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Five Things About the Protests in Wisconsin
ICEM/CALM — Just a month into
office, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker
wasted no time starting a major unionbusting
effort.
Walker used budget deficit hysteria as
an excuse to eliminate public-sector
unions by ending their right to bargain
wages and benefits. The firestorm of
protests that has overtaken Madison, the
capital of Wisconsin, has spread to other
states, where different legislative
measures have surfaced that would
overnight turn the clock back by 80
years.
In Madison, and throughout the U.S.,
and in many places of the world,
resistance to Walker’s draconian public
spending cuts has drawn an ideological
line in the sand. In the early morning
hours of February 25, Republicans who
control Wisconsin’s lower legislative
chamber used tomfoolery to pass the
cuts.
The regressive measure would have
been signed into law by Walker’s pen
had it not been for Wisconsin Democrats
in the state senate. Republicans hold a
19-14 in that chamber, but need 20
senators present to take legislative
action. All 14 Democrats left the state to
prevent a quorum.
The 144-page bill also contained
sweeping cuts to health care for lowincome
families. It will reduce state aid
to education by $976 million over the
next two years, and allows the governor
to privatize any state public utility
without soliciting bids and without
Public Service Commission consent.
In one further insult to public workers,
the proposed law mandates a five per
cent cut in wages with the savings going
to public-sector pension
funds.
The battle in Wisconsin
has become a vanguard
against right-wing
extremism in the U.S. But
why should it matter to
the rest of the world?
Here are five things to
understand about the
Wisconsin struggle.
1. It is not really about
deficits or austerity
measures.
Wisconsin was on track
for a modest budget surplus of $120
million this year. However, by taking a
worst-case estimate of some real and
potential shortfalls in Medicaid, legal
aid, prisons, and debts owed to other
states, Walker created the appearance of
a $137 million shortfall.
To put Walker’s budget deficit
fabrications into perspective, the
documentary producer Robert
Greenwald points out that withdrawing
just 151 U.S. troops from Iraq would
save more money than Walker’s
trumped-up deficit. The earnings of just
the top 13 U.S. hedge-fund managers
(about $1 billion each), if taxed as
ordinary income instead of capital gains,
would provide enough new revenue to
hire 68,000 teachers.
2. It is not about union intransigence.
Public sector unions in Wisconsin
have agreed to cuts in wages and
benefits. However, they will not agree to
permanent removal of their right to
negotiate future wages and benefits.
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3. Public sector workers are not the
cause of Wisconsin’s problems.
Public sector workers are the last
major segment of the U.S. workforce
with significant rates of unionization.
Resistance in Wisconsin is resistance to
a new demagoguery inside the U.S. to
destroy public sector unions as the final
bastion of union strength. A defeat in
Wisconsin means sweeping attacks on
unions elsewhere.
4.Well-funded business
organizations and right-wing
media outlets are trying to turn
American mainstream against
public sector workers.
Their ploy is to direct private-sector
worker resentment on the things that
they do not have, or have been taken
from them like adequate pensions and
benefits, towards public-sector workers
who still have them. To divide and
conquer, and distract from the rich who
have sucked up nearly all of the wealth
in the U.S., is the name of the game.
5. The battle in Wisconsin is about
national political credibility of the
U.S. union movement.
There are many politicians who do not
believe it is worth their while to pay any
attention to union demands. A loss in
Wisconsin would cement the view that
unions are too weak to matter.
What is happening in Wisconsin is
nothing less than a class war.
• International Federation of
Chemical, Energy, Mine and
General Workers’ Unions
He’s a winner
Internet/CALM
“IF CLASS warfare is being waged in
America, my class is clearly winning.”
— Warren Buffet,
one of the world’s richest men