivated and focused on our goal of creating a fair economy in our country.

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thenation.com — The conservative class war on the American middle class and poor has seen three stages, with each building on the previous one. The first, begun in the late 1960s and early ’70s, involved the creation of a series of right-wing institutions to undermine the bipartisan establishment and recast its view of reality. Next came a sustained and successful effort to rewrite the tax code to shift the burden away from corporate America and the wealthiest Americans toward the rest of us, together with the weakening of the case for government responsibility for programs that serve the less advantaged. The arguments for these changes originated with the same think tanks and media organizations that were founded in (or helped guide) the creation stage. Third came the final attack on the legitimacy of all groups in society that might prove to be impediments to the new right’s influence. Members of the media, academia, the labor movement and the nonprofit sector were all considered targets, as they were seen to be advocates for causes and people deemed to be beyond the purview of legitimate government action. Recent events in Wisconsin provide a textbook example of how the process has worked until this point

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truthout.org — On this day, it behooves us to remember the words of Martin Niemoller. "First they came for the communists," he wrote, "and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me." I am a trade unionist, and Wednesday in Wisconsin, they came for me. They came for you. They came for every working person in America, and their intent could not be more clear.

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