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Labor Protests Draw Tens of Thousands Across US
NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of people protested in Wisconsin on Saturday against a state government push to curb the power of public sector unions, sparking solidarity rallies for labor rights around the United States.
Thousands of supporters of workers' rights rally in front of the state Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011, to help protest the Wisconsin governor's union busting plan to strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights. Protesters see the proposals as an effort to weaken the labor movement. Other states considering similar proposals include Ohio, Tennessee, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa and Kansas.
Several thousand protesters gathered in New York City, about 1,000 people turned out in Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, several hundred rallied Austin, Texas, and about 100 people joined a protest in Miami.
At the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison, thousands of protesters chanted underneath Republican Governor Scott Walker's office window "Hey hey, ho ho, Scott Walker has got to go."
"Union busting is wrong."," said Joe Soto, a 56-year-old steamfitter from Reedsburg, northwest of Madison.
Wisconsin's state Assembly on Friday approved Walker's proposal to strip public sector unions of most collective bargaining rights. The plan now needs state Senate approval, but Senate Democrats have fled Wisconsin to prevent a vote.
The bid by Wisconsin Republicans to try and balance the state budget by rewriting labor laws has turned into a national standoff with Republicans and business interests on one side, and Democrats and union groups on the other.
"When a governor refuses to invest in the people who educate our children and keep us safe, he needs to know this will not stand," actor Bradley Whitford, who played a White House staffer on "The West Wing" TV series and is a Wisconsin native, told the protesters in Madison.
"UN-AMERICAN"
The stakes are high for labor groups because more than a third of U.S. public employees, including teachers, police and civil service workers, belong to unions. Only about six percent of private sector workers are unionized.
"We bailed out Goldman Sachs, we bailed out Wall Street, we bailed out GM, but the hell with our teachers, our fire fighters, our nurses, our city workers, our state workers -- I'm here because that's unjust, unfair," said Raymond Wohl, a teacher for 20 years, at the Chicago protest.
Doug Frank, 51, said he drove three-and-a-half hours from his home in Crosby to attend the protest in Austin.
"This is finally the one that pushed me over the edge," said Frank, an oil and gas laboratory technician. "What they're trying to do (in Wisconsin) is very heavy-handed; it's un-American."
In New York, people waved signs reading "Cut bonuses, not teachers," "Unions make us strong," and "Wall St is destroying America," and wore stickers that read "We are all Wisconsin."
Anne O'Byrne, 44, a philosophy professor at Stony Brook University who brought her daughter Sophia, 2, to the New York rally, said she was disturbed by events in Wisconsin.
"If we don't have collective bargaining rights I don't know what's left for workers in America," she said. "It seems important to me to resist any attempt to take away those union rights that have in fact brought us so much over the years."
John Cody, 26, of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, said unions were "under assault" in the United States and some protesters had drawn inspiration from the popular uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
"Egypt is inspiring Americans and labor movements," he said. "Unions need to work like the corporations in some ways in that the world's become a globalized economy so unions need to show acts of solidarity not only across the United States but across the world."
Additional reporting by James Kelleher and David Bailey in Madison, Christing Stebbins in Chicago, Jim Leckrone in Columbus and Thomas Brown in Miami, editing by John Whitesides
76 Comments so far
Show AllI was at the Save the American Dream rally in Springfield, IL today. All unions, public and private sector, are in solidarity. My own union, AFSCME, was there as well as teachers, building trades, and non-union workers. At one point a fire truck drove by the rally and honked. I'd say we had maybe 700-800 people in all.
People understand that this is a power play, and that destroying bargaining rights has nothing to do with the budget. Here in Illinois, we did something almost unheard of --raising taxes-- to fill the budget gap. They need to do more, but I'd rather see a broadly shared sacrifice in tough times than the "blame and punish" approach of the other states.
When I got home, I caught the tail end of a C-SPAN interview with the governor of Montana, who said he worked with the unions early on in the recession, got some concessions, didn't threaten mass layoffs or restrictions on their rights, and now Montana and its union workers are in good shape compared to most other states. That's how to do it.
I just ran into this little jewel: police join protestors in WI capitol. When the guardian class joins the people, we can expect some action
http://understory.ran.org/2011/02/25/breaking-wisconsin-police-have-joined-protest-inside-state-capitol/
Yes, that is a great sidebar to this whole story!
