Class War Escalates—Use Live Ammo On WI Protesters

Image by Chris Huggins (Toronto G20 Protest)

 On Saturday, a Mother Jones staffer tweeted that riot police might sweep workers out of the Wisconsin Capital building. In response, Jeff Cox, a deputy attorney general, for the state of Indiana tweeted, “Use live ammunition.” He also called the demonstrators “political enemies” (which they are, but what’s wrong with that?) and “thugs” (which he obviously is).

Image by underclassrising  (Greek Protester)

It should come as no surprise to anyone that such violent statements would be made publicly by a government official. We’ve been hearing them for years from some religious leaders, anti-immigrant activists and Tea Party activists. Sharon Angle, for example, suggested using “2nd amendment remedies” should Tea Party efforts fail in Congress, while Sarah Palin infamously called on her followers to “reload” rather than retreat. Many executives would not shed a tear if there were a few casualties on the labor side in the class war (it certainly doesn’t seem to matter to the bosses at Coke, in Columbia, or Chevron, in Nigeria) so why not here? After all, it’s a small price to pay to keep wages low and profits high.

Cox’s statements are only noteworthy in the context of Gov. Scott Walker’s explicit threat to use the National Guard on protesters AND his active preparation for such an assault (See “General Strike,” paragraph 3). In the interest of full disclosure, Cox is a loose cannon, known for making all sorts of ludicrous, vitriolic remarks. He once said that Planned Parenthood could help themselves if they performed retroactive abortions and he compared the SEIU to Hitler’s Sturmabteilung. Nevertheless, in this climate of fear and paranoia, it only takes one Jared Loughner to get inspired by such rhetoric and then go on a self-righteous rampage that, in the middle of a mass demonstration, could end up being far more deadly than the recent massacre in Tuscon. On the other hand, it only takes orders by one right wing governor for the National Guard to open fire on striking workers, as has happened so many times in U.S. history (for a partial list of examples, please see “The Violent Demise of Unions.”)

GENERAL STRIKE!!! Will Wisconsin Have the 1st General Strike in Over 70 Years?

First the Good News

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Wisconsin’s mass demonstrations continued today for the eighth straight day, with public workers demanding that Gov. Walker withdraw his plan to gut their unions. Between 5,000 and 20,000 braved the frost to protest outside the capital. Graduate students also walked out of classes today. Some teachers continued their sick-out despite orders by their union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), to go back to work.

Meanwhile, the Madison-based South Central Federation of Labor, which represents 97 unions in the state, has endorsed a call for a general strike, possibly to take place the day Walker signs his "budget repair” bill. This is fantastic news in light of the fact that most of the state’s unions have thrown in the towel and conceded that passage of the bill is a done deal. It is also an indication of labor’s growing militancy and frustration with traditional union tactics that a general strike is even being considered. It is particularly exciting, as there have been very few General Strikes in U.S. history, including Seattle in 1919; San Francisco, Toledo and Minneapolis, in 1934; and Rochester, Pittsburgh, Stampford and Oakland, 1946. In a show of solidarity, the tiny but militant IWW has made their General Defense Committee available to support the General Strike.

Now the Bad News

A federation cannot declare a General Strike. It can only educate unions and members on the structure and function of a General Strike. Another problem is that General Strikes were outlawed with the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, in 1947, one of the many rollbacks the ruling elite was able to enforce on the working class in the wake of a wave of post-war labor militancy. As a result, there hasn’t been a General Strike in the U.S. since the Oakland General Strike in 1946. Therefore, unions and members will need lots of education and encouragement. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a General Strike involves work stoppages across numerous industries, with the goal of paralyzing business long enough to force the ruling elite to concede to working class demands. It is the fear of precisely such an action that prompted Gov. Walker to threaten to use the National Guard on workers. The question is, would the National Guard, police and prison guards join the movement or suppress it on behalf of the ruling class? Several National Guard officers toured a state prison yesterday, ostensibly to get a feel for their role as prison guards, should the prison guards join the strike.

