Solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin

By Mike Andrew

Associate Editor

More than 500 workers, led by members of the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) in their trademark green shirts, packed the capitol rotunda in Olympia on Presidents Day to support their fellow workers in Wisconsin.

Outside, more than 1,000 more, including a large contingent from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) rallied to support their brothers and sisters in Wisconsin and to call on state legislators to close loopholes in the state’s tax laws.

Rally speakers included Washington State Labor Council President Jeff Johnson, WFSE President Carol Dotlich, and US Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

"You cannot have a democracy if you don't have people in a position to be able to negotiate for their wages and to have decent benefits," Kucinich said.

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown recalled that collective bargaining ended child labor and created the 40-hour work week.

“Worker rights are human rights” said one of many hand-lettered signs held up by union members and their allies in the state capitol rotunda.

“Today WI, tomorrow WA” said another.

While Presidents Day is a holiday for state workers, many WFSE members would also be off – without pay – on the following day because of state-mandated furloughs designed to help the state government cope with a revenue deficit that may top $5 billion.

Like workers here in Washington, Wisconsin’s state employees are being asked to sacrifice to make up for their state’s unwillingness to raise revenue by taxing its richest citizens.

Even more sinister, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is using his state’s budget problems as a pretext to attack the very foundation of the union movement – the right to collective bargaining itself.

While Walker uses all the tried-and-true conservative buzz-words – “fiscal responsibility,” “flexibility," and "efficiency” –his real agenda was clearly exposed when he rejected an offer by public employees to accept higher insurance premiums and pension contributions if the governor would take collective bargaining off the table.

The immediate aim of Walker’s so-called “budget repair bill” is to destroy public sector unions by taking away workers’ rights to collective bargaining.

But the ultimate objective is to eliminate the labor movement as a progressive political force and open Wisconsin – and ultimately the whole country – to unfettered corporate greed.

Already Ohio Governor John Kasich has introduced copy-cat legislation.

None of this is happening without resistance, however.

On February 21, the 45,000 member Southern Central Federation of Labor, the AFL-CIO body for the Madison area, voted to “begin educating affiliates and members on the organization and function of a general strike.”

While a strike in support of another union’s demands is illegal under the Taft-Hartley Act, the SCFL’s resolution is no idle threat, given what Wisconsin unions and their allies have accomplished so far.

Up to 35,000 Wisconsin workers and their community allies have rallied day after day at the state capitol in Madison, and 14 Democratic state senators have fled the state rather than allow the “budget repair bill” to come to a vote.

In Ohio, meanwhile, tens of thousands of union activists and supporters rallied at the state capitol in Columbus on February 22.

In neighboring Indiana, 38 of 40 Democratic House members were absent on February 22, depriving the Republican House leadership of the quorum necessary to consider a “right-to-work” bill. 

The two Democrats present at the Indiana House session were there only to move and second procedural motions intended to obstruct passage of the measure.