Unions to Prepare for General Strike in Wisconsin
Posted by Tell No Lies on February 22, 2011
from The Wisconsin State Journal
Labor group calls for general strike if budget bill is approved
by Steven Verburg
The 97-union South Central Federation of Labor voted Monday night to prepare for a general strike that would take place if Gov. Scott Walker succeeds in enacting his budget repair bill, which would strip most bargaining rights from most public employee unions.
The strike would call for union and non-union workers in large swaths of the workforce to stop working, said Carl Aniel, labor federation delegate from AFSCME Local 171.
It was unclear Tuesday how many workers would take part and how the strike might work.
Walker’s proposal, part of a bill to close a $137 million budget shortfall for the year that ends June 30, sparked days of massive protests at the Capitol and a walkout by Democratic state senators that has stalled action on the legislation.
The strike could affect schools, governments and private businesses, but crucial life-and-death services would not be interrupted, Aniel said Tuesday morning.
“It doesn’t mean that everyone is going to stop working on a particular moment or day,” Aniel said. “It means that we are preparing so that the decisions are made in a very significantly different way so that it protects the people of Wisconsin.”
But some services would be shut down, he said. The labor group would still have to determine which services would be shut down, he added.
“If it was decided the governor’s mansion really wasn’t that important and it wasn’t that important to heat it or give it electricity or to guard it, then those things wouldn’t happen,” Aniel said.
In addition to bargaining for wages and benefits, unions often seek to secure better conditions for the people who receive public and private services such as hospital patients, the elderly and children.
About 100 members of the federation voted unanimously for the resolutions, he said.
A major component of the preparations is to educate union members and the public on what the strike would mean and how it would work.
Walker warns that state employees could start receiving layoff notices as early as next week if a bill eliminating collective bargaining rights isn’t passed soon.
Meanwhile Walker said Tuesday in a statement to The Associated Press that the layoffs wouldn’t take effect immediately. He didn’t say which workers would be targeted.
Walker says in the statement, “Hopefully we don’t get to that point.”
egypt link said
Well it’s encouraging that the Unions are at least stepping up and using a tactic that could defeat the bill. However, their eagerness to give in to any/all concessions proves that they are way behind their own membership.
Events are proving to be an opportunity for workers to burst beyond the restrictive constraints of their leadership and lead a struggle that unites public/private sector workers, union and non-union, as well as students in a struggle that goes beyond this bill.
TransconaSlim said
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LtSn_AYoDOU/TWRFxSQm-5I/AAAAAAAAALE/dtwynbOt7hU/s1600/General+Strike+madison.jpg
chicanofuturet said
“Unions to Prepare for General Strike in Wisconsin”
Shake it up Wisconsin!
strike,fight…let the workers make demands which meet their real needs,determine the slogans and to hell with sell-out union leadership and co-optation by phony politicians..
It is long overdue,an opportune time for demarcations-a time for clarity of definition,of identifying contradictory elements and forces within the workers movement.A time to make a rupture.to redefine labor’s struggle as being class struggle.a resurrection of class struggle consciousness.this is an opening for communists.
the workers of the world vs global corporate capitalism.
are we witnessing the dawn of world revolution?
jfsp said
Maybe now the workers will realize that their own “union leadership” are nothing more but bosses collecting fat salaries and the Democrats are hopeless hiding in other states. Hopefully some workers will take charge and organize this thing into a force to be reckoned and not wither away like so many before them.
Gregory A. Butler said
If the South Central Wisconsin Federation of Labor actually calls a general strike here, it will be the first time that an official central labor body in America has called a citywide general strike since July 1934, when the San Francisco Central Labor Council called a partial limited citywide walkout in solidarity with the coastwide sailors and longshoremen’s strike.
Of course, there were two nationwide immigrant workers general strikes in 2006 – “the Great American Boycott” in March of that year and “la Gran Marcha” on May Day, both of which involved over 4 million workers. However, those walkouts were organized by Latino immigrants rights groups and their allies, with very minimal support from official labor (and there wasn’t a labor union in the country that authorized it’s members to participate in either the Great American Boycott or la Gran Marcha on a union sanctioned basis).
Let’s see if the South Central Federation of Labor actually does this, or if they get scared of the revolutionary political implications of such a walkout and back down (considering the 40 years of retreat and surrender on the part of the AFL-CIO leadership, I’d tend to predict the latter outcome).
This kind of situation is precisely why we need to build a revolutionary labor movement to take the place of the rapidly declining AFL-CIO unions.