We will probably never find out. There is very little chance that WEAC, AFSCME or the AFL-CIO would support a General Strike because they would be breaking the law to do so. They would also be violating their social contract with the ruling elite. Union leaders from both the WEAC and the Wisconsin State Employees Union have consistently agreed to the governor’s pension and health care cuts, demonstrating their willingness to serve as the enforcers of ruling class dominance. Their demands that collective bargaining and workers’ voices be preserved are completely cynical and meaningless to workers considering that they have already bargained away pensions and health care for the coming year (which will result in an 8-20% de facto pay cut) as well as working conditions (through increased class sizes). This comes on top of de facto pay cuts last year in the form of furloughs. In other words, collective bargaining, unions, democracy, free speech, are all good and well as long as you don’t use them to fight for better living conditions, and certainly not to challenge the hegemony of the ruling elite.

The union leadership is much more interested in preserving their elevated status, including their six-figure salaries and their perennial seats at the table with law makers and business leaders, than they with the living standards of their members. As union leaders, their status and interests are no longer the same as ours. What happens to us on the ground and in the classrooms does NOT happen to them. The implications of our sell-out contracts, our declining pay, pensions and benefits, do NOT happen to them. The only tangible, material connection between the rank and file and the union leadership is their salaries, which come from our dues, and the war chests they use to buy elections (and their seats at the table), which also come from our dues.

This relationship binds the union leadership more closely to the interests of the bosses, and loosens their accountability to their members. It turns them into internal enforcers of the contract, which primarily serves the interests of the bosses by keeping workers well-behaved, compliant and productive. This has often manifested itself in the outright suppression of worker dissent by the union leadership. For example, every March, layoff notices go out to thousands of teachers, as required by Ed Code. Union leadership typically takes the stance that it is in the districts’ rights to do this and consequently does nothing in defense of these teachers who have paid their dues to the union all year.

From Middle East to Mid-West: Workers Are Pissed!

While regimes across the Middle East face uprisings by workers and citizens fed up with autocratic rule, poverty and corruption, workers in the Mid-West have been protesting attacks on their workplace rights for the past week. The protests began in Wisconsin, in response to Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to ban collective bargaining and striking and his threat to call in the National Guard on workers who do strike. The protests have now spread to Ohio, with similar actions looming across the region. Wisconsin’s workers have been inspired by the uprisings in the Middle East, with demonstrators calling their governor Hosni Walker and carrying signs saying “Protest Like an Egyptian.”

The last time Wisconsin used the National Guard against workers was in 1886, in response to protests in support of the eight-hour day movement that grew out the Haymarket massacre in Chicago. In Milwaukee, the state militia fired on striking steel workers at Bay View, killing seven. Walker’s declaration is a stark reminder of the brutality the state has historically used to defend private profits, and should be seen as wakeup call to workers that history often repeats itself.

In Wisconsin, tens of thousands have been demonstrating throughout the week, with enough teachers calling in sick to effectively shut down the Madison and Milwaukee school districts. 30,000 protested outside the state capital in Madison on Wednesday, with dozens of workers and students camping out overnight. Many private sector workers joined them with some grilling bratwursts and providing other support. Veterans groups also joined the protests and issued condemnations of Walker’s threat to use the National Guard against his own citizens. 1,500 people marched on Walker’s suburban Milwaukee home. Thousands of university and K-12 students also walked out of classes across the state.

Walker’s budget plan would bar public workers from negotiating over pensions, health care benefits, and workplace conditions, while forcing them to double their contributions to pensions and health care, resulting in an 8-20% pay cut for most employees. It would also ban strikes. However, the biggest threat (in the eyes of the union bosses) is the elimination of automatic dues check offs, which would jeopardize millions of dollars of members’ dues that have been used by the union bosses to buy lobbyists, influence politicians, and maintain their seats at the ruling class banquet tables. It is no coincidence that Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers have fled the state in hopes of blocking a vote on the law—they stand to lose millions in campaign contributions.

Unions like the AFT and NEA have sold out their members repeatedly by supporting Obama’s Race to the Top and Common Core Standards, their tacit acceptance of NLCB, and in many cases collaborating with districts to impose merit pay and evaluations tied to student test scores. They routinely collaborate with lawmakers to impose wage and benefits cuts, furloughs and pension cuts on their members. It seems unlikely that they would suddenly decide to fight back now, unless there was a stronger motivator than their members’ standard of living. In fact, the unions have made it clear that they will accept Walker's pension and health care cuts, if he would just leave their unions intact. The rank and file workers, however, seem much more concerned with the attacks on their wages and benefits and their right to take collective action in defense of their working conditions. Workers across the country are fed up with the ruling elite’s assault on working people to pay for their greed.

