Wisconsin governor to end ALL collective bargaining rights for state workers.

[Fedayn]

MADISON — Gov. Scott Walker said Friday he wants to end collective bargaining for nearly all public employees because the state is broke and there’s no point negotiating with the unions when there is nothing to offer.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says National Guard ready for any unrest over anti-union bill

Eye-witness report to march on State Capitol

 

[editor]

It's crazy stuff.

 

[editor]

Good piece on Salon:

You could not ask for a better snapshot of the dire straits of the U.S. labor movement than the struggle currently going on between new Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the state's public sector unions. Using the state budget deficit as an excuse, Walker, a Tea Party favorite, has proposed ending collective bargaining rights for most of the state's public sector workers. The governor made national news on Friday when he announced that the National Guard stood ready to deal with any disruptions that might result should state workers do something radical -- like, say, go on strike -- in protest of Walker's initiative.

That last move, which focused national attention on a dispute that had, until then, been mostly beneath the radar, may ultimately backfire. Republicans have majorities in both the state House and Senate but there appears to be some question now whether legislators are willing to go along with Walker's plan to alienate teachers, nurses and prison guards. (Firefighters, police officers and state troopers, incidentally, are exempt from Walker's decree, reports the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, possibly because the state trooper's union and Milwaukee firefighter and police unions endorsed Walker in his campaign for governor.)

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2011/02/15/wisconsin_war_on_human_liberty

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Earlier today every Democratic representative in that state walked out in protest. The governor sent out the State Patrol about an hour ago to bring them in and force them to vote. Pretty heavy handed.

In protest of the budget repair bill that will strip public union workers of almost all of their collective bargaining rights, Senate Democrats walked away from a floor session.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Dems are refusing to come to the floor to debate and vote on the bill.

http://budget.wispolitics.com/2011/02/senate-session-begins-amid-dem-walk-out.html

 

[weepiper]

 

[Fedayn]

Earlier today every Democratic representative in that state walked out in protest. The governor sent out the State Patrol about an hour ago to bring them in and force them to vote. Pretty heavy handed.




http://budget.wispolitics.com/2011/02/senate-session-begins-amid-dem-walk-out.html

Aye, the vote cannot go ahead until at least 1 Democrat is on the floor of the chamber. I wonder who will be first to crack....

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Mass protests in Wisconsin continuing - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12510849 - and have (some) external support.

Thousands of union members and supporters have amassed in Wisconsin for a fourth day to keep up the pressure on a Republican-backed bill that would curb union rights...

...This week, national political figures waded into the Wisconsin budget battle.

President Barack Obama described the bill as "an assault on unions" during an interview with a Milwaukee, Wisconsin television station.

Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO, one of America's largest unions, told the cheering crowd on Friday the Republicans were "on the wrong side of history" and said the bill was an attack on the middle class.

"You're standing in the doorway of our country's most basic values and cherished aspirations," he said, addressing Mr Walker. "Governor Walker, you're asking too much. We won't give it to you and you can't take it away from us."

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson told the crowd they were fighting for a just cause and likened the protest movement to the pro-democracy uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

And across Wisconsin, school were shut because teachers were absent protesting in the capitol.

 

[peterkro]

Aye, the vote cannot go ahead until at least 1 Democrat is on the floor of the chamber. I wonder who will be first to crack....

The Democratic senators are holed up across the border in Illinois,no jurisdiction for state government officials to force their return.

 

[teqniq]

The Democratic senators are holed up across the border in Illinois,no jurisdiction for state government officials to force their return.

Class.

 

[treelover]

Going back to the 1930's in some US states, wonder if he will hire armed thugs as well like happened then...

 

[treelover]

Have to say though, the labour movement in Winconsin didn't do much to challenge its 'groundbreaking' Workfare programmes which are the model for whats coming here...

 

[Idris2002]

Given the way they have now been targetted by this filth, maybe they'll regret it now.

According to this link, there is no real fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, apart from the one that has been deliberately engineered to smash the workers.

These people. . .

 

[butchersapron]

Have to say though, the labour movement in Winconsin didn't do much to challenge its 'groundbreaking' Workfare programmes which are the model for whats coming here...

Yeah fuck 'em. That's how you build solidarity. I also blame the poor for being poor and weak.

 

[butchersapron]

Given the way they have now been targetted by this filth, maybe they'll regret it now.

According to this link, there is no real fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, apart from the one that has been deliberately engineered to smash the workers.

These people. . .

From above (as most of you are too lazy to read the link)

Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.

 

[Libertad]

IWW helping to organise and (goes without saying) on massive recruitment drive in Madison.

Excellent explanatory article, not IWW, here>>> http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/grassroots/article_b8243b38-398f-11e0-a7bd-001cc4c03286.html

 

[butchersapron]

Milwaukee long had the reputation (with Detroit) of being the most left-wing w/c town in the US.

 

[butchersapron]

 

[Libertad]

^^^ Great photograph! Not 'shopped is it?




e2a tumblr, bit of a shame that

 

[butchersapron]

Got from here - doesn't look fake...no guarantee i know..

 

[Spion]

Milwaukee long had the reputation (with Detroit) of being the most left-wing w/c town in the US.

And that video is of Madison (state capital) which is well heeled and leafy compared to Milwaukee

Great stuff. Just goes to show how fragile things could be in the US after the battering the w/cs have taken in this recession and with nutters like the tea Party pushing things even further

 

[teqniq]

Support from Egypt again:

Sarahcarr أبو كار
Solidarity with protestors in Wisconsin against the Republican anti-labour bill http://bbc.in/g1PYlK #wiunion

 

[Alphonsus Jack]

Class.

good for the Democrats. another option is for them to resign, albeit temporarily, from the Democratic party so then the vote cannot happen legitimately.

 

[Fedayn]

Milwaukee long had the reputation (with Detroit) of being the most left-wing w/c town in the US.

It has actually elected 3 socialist mayors in the past.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I wonder how long it will take in milliseconds for our own Tories to pick up on such ideas. They are currently slightly more subtle in that they are breaking up national pay agreements by getting schools to cease being part of their LEAs and handing over the NHS to be 'managed' by doctors who will have no choice but to buy in management companies.

 

[treelover]

Grass roots BMA are to call for all out opposition to NHS reforms, luckily this is not yet the US, though getting nearer...

 

[laptop]

From above (as most of you are too lazy to read the link)

Even better|worse:

It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January.

 

[phildwyer]

It really is back to the eighteenth century. These guys have a point when they call Obama a socialist, in the sense that the consensual truce between labor and capital, which US liberals want to maintain, was the result of socialist agitation. The tea party do know their history, at least their leaders do.

 

[JimW]

In a massive surprise, right wing twats the Koch brothers are funding the union-busting in Wisconsin: http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2...ehind-wisconsin-effort-to-kill-public-unions/

 

[stuff_it]

Free Wisconsin! Down with this sort of thing!

 

[treelover]

http://www.progressive.org/ld022111.html


It's great to see the old traditions of union solidarity growing again in parts of the US, even the local AF team members are backing the workers