Absolutely. I just read in Counterpunch that the fascist governor Walker wanted to clear the building for "security purposes" (usual bullshit excuse by dictators) and the police told him that, not only were they not going to clear the building, they were going to have police officers sleeping there with the protestors to defend them!
http://www.counterpunch.org/buhle02252011.html
Save the American Dream! WTF is that? I don't want to save the American Dream. I want to create a real America without The Lie. The American Dream IS A LIE. The American Dream impoverished the world.
Anymore, we're all gonna die from climate failure if we don't wake up. There's your American Dream in living gore.
I agree. I want to crush the "American dream."
Clearly, Moveon tried to leech from events in Wisconsin like the parasites they are and suck energy from it that they could then direct into partisan Democratic party politics. Disgusting and unacceptable. With "friends" like that, who needs enemies?
I have always been suspicious of Move-On's somewhat neo-liberal rhetoric, but I have to say that they did an absolutely stupendous job arranging rallies throughout the week, not just on Saturday, in New York City. It seems as if they have managed to coordinate with unions, to lend their new media expertise and structure to the labor movement. After years of suspicion, my mind was changed this week and I started to see the real value of Move On and what they can accomplish.
pleasethink,
Before you jump in joy think again and google "George Soros" and see how evils this Democrat's fat pig is. He is the main funded for MoveOn that helped to elect Obama. Than do a search on "IndyMac" and "OneWest Bank"
I am not an eloquent writer and rather than ranting away. You do a search. You may not know George Soros known as the man that brought down the Bank of England, Countries in Latin America and Asean.
Sivasm, why don't you do some research yourself? Try the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Mellon Scaife and the Wyly brothers to start. The amount George Soros has contributed to liberal groups is a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of millions those mentioned above have invested in propagandizing average Americans to vote against their own interests. You seriously think Soros, MoveOn.org and Obama are 'fat pigs' compared to David Koch, Americans For Prosperity and Scott Walker? If so, take that crack pipe out of your mouth and wake up.
RSJ
Yes, they funded the Repug and Teabager. I absolutely agree with you, without any reservation. Did you know in 2008 Obama's donation exceed a billion’s dollar? Obama said it’s mostly $5 and $10 from small donors, but we learned later otherwise. The fat pigs funded his 2008 election.
I focus mainly on the Democrats and Obama that brought us so much miseries. You have refuse to believe me. I will leave that to other posters here to reply. I will further state without reservation again the Repugs is complicity too.
It's so difficult for me to explain: Getting money from the same person that screw you are not going to solve the problems. Defending George Soros show the depth you know about billionaire Soros. He and MoveOn-funded Obama. Did you know him and his pals bought IndyMac and renamed it OneWest Bank? OneWest Bank makes a billion profits in Jan 2010, in less than a year? Did you know the term FDIC gave them for the bad loans blah, blah.
It's not about blaming whom and who, but do you understands the Union and MoveOn-funded Obama and Democrats? They are against the working class. If you don't understand it, than I am exhausted... I wish I have gifted writing skill like many here.
Two Americas
If you consider MoveOn as parasites. Do you know MoveOn major supporter? George Soros! Correct. You are on the ball. A Democrat fat pigs, yes that's the same guy who bought IndyMac with his pals and go private "OneWest Bank". Beside MoveOn who else leached onto the people in Wisconsin and elsewhere? Go on I am sure you know . . . otherwise go to CD articles "The Recovery That Wasn’t: Bouncing Back to Lower Standards" which posted three replied.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/26-5
I'm not naive about MoveOn's supporters and I am not jumping for joy. I am just observing that what got me and a bunch of other people out to the rally in NYC on Saturday was MoveOn's organizational network working in tandem with the AFL-CIO. Can we be purists all the time and actually get something accomplished?
pleasethink,
I have been called purist many times. It doesn't matter what you call me But understands, the same bunch of people that screwed you are the same people that rallying the troops now.
I bet you the same people that rallying the troops now will be the same people who will be rallying the troops again for Obama reelection in 2012. It's the same bandwagon. THINK, what will be Obama 2nd term, if you find his first term suck?
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result.”
Can we say that MoveOn is doing the right thing for public workers right now? Can we also say that MoveOn did the wrong thing in supporting war mongering, corporatist Democrats?