There has been very little labor militancy in the U.S. since the 1980s, after the crushing of PATCO by Reagan, and the defeats of the Hormel, Greyhound and Phelps Dodge workers. Since then, the AFL-CIO and public employee unions have done everything in their power to suppress labor militancy, avoid strikes, and redirect worker frustration to political campaigns.

Contrary to Gov. Walker’s claims, Wisconsin is actually managing relatively well compared with other states. Their current budget deficit is only a $137 million, compared with $25 billion in California. The projection for next year is considerably worse, but nowhere near the scale of the crises in California, Texas and Illinois. What problems there are with the budget can hardly be blamed on teachers and other public employees. Walker gave away $140 million to special-interest groups in January, hardly a prudent move for a man obsessed with closing a budget deficit.

CTA Claps for Wisconsin Teachers

The California Teachers Association issued this silly 30 sec video in which they tell Wisconsin teachers and public sector workers they support them, and then chant Si Se Puede and clap for fifteen seconds.

This is a nice gesture, but it is not solidarity. In fact, it is a risk-free and entirely meaningless act that does nothing to help Wisconsin teachers win their struggle to maintain their union under the threat of military intervention by Gov. Scott Walker. It does nothing to protect CTA’s own membership from the growing attacks in California. (See California's War On Teachers Unions).

True solidarity would involve going to Wisconsin and joining a picket line, risking arrest, confronting their National Guard or, better yet, calling for a General Strike in California, not only in solidarity with Wisconsin workers, but in defense of California public sector workers who are also under attack. It is high time for a nation-wide General Strike, or at least many local ones. The attacks on unions and public workers will not go away by issuing press statements or by collaborating with the enemy or even by paying lobbyists and contributing to Democratic candidates. The attacks will stop only when workers join together and fight back, demonstrating their strength to the ruling class through collective actions that stop the flow of profits.

Until unions get this, until the rank and file force them to get this, the anti-union campaign will intensify until it destroys unions completely.

National Guard Can’t Save California’s Schools

New California schools chief Tom Torlakson declared a “state of financial emergency,” saying, “The law won’t allow me to call in the National Guard, so I’m saying to every Californian: ‘Your schools need your help and they need it now.’”

Well, they certainly need help, but not for the reasons the Ed Deformers love to claim (bad teachers, bad unions, etc. ad nauseum). $18 billion has been cut from education over the last three years in California. There will be another $2 billion lost next year just from declining tax revenues, and Torlakson estimates that $11 billion of the current $28 billion state budget deficit applies to education.

The numbers certainly look bleak, but bombastic metaphors won’t solve the problem. How could the National Guard help our schools, anyway? They need money, not soldiers. Or was Torlakson actually concerned that there might be civil unrest over the impending cuts? If so, then the law would allow Jerry Brown to call in the National Guard.

Perhaps the threat of a military occupation of California was intended to scare us into accepting the tax increases that Brown plans to ask from us in the next election. Considering that the bulk of these increases would come from raising the regressive sales tax, and across the board income tax hikes that would disproportionately impact lower and middle income families who are still reeling from a 12% unemployment rate, continued foreclosures, and stagnating salaries, Torlakson’s is justified in fearing a no vote. Anyway, even if the new taxes pass, they are only expected to cover a portion of the deficit, and education will still take a big hit.

“Your schools need you,” is a desperate plea. Parents can’t have bake sales anymore, as they are banned by many schools because they compete with Sodexo, Aramark and other cafeteria providers. Parents could dig deeper into their pockets and make donations or volunteer their time for other fundraising activities, and they most likely will. But this will mostly be lower and middle income families who tend to have children in public schools that are desperate for money. The rich already donate heavily to their kids’ private schools and are unlikely to contribute to public schools (unless of course they’re Bill Gates or Eli Broad trying to further their privatization agenda).