Feb. 21 — Inside the state Capitol building in Madison, Wis., the halls normally filled with politicians and corporate lobbyists are now occupied by thousands of people. Banners and posters with messages of solidarity and slogans denouncing Gov. Scott Walker’s attack on the public sector hang from every wall.

Chants of “power to the people” and drumming fill the building from the early hours of the morning until late at night. The energy in the building is absolutely electric and all who are participating in the occupation and mass demonstrations are determined to carry the struggle forward until the anti-union bill is defeated.

Young people and students are playing a decisive role in the historic struggle that is developing in Wisconsin. The occupation — which is entering its second week now — has been led by young workers, high school students, undergraduates and the graduate student unions.

Students have developed food distribution centers, information points, medical teams and infrastructure. A people’s assembly was held to make collective decisions about how to keep and build the people’s control of the capitol building. The struggle has been a tremendous teacher, in helping to shape and guide the development of the occupation.

Every day that the struggle moves forward, more and more young people are flooding Madison to stand with workers against the right wing’s attack on the public sector. This struggle has lit a fire in the hearts and minds of young people and awakened a spirit of resistance. So many young people that filled the halls of the Capitol, or have been marching in the streets shoulder to shoulder with workers, have remarked how this type of militant action has been long overdue and that they are determined to keep fighting until these right-wing attacks are defeated.

Solidarity of workers and students cannot be broken

Tens of thousands of students from all over Wisconsin, and indeed from all over the Midwest, have mobilized to participate in the many rallies and demonstrations that have been organized during the past week to help hold the occupation at the Capitol building. High school students in Madison organized walkouts and miles-long marches from their high schools to join their teachers down at the Capitol. Student organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society, Student Labor Action Coalition, Voces de la Frontera and the United Council, among others, have been helping to mobilize students to the Capitol and build solidarity for public sector workers. They’ve organized walkouts at a number of University of Wisconsin campuses, including more than 3,000 students at UW-Madison, organized by SDS. The graduate student unions maintain an organizing center in the Capitol building that runs around the clock, and student organizations help to staff and organize out of it. Students also helped to lead a demonstration against the Tea Party on Feb. 19 that drew out 100,000 trade unionists and students.

On a day this writer spent doing outreach at UW-Madison’s campus, there was near universal support for the workers and students fighting back against these attacks. Almost everyone we spoke with had been participating in the ongoing demonstrations and declared their intentions to return. In an instant, this struggle has opened up the political consciousness of so many young people and has given life to an urgency to fight back. Continue reading →

Feb. 19 – The people’s liberation of the state Capitol in Madison, Wis., is in full swing.

“Now is the time. We can’t let this die because we are at ground zero and what happens here affects the rest of the world. We have to be strong. A united front,” said Mahlon Mitchell of the Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin at the massive afternoon rally at the state Capitol Feb. 19. Mitchell became the first African-American president of the PFW on Jan. 12.

On Feb. 19 the biggest demonstration yet, with an estimated crowd of 100,000, filled the grounds outside the state Capitol and continued the sit-in. A massive roving picket line with all sectors of the working class — union and non-union workers, the unemployed, students, people of color, immigrants, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer community — marched on the streets for the entire day accompanied by drumming, chanting, dancing and singing.

The Tea Party hosted a counter-rally of about 2,000 on the Capitol steps in the early afternoon protected by more than 500 fully armed cops with riot gear. Tea Party members were bused in and left quickly after their rally. They were directly confronted by students and workers from such organizations as Students for a Democratic Society, Fight Imperialism, Stand Together, Bail Out the People Movement, Veterans for Peace, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Workers World Party and others with chants of “Hey, hey, ho, ho, racist Tea Party has to go,” “Hands off workers: Make the banks pay,” and “Kill the Bill.”

The racist, anti-worker Tea Party crowd was entirely surrounded by those opposing Walker’s bill, which is an attack on the entire working class and oppressed internationally by the banks, corporations and the Pentagon. Some workers even waded into the Tea Party crowd and shouted at the main speakers.

John Carey, a member of Veterans for Peace from the Clarence Kailin Chapter 25 Madison, told this writer, “We feel we have a purpose here because the economy is being affected by the war or should I say the wars. We oppose war as being a way of settling differences between nations, so we fit into this activity because our economy is being destroyed by the war and that is affecting the unions and working people. I think that if the administration is incapable of coming to a reasonable decision, namely not to destroy collective bargaining, then the unions should force regaining and maintaining their collective bargaining. They have a right to that and it can never be taken away.”

Widespread union, student participation

As has happened during the entire week, the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, American Federation of Teacher-Wisconsin, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and other unions bused in thousands of members from across the state and beyond. Delegations of union members, students and other community members came from across the country and other locations such as Toronto, Ont.