Seven said
I have to take issue with the comments about union leaders as “bosses collecting fat salaries.” I am the President of a Central Labor Council, and my salary for that is Zero dollars. The perks do not exist. It’s a lot of responsibility and hard work on top of my job as an electrician. Yes, there are ineffective and amoral people in union leadership positions. But there are a huge number of us who work very hard to build a people’s movement because it’s what we believe in. And although I came into it thinking that workers needed to “burst beyond the constraints of their leadership” like it says above, I understand now that it’s usually the other way around. The grassroots leaders of the labor movement want militant words and action just as much as you do, but the membership is often not there yet. We’re doing the best we can and I think we deserve the respect to be talked of as comrades, not enemies.
John said
When Ronald Regan busted the airline unions, EVERYONE in America should have gone on strike.
But now people KNOW what will happen, and if they let this go again without protesting it, we will be the new third world country.
I’m not saying that workers don’t have to be realistic about wages, I’m saying that all of that should be negotiated through their unions, not outright busting them.
(For people that are against unions, look up the Ludlow Massacre. See WHY unions were finally recognized.)
Templeton said
Phone conversation tapes of Governer Walker recorded telling who he thinks is Big Business Billionaire David Koch that he thought about planting provacateurs in the crowds. Real great Yes Men style prank, very exposing.
here’s one link to the conversation.
http://www.businessinsider.com/scott-walker-punked-david-koch-2011-2
Gregory A. Butler said
@ Seven – I’m in New York City, and the president of our Central Labor Council, Jack Ahern, makes $ 250,000 a year – and that’s just his salary for his part time job with the CLC! He also gets a salary from Operating Engineers local 30 and from the Stationary Engineers Welfare Fund.
That’s typical for union officials in the New York City area – and that’s true in a lot of the big cities where the labor movement still has the dues base to fund those kind of perks.
Politically, in my experience (and I’ve been a union carpenter for 18 years – 13 of that as a shop steward) is that the workers are willing to fight, but the union chieftans are terrified of any kind of struggle. The last big mobilization by the NYC building trades – the June 30, 1998 protests that came to be known as “the 40,000 man march” – was an incredibly militant event to the extent the workers captured it from the business agents. The reason that didn’t become a mass movement against the mass deunionization of NYC’s construction industry was because the officialdom of the NYCCLC and the NYC Building and Construction Trades Council pulled the plug on any futher mass rallies and strike action
They’d rather go down with a sinking ship than actually fight back.
When we had the big epidemic of crane collapses and construction worker deaths in 2007 (27 workers killed on the job in just one year) the unions basically let the employers association, BTEA, speak for them as “the voice of the industry”! If the NYC Buildings Department hadn’t spoken out (for it’s own reasons) nobody would have said anything about worker safety (the unions weren’t going to do it, that was for sure)!
Currently, the Building Trades Employers Association has handed down a 26 point ultimatum demanding massive concessions from the unions and the general reaction of the union leaders has been to roll over and play dead for the bosses.
So, actually, you’re 180 degrees wrong about your estimate of union chiefs wanting to fight but the workers not being ready – it’s actually the other way around.
Bottom line, but for the betrayal and cowardice of America’s union leaders, we wouldn’t be in the fix we’re in today.
Part time union officials like you may be the exception to that – but guys like Jack Ahern are the rule.
Jef Weinberger said
“‘If it was decided the governor’s mansion really wasn’t that important and it wasn’t that important to heat it or give it electricity or to guard it, then those things wouldn’t happen,’ Aniel said.”
That statement shouldn’t begin with “If”. Shut it down and let Aniel hitch up his wagon if he wants to tag along.
Thank you, Gregory, for you comments drawn from concrete experience.
Earl Gilman said
It was this “Green Red” guy of yours who asked me to cut and past text of mail I send to my comrades in your site. I believe in principles of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. However he claims you guys are the most democratic Mao Tse-tung Thought body ever existed. This is for him.
From: Giltapia
Sent: Feb 27, 2011 11:52 AM
Subject: Re: Support Demos
In the demo in San Francisco on Saturday in support of the workers in Wisconsin there were several thousand people. But they were almost completely white!
Also the average age of the demonstrators were around 50. This reflects the weakness of the US labor movement….it is not a movement that involves the community,
the youth and unemployed.