Perhaps MoveOn doesn't care all that much about Middle Eastern children who are being slaughtered by Obama and Democrats' agenda in Afghanistan. After all, we don't know any of those children or their families, so it's easy to ignore the never-ending wars. But to win elections, you've gotta be seen supporting the working class. If Democrats turned their backs on this movement, it would destroy them.
Democrats have been screwing labor and the working classes for decades. My somewhat cynical view of all of this is that Democrats are using this to win an election! gasp! Could be true.
Yes, the American Dream became a nightmare.
The "American Dream" was always and continues to be a nightmare to the indigenous people. And now this dream or illusion is hitting the wider public as it awakens to the fact that the "ending" of slavery of American black people was merely to enslave everyone.
The American dream was always a scam by the ruling class to get their inferiors to work hard, to build up crap on the land of the Natives.
Glad to read someone is starting to think.
I agree that the name given to these rallies was not very appealing. Totally agree that the "american dream" is unsustainable. Progressive people everywhere know that.
There were maybe 2,000 people who gathered for a rally today at the TX state capital in Austin. We gathered in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin and the global struggle for justice + worker/human rights.
The news media isn't talking about the cause of the budget shortfalls. The rich are getting richer, wall street is breaking records, while high school teachers are going to have 60 kids in their classes. There's no justice in that.
"When the people's voices are not heard, there will be revolution."
Maitreya, the World Teacher
It is great people are finally waking up, no matter what they want to call it. We had a rally here too, here in San Diego.
On the other hand, I remember when the rank and file of labor was republican on non-labor issues.
In 1964, much of the rank and file of organized labor supported Goldwater.
In 1968, much of the rank and file of organized labor supported Wallace. The AFL-CIO committee on political education had to send its members literature explaining Wallace's anti labor actions.
In 1969 usion members rampaged through New York City, attacking people with long hair and beards. THey also carried plackards saying "Impeach the red mayor". The mayor was Lindsay.
In 1972 George Meany refused to endorse McGovern because he opposed the Vietnam war.
The Teamsters, Longshremen and Seafarers unions supported Republican candidates for years. It wasn't until 1992 when these unions realized that their support or Reagan twice and Bush I once gave them nothing.
KeLeMi..That is because Goldwater was the last decent Republican. History shows that the Republican party was afraid of him because he actually put human beings ahead of profit. That's a scary concept for Republicans.
Those times when things weren't right, the right made enough fear and loathing statements, like they do today, causing people to fight each other when we should have been fighting 'them'. The Left was all along trying to wake people up to that crap, since the early 40's. But don't be so quick to blame it all on the Republicans. Democrats are becoming more and more culpable, except for those 14 wonderfully BRAVE Senators in ..ah, well, Illinois at the moment, I think. I hope their families are with them. I hope they are comfortable and well fed, warm and realizing they are making more history, and bringing some dignity back to the Dem party.
Revolution is Coming to America!! Where is the outrage!! If there is trouble then let it happen in our time so that our children can have peace.
Need to read that new book out about (good Americans like us ) who finally take a stand
( www.booksbyoliver.com ) & ends up starting the 2nd American Revolution. It's a must read for now. Recommend it cause history is now calling us to our true destiny in life.
Great article & thanks for this is what the People need right now & more encouragement!
ACROSS the US, it is of course, in the HUNDREDS of thousands.
We need a million person march, not at DC, but at Wall Street! We need to put the fear of God in those reptiles in NYC. And we need the cops in NYC to tell Bloomberg to stuff it when he tells them to use force.
Agree, we need to storm the NYSE and tar & feather the scum, who really caused all of this!
>^^<
Exactly right.
"The immense inequality in economic power that exists in our capitalist society translates into a formidable inequality of political power, which makes it all the more difficult to impose democratic regulations.
If the paladins of Corporate America want to know what really threatens "our way of life," it is their way of life, their boundless way of pilfering their own system, destroying the very foundation on which they stand, the very community on which they so lavishly feed."
Michael Parenti
Richard,
What happened are gone! No point talking about it. Obama and Tim Geithner have long forgotten about it. What we need is what SobaCat said in "The Recovery That Wasn’t: Bouncing Back to Lower Standards".
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/26-5
...And not a word about this in the NYTimes. While I don't expect much from the paper of record, it's been stunning how little coverage the entire labor issue has gotten overall. Every day there's been a small item, mostly political in nature, like how Wisconsin dems have left the state. Otherwise, not a bit of news over this massive ongoing movement and the implications of the fight.