Emergency national demonstrations by the Bail Out the People Movement began Feb.18 at the Stock Exchange on Wall Street and continued nationwide. Solidarity demonstrations across the world began on Feb. 18 and continued on Feb.19. Both will continue until the anti-worker Walker bill is killed entirely.

Walker and legislators for the so-called “budget repair bill” have been flooded with emails, phone calls and tweets. Thousands of union and non-union members and students have visited legislators’ offices. Virtually all the major unions have frequent updates on their websites. Facebook is ablaze with up-to-the-minute messages. Twitter updates are constant. Demonstrators utilize numerous other communication strategies, including a live stream from inside the Capitol.

During the past week union members and their allies picketed Walker’s and other right-wing racist politicians’ homes, held protests throughout the state, sponsored candlelight vigils and more. These and many other actions are ongoing.

Lynne Pfeifer, an AFSCME Local 1288 member who has worked at the Manitowoc County Health and Rehabilitation Center for over 30 years, told this writer: “We can’t have it. We can’t lose collective bargaining. The rally at the state Capitol was fabulous. There were people all over, on the lawn, on the sidewalks, around the Capitol, all different ages. I got into the Capitol and that was another display. If those legislators didn’t hear what they ought to do, they’re not paying attention. They have to make some change. They have to do something different.”

On Feb. 18, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke at a major noon-time rally and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. spoke at an evening rally on the Capitol steps. Both speakers stood before thousands of poor and working people expressing their solidarity and pledging to assist in any way to make killing Walker’s bill a reality. Reverend Jackson also put forward a people’s program demanding a moratorium on foreclosures, relief for student loan debt, and a federal jobs program among other issues, and pledged solidarity with the lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer community. Continue reading →

People around the world, from California to Cairo, are supporting Wisconsin’s workers, who’ve seized their state Capitol building to fight union busting. But this wasn’t the first time people seized the Capitol in Madison.

On Sept. 29, 1969, Milwaukee mothers receiving public assistance, led by Father Jim Groppi and supported by 5,000 University of Wisconsin students, took over the Capitol. They held it for 11 hours and chased out the state legislators.

This was a struggle against welfare cuts. Racist politicians wanted to cut out the winter clothing allowance so that poor people would be driven out of the state or freeze to death.

Among the state assembly members chased out was future governor, Tommy Thompson, who took his revenge on poor people by abolishing welfare in the 1990s. Thompson and a majority of the state assembly had Groppi convicted of contempt and sentenced to jail without even allowing a legal defense. The U.S. Supreme Court later threw out Groppi’s conviction.

Activists are proud that Wisconsin enacted the first workers compensation law a century ago. The state also passed the first unemployment insurance act in the 1930s.

But as Lloyd Barbee, who led the state’s Civil Rights movement, said, “Wisconsin was progressive just for white people.” Barbee, who died in 2002, was one of the assembly members who supported the mothers on public assistance in 1969.

Four percent of Black people in prison

One out of every twenty-five African Americans in Wisconsin is incarcerated. That’s four percent of all Black people in the state, from the infant in the incubator to the elder trying to blow out a hundred candles on a birthday cake.

Twelve thousand African Americans are in Wisconsin prisons. Back in 1963, the state had fewer than 3,000 prisoners. The great migration of African Americans didn’t really reach Wisconsin until the 1950s. Even today just six percent of the state’s population is Black. Four percent are Latina/o.

Yet factory after factory in Milwaukee and Racine, Wis., had large numbers of Black workers. Thousands of African Americans were employed in Milwaukee’s A.O. Smith plant, which made car frames for General Motors.

Mexican workers filled the meatpacking plants in Milwaukee’s Menominee River valley.

Four people were killed in the 1967 rebellion of Milwaukee’s Black community. Only the much larger Detroit and Newark uprisings that year had more casualties.

Even before this revolt, Milwaukee was convulsed by daily demonstrations of the NAACP Youth Council, led by Father Groppi, demanding a law against housing discrimination. Every year, Vel Phillips—the first African American and first woman elected to the Milwaukee City Council—would introduce a fair housing law, only to have it voted down 18-1. Lloyd Barbee helped organize the 1965 boycott of the city’s segregated school system.

Twenty-five thousand people marched down Wisconsin Avenue in downtown Milwaukee following Dr. King’s assassination on April 4, 1968. This march amounted to a Black general strike with close to one-fourth of the African Americans in the city participating in it. This writer remembers the riot police, armed with tear gas launchers, preventing people from crossing the Milwaukee River to the East Side, where the city’s financial district is located.

During this period the Milwaukee chapter of the Black Panther Party grew rapidly. High school students were especially attracted to the Panthers. “The “Milwaukee Three” — Panther members Booker T. Collins Jr., Jesse Lee White and Earl W. Leverette — were framed up.

Because of the relatively small size of Wisconsin’s Black community, the ruling class has used the state as a laboratory for reaction. Social services have been cut to the bone. Milwaukee is filled with charter schools.