For many union workers, their union is a job trust. That is, a guaranteed job with middle class pay. Their style of life is under attack….it’s tempting to say screw them because they never supported anyone else. But I think we have to respect the learning process of a section of the Amerrican
people who have been living in an ivory tower–with a mortgage- up till now. They are now suddenly discovering they are not “middle class” but actually workers who can be thrown on the scrap heap.
The Democratic Party is naturally trying to co-opt the protests, though they and the union bureuacracy accept the proposed cuts in pay. Of course, the union bureucracy sees its very existance is at stake. Given these “leaders”, I thiink we can expect some miserable compromise within a few days….probably relying on cumpulsory arbitration.
Demonstrations for 2-3 hours are necessary, but they should only be the first step in sympathy strikes. Naturally, sympathy strikes are against the law and the union bureaucracy would never do anythiing against the law….which might lead to them spending a nite in jail.
In the demonstration there was no mention that the attack is not only against unions but also against the disabled, people on welfare, immigrants, etc.
The so-called Labor Councils are at best ineffecitve, passing resolutions that go nowhere. We on the Left have to propose opening up the Labor Councils and turning them into PEOPLES ASSEMBLIES, reflecting ALL the oppressed.
EARL GILMAN
Revolutionary Alternatives/El Nuevo Topo
Green Red said
Thank you very much comrade Earl,
some people deny labor aristocracy’s existence. What is, is. The first time i met a professional union organizer who himself does not belong to the trade of workers and only organizes them, i was absolutely perplexed. If you are not within a job…
Anyhow, I am not going to say it in the way MIM talked about “White working class”.
But albeit all this, I DO believe that with proper leadership of a vanguard party, these labors are still proletariat and, in fact what is happening is giving them a lesson.
Our job is to tell them that now you can see the nature of your master. If something goes bad, they’ll take away YOUR bread too.
That’s why we need a more fundamental change than voting for this or that. we do need a revolution.
Green Red said
On the other hand, comrade Ahmad Farsi of Communist Workers of Iran has replied:
——————–
Hi …..,
Yes. I have been following the situation since the teachers took over the main hall of the state capital. Earl is not wide of mark. May be not Assemblies, but they are definitely exercising Direct Democracy.
Good luck to them
Ahmad
- – - – - — – — – -
Half of me says that my Iranian council faith comrades think every union is a union. including perhaps the police union that puts advertisement against Mumia Abu Jamal.
other half?
they are human with life and whatever they have had wasn’t that great after all.
power to them anyways
Green Red said
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/democracy-now/this-is-a-class-war-micha_b_834013.html
Controversial Micheal Moore who like a revolutionary dares to expose the US regime talks to legendary Amy Goodman about people’s radical reaction in Wisconsin.
After people’s resistance during the foreclosure resistance, this is the greatest seen for much too long.
If the regime only serves the rich and want to take away the little crusts of the pie they sure deserve to get punches in their face
Viva revolutionaries around the world!
And more troubled people also join them. When you stand next to unionized, in a way they will understand they have to stand up with you rather than care solely for theirselves.
Thomas said
It is interesting to me that Kasama has ceased to publish any content whatsoever about the amazing political situation in Wisconsin. This, its last post, is from some twenty days ago. I wonder to what extent this follows with the failure of those members of Kasama who so sharply disagreed with engagement in these types of struggles, questioned the wisdom of participation in them, to provide any new thinking after Wisconsin erupted, not more than one or two days after the interrogation by Kasama seen in earlier threads.
What does it say about the Kasama Project if it is incapable of mustering even a repost of a news story to spark conversation, especially given how frequently it has done so in the past? I think this returns us to some of the sharp questions raised about this blog and its affiliated organizational form and its relevance in the USAmerican revolutionary milieu. Is there really just nothing to say?
Mike E said
Thomas: I’ve been traveling for a week, and the rest of our moderator team has been heavily focused on IWD.
Why don’t you take it up as a task to send us links to pieces we should post. That’s how it works.
Don’t complain if you don’t participate.
Jarod said
Silly Progressives and Socialists
Go buh bye now
Green Red said
Dear Jarod and Thomas,
Believe me these guys are serious. Regarding my personal being more concerned about people of color and immigrant unpaid people still, for example the other people’s responses reviewing and hearing the movement radicalized gave me more hope. Of course democrats will try to compromise, do cut this and that to pull down the radicalization but, if proper leadership is practiced and, if more radical sectors are acting in solidarity, that will create a less concession making stand for them. Since without organized body people are scattered. Didn’t a classic revolutionary said without a Union or such body workers are nothing and with their organized body they can be everything?