Early on, I emailed the editor about the paper's lack of coverage, who responded that they were getting 'lots' of emails about this. Nothing changed. Then I called the news desk and a real snarky sort insisted that the Times was indeed covering the story. I said the coverage was entirely inadequate. He said if I had a lead to different 'angle,' I should send it in.
Let's just call it what it is: a news blackout. In my opinion, it's being done at the behest of the administration to keep things on the 'down-low' so as not to give the working 'bots any reason to stay away from the pols in 2012.
We are living behind a plastic curtain. Why isn't Aljazeera available on U.S. cable networks and U.S. satellite networks? They could drop one of the porn channels or one of the redundant movie channels if their actually is a bandwidth problem.
a
Yes, exactly. A few months ago, I asked time warner, my cable provider, to carry Aljazerra...they're probably still laughing.
Don't wait just download "livestation", Installed and watch free 24/7 for free. You may want to watch BBC, Link TV, C-Span, RT, DW TV , Aljerzeera and more..
Try it!
Thanks, sivasm, I have visited Aljerzeera on line; just wanted Time Warner to carry the station on cable TV
Not only that, Diana, but there was no mention of the Chicago protest in the local media or on CNN. On MSNBC they aired their usual weekend fare of 'Lock-Up' shows with no comment on the nationwide protests. Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz will no doubt have something about them Monday, but this does seem to be a blackout by the corporately-owned media of progressive protests supporting labor unions. The Big Media certainly didn't have this problem when the Teabaggers had national demonstrations, even though many were sparsely attended. Then it was all about average Americans outraged over taxes or health care or the deficit or what-have-you, even if only a couple of hundred showed up. Now, thousands show up Saturday just down the street from their studios and they don't see a thing. Now, that's journalism. ;) Perhaps they don't think firefighters, nurses, teachers, cops and snow plow drivers are average Americans.
I should also add that, as I was leaving the rally, I saw a solitary right-winger, protesting well away from our event with his oversized American flag and a hand-made sign calling for "budget reforms". Pathetic. Know what my sign said? "Unions: power to the people, check against tyranny."
The news coverage of this popular revolt was off to a good start when it was confined to one state. The thinking must have been that this was a local disturbance that would soon die out.
As soon as it begins to look like a global revolt of the poor finally being fed up with doing all the dirty work, all the dying in wars, all the work of any kind while the rich reap the benefits, the TV, the papers, all news sources refuse to acknowledge what is happening.
This will change. In one more week as the movement grows, the national guard will be called out--except they are fighting foreign wars; The police will be ordered to use live ammunition except that they too are part of the movement.
I think maybe what we have been talking about for so long, the oppression of the many by the few, the grinding of the poor into the dust by the rich, has been halted just when the rich were poised to leave us no way out except submission, just when there seemed to be no hope, we seemed to have woke up.
It is time for the seeds sown by freedom loving persons through the ages to bring forth its mighty harvest. Not to worry. There will be news coverage. Trouble makers will be planted to cause trouble and discredit the movement. Papers and TV and radio will use words like communism and revolution---at first. When we are taken seriously, the reports will become more truthful----at last, an honest media.
If a Kent State/Jackson State moment does occur, we have excellent current examples in the middle east indicating how the people will quickly overcome violence.
Police, Firefighters, and even some conservatives side with the workers. Pile on! Bring on all the immigrants, war veterans, poor, unemployed. Like the Egyptian protester said, "The longer it goes on, the more beautiful it becomes". Start logging signatures to impeach the fascist governor.
Ohio (all states): Ramp it up!
Let's not miss a beat when the Wikileaks Financial Gate breaks. Now is a good time to dismantle US fascism and the oligarchy.
In St. Paul the local media reported about 1,000 of us.
I would say there were at least half again, maybe twice that many, although maybe there were only 1,000 at any single moment. Because of the cold there were always others taking a break from the cold inside the capital building, and plenty of coming and going.
That turn-out in 5-degrees, snowing and with icy streets. The wind-chill factor brought the cold down to well below zero. Given different weather conditions the crowd undoubtedly would have been many times larger.
I was at the Solidarity Rally in St Paul also. The estimate of 1000-2000 seems to be really accurate. The energy was good, but we should have gone into the Capitol building. It is OUR HOUSE.