It was deindustrialization in Milwaukee that allowed capitalists to attack all workers. Plants like A.O. Smith and American Motors were torn down. White and African-American workers were thrown out of union strongholds in Milwaukee, but the Black working class was hurt much more. The result was a big weakening of the labor movement.

Plant shutdowns across Wisconsin have continued with the General Motors plant in Janesville now closed. Continue reading →

Feb. 16 — Since Feb. 14, tens of thousands of students, workers and other community members have liberated the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison in response to Gov. Scott Walker’s “budget repair” bill, which would eliminate collective bargaining rights for 175,000 public sector union workers statewide.

Gilbert Johnson, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 82 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, told this reporter: “We’re repulsed by the efforts of the current administration to strip us of our rights and dignity. The increasing protests statewide, and especially at the state Capitol, are exactly what’s needed to kill Gov. Walker’s bill, which is a union-busting and anti-worker attack. The resistance by the people of Wisconsin is inspiring and instilling hope in poor and working people all over the country. We need a constant stream of people going to the Capitol to stop this bill and for all to come out to the emergency rally Thursday.”

As of this writing, Walker’s budget bill is in the Joint Finance Committee, while hundreds of students and others are camping overnight inside the Capitol. A people’s filibuster took place for more than 20 hours Feb. 15-16. On one occasion in the late evening of Feb. 15, when the committee attempted to shut down public comment, hundreds of angry protesters led by students chanted “We will speak” and “Let us in.” They won more time — public comments continued until 2:30 a.m.

If the committee approves Walker’s bill, it goes to the Senate, where it is expected to be passed, and then on to the Assembly. The bill could come before the Senate as early as tomorrow. Those protesting have pledged the Senate and Assembly will be faced with mass resistance of various kinds if they attempt to pass the bill.

Both yesterday and today, hundreds of buses traveled to Madison from all across the state for noon rallies at the Capitol. The thousands who traveled to Madison occupied the Capitol building both days, taking over all four floors, encircling the Capitol in moving pickets and holding candlelight vigils. Inside, thousands more lobbied legislators, joined protests and drumming circles and sang. The Wisconsin AFL-CIO says that 20,000 descended on the Capitol Feb. 15 and 50,000 today. On Feb. 17 union and student organizers expect even bigger crowds to come from across Wisconsin and beyond.

Today all the K-12 teachers and students in Madison walked out and joined in solidarity at the Capitol. There have also been “teach-outs” at UW-Madison. Delegations of firefighters also joined the protests yesterday and today in a notable act of poignant solidarity, as they are exempt from the dire effects of Walker’s bill. They received an electric response from the crowds, as have the youth and students, who are playing a critical role in numerous areas.

The week started with pickets at legislators’ homes Feb. 13. The next day simultaneous protest actions as the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association-American Federation of Teachers at UW-Milwaukee sponsored a rally and the Teaching Assistants Association-AFT at UW-Madison rallied on campus and then marched to the Capitol. Continue reading →

On behalf of the banks, the corporations and the Pentagon, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has declared all-out war on unions and their allies. Walker’s “budget repair bill” proposal, which he unveiled at a state Capitol press conference on Feb. 11, proposes to virtually eliminate collective bargaining for approximately 175,000 public-sector union members. Walker has submitted his proposal to the Wisconsin Legislature with the directive that he wants his bill passed in the Assembly and the Senate by Feb. 17.

In a swift response, unions and their allies across the state are mobilizing to descend upon the Capitol in Madison this week with two major rallies planned for Feb. 15 and 16. Numerous other protest actions by labor-community-student organizations are ongoing across the state, including two major actions on Feb. 14: a march and rally to the Capitol building led by the Teaching Assistants Association-AFT and a rally at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee led by the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association-AFT Local 2169 and AFSCME. (www.mgaa.org)

The Wisconsin AFL-CIO is assisting member unions and federations in their protest actions to unite all workers in the state: union and nonunion, private and public sector. Facebook support pages are also mobilizing for the protest actions.

“This budget repair bill is an all-out assault on you, your families, your careers, your rights and your union. Walker keeps talking about the ‘good and decent people who work for the State of Wisconsin,’ but his actions speak a different message of divisiveness, cronyism and servitude,” AFSCME Council 24 wrote in a letter to its members after Walker’s Feb. 11 press conference. (www.wseu-sepac.org)

Some of the provisions in Walker’s bill include:

“Collective bargaining: The bill would make various changes to limit collective bargaining for most public employees to wages. Total wage increases could not exceed a cap based on the consumer price index unless approved by referendum. Contracts would be limited to one year and wages would be frozen until the new contract is settled. Collective bargaining units are required to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union. Employers would be prohibited from collecting union dues and members of collective bargaining units would not be required to pay dues. These changes take effect upon the expiration of existing contracts. Local law enforcement and fire employees, and state troopers and inspectors would be exempt from these changes;” (tinyurl.com/4t4oozh) Continue reading →