So be it they work with FBI to make coups in Venezuela for example but still, however corrupt elite union leaderships still, they are the only existing body for them until your so called silly progressive socialist do not review over a century of struggle be a dynamic and true element to form the real workers revolutionary party/movement.
Would you like things to shape, come and help or, find another place to fool around since, if you are not a part of finding a solution for our decayed radicalism, you are a part of its stillness and unproductive nature as well, with all due respect.
Please look at it from the bright angle, take a look at “Reading Cluster” and however faster or slower than I and near few friends try to do while making everyday life ends meet you read and, participate in their discussions, you will be in one of the few rational ways for making progressive fundamental changes in this decaying land with trillions of dollars debts by pushing bonds in other countries’ peoples’ mouths and still cannot keep its gravy train running well.
Thomas said
I’m sorry that you’ve mistaken what was critical interrogation for complaint; it certainly wasn’t that, as I’m certainly not disappointed. In fact, I am very much unsurprised! While Mike/you may have been traveling for a good week–though things have continued to be posted under your name!–content has oriented toward International Women’s Day (I guess that’s what IWD means), as well as the crisis in California (not Wisconsin!), analysis by Dave Harvey, Bradley Manning, the anti-Deng protests, and that’s just on the front page.
What is startlingly missing is one of the most compelling upsurges in the US labor movement in modern memory, and I am claiming that I think this has more to do with the politics of this grouping than its blog’s moderation policies. I am engaging with its absence as a political issue, not calling for you to post content that’s obviously not prioritized!
Ronald F said
Maybe that’s where they are making one of those outstanding reports? Who knows where they actually are?
Elli said
Between all you guys this number 18 green red has made an amazing twist within days. after equating our labor movement with some scholastic wording now he supports them?
Mike E said
moderator note: personalized comments without new substance are discouraged.
Green Red said
No hard feelings Ka Elli, please review above statements. There are feelings, there are theories and there is a real world. What Trotskist comrade Earl Gilman whom i respect for years of different works i have seen him doing says how I feel. Some years ago there was Bus Mechanics call for LA Metro strike. Lots of Latinos and … many others couldn’t go regularly to their jobs, some had to do this and that … so unionized workers had put many other people in dire conditions while that was not a general strike calling for some regime falling down. It was for particular sector’s interest.
Given that, see, year after year reality is becoming more solid in peoples’ thoughts that even has made May 1st workers day into immigrants rights and so forth since, if they can easily use third worlder’s goods and resources why not some of their people getting a bit of paycheck for hard working rather than nothing at all.
And i do not even presume that the US unionized workers will immediately get radicalized but, in a way, I am saying that when people of poorer sectors still stand by the unionized workers well, they ain’t heartless weirdos; they will have social dues for further struggle or, if and when they ought to repay other sector’s needs through solidarity then they are damned labor aristocracy spoiled labor of a sort under the leadership of … another Trotskist, Steve Seltzer once said of the American sort of Union leaders a term i can never clear of my mind about; calling Union Leaders workers stock brokers.
It is like once in a great while some radical, improbable to get elected fellow goes into an election campaign when knowing under a media sold out society and bribing contribution for latter pay back the rotten election is still, some decent people go to election campaign hoping to give some new thoughts to the people during the campaigns, to tell them right and wrong, to expose the ruling class, people like Ralph Nader up to… do their saying.
Hence, while i feel pretty much like Earl but, i still listen to saying of many and, suggest let’s radicalize them and, sometimes also, for instance Longshoremen unions in the west coast, they stand tall and courageous for serious other sectors of the world.
Alternative unions, different sorts of unorganized labor and oppressed getting together and organized is A way to do something but anyhow, however rotten their leadership might by (including check out the later years of Cesar Chavez and how he was acting the great union he did a lot for the foreign hard workers) but still workers are workers. Now until the end of the world people can say who might be acting right economist or left economist ways but, without the workers, peoples councils and oppressed (of all sorts from women, other sexual orientations, people of color, name them) this bloody system sure may go much more to the racist capitalist system than anything else. See, even when a weirdo shoots a congresswoman they shoot a democrat, not a republican! Now even shooting like the most right wing senator or what have you doesn’t bring out a thing. First people have to max out whatever democratically is in the least in theory available until they break their own rules and further abuse the Just-us system. Then sure, we use whatever means necessitated, applicable and available in the first place.