One of the chants was WE ARE ONE! WE ARE ONE!!!!
It may have been the loudest.
WE ARE ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let's remember that.
Solidarity to All.
See you in the streets.
About 1,000 in Santa Fe New Mexico where we have a Scott female clone Fossil Fuel puppet and the same Cato written bill stuck ( so far) in committee.
We got away with an unpermitted march to the Plaza.
All Power to the People.
Keep the momentum going, the weather is only going to get warmer.
This may be tipping point, the real American dream, for the over reaching bloated 2%.
Kiss a cop. We have some real cute ones.
Xe is the dark power.
I showed up at the L.A. rally early, brought a rain coat as a cold rain was forecast (We got lucky and the sun was out) because I was determined to show support for workers from Wisc. to Egypt. After a little over an hour and a half I left in disgust. MoveOn.org had turned it into a Democratic Party/Obama rally, barely ever mentioning our oversea allies, in the Middle East, streets of London, University of Puerto Rico, etc. When I tried to post my experience on "DemocaticUnity (?).org I was denied access. Mark my words as a vet of the anti-war movement in the late '60's/early 70's... nothing kills the momentum of a movement like wasting the people's effort in futile activities. In 1970 well-meaning but gullible students, taking the "reasonable" course of action flocked to Wash. DC to supplicate their reps, instead of fighting locally to impede the war effort (ie banning ROTC, hobbling recruitment). Of course, nothing was accomplished and, by the next fall semester, you couldn't raise enough people for a card game. I'll never attend another rally or event associated with MoveOn or OFA or any other Democratic Party (of perpetual war and bank bailouts) stalking horse again.
The people herding elite pros always try to get in front of a popular movement in order to eventually derail it. Don't worry, it won't work this time.
I agree Rudy. When Bush and Cheney among others lied us into the illegal Iraqi war, in spite of millions of protesters in America and around the world,I was so outraged that I joined Moveon.org. But left very soon when I saw that they had ulterior motives and just wanted my contributions.
Thanks for reporting on MoveOn. We've got to get the word out: Don't talk to MoveOn members. They're probably reporting back to Washington, and they're glomming onto the movement in order to promote Obama. What a disgusting group of people the "leaders" of MoveOn have turned out to be. I remember when they actually believed in something more than kissing Obama's neoliberal ass.
How about this, USE Moveon. Take over their rallies, use them for springboards.
Educate the OilyBomberbots.
We did a Boisterous unpermitted march to our 400 year old plaza led by a French guy with a loudspeaker pulling a Guillotine.
Snark, no Guillotine.
I also love how contracts are sacrosanct when it comes to the salaries/bonuses of Wall Street criminals - as we were repeatedly reminded of by our overlords during the financial crisis - but when it comes to common people - nope.
A real aim of all of the protests should be - as one protester in the piece above noted - to highlight the two-tiered society that exists in America.
This encompasses everything from our judicial system, tax code, contracts, military enlistment, voting rights etc etc.
Yes, this present issue is terribly important but it is simply an outgrowth of the vast stratification that has taken hold of our society.
Once everyone understands that protesting for labor rights is the same as protesting for the jailing of financial/war criminals, ending bs wars and allowing the lie of neoliberal globalization to spread, change will be effected much more quickly.
Once one sees the whole picture, a worldview is constructed that is much more immune to the manipulations of our immense propagandasphere.
“I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me. And yet assure myself and others, that I am very sorry for him and wish to lighten his burden by all possible means. Except, by getting off his back.”
- Leo Tolstoy
Leo had the elite monsters figured out quite well.
I'm not much for sloganeering, but I'm warming up to "Rage Against the Kochsuckers!"
Sooner or later big business is going to realize, they too have been conned by the republiCONs, and a number of enablers who call themselves democRATs. However, the real battle will inevitably be business themselves versus certain the wealthy elite. I submit to the executives of General Motors, once one of the biggest corporations in the US, that you have been screwed by the oil companies and you gave up, till now, the one product that could have kept them in line, the electric automobile. Now, expand this to the many corporations at large. It's war for you my friends and you better recognize your friends from your enemies. Single payer universal health care, unions, universal education, and other forms of social democracy need to progress humanity on a footing for a sustainable world, not a profit driven one.