Wisconsin workers ‘Go Egypt’ on Tea-Publican tyrant governor

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Following the non-violent popular democratic uprising in Egypt, a new phrase has entered our lexicon: "Go Egypt on your ass." (It is a variation of the classic line from the movie Pulp Fiction, "I'm gonna get medieval on your ass!") It means a non-violent popular democratic uprising against a repressive regime.

It is spreading like wildfire to repressive regimes across the Muslim world — and in the state of Wisconsin in the good old U S of A. On, Wisconsin!

Wisconsin elected a Tea-Publican governor last November, Scott Walker, who is using the state's budget crisis as an excuse to achieve conservatives' fondest dream: breaking the public sector unions.

Private sector unions have been in decline for over 40 years as anti-worker conservative legislatures enacted anti-union organizing measures such as deceptively named "right to work" laws (closed union shops) and other union opt-out provisions. There has also been a concerted anti-union campaign in the corporate media to demonize labor unions and their members, cough (The Arizona Republic).

The strongest unions remaining today are public sector unions, such as AFSME, teachers, police, fire, prison guards, etc. Now you know the reason why conservatives are so anti-education and anti-teachers — blind hatred for unions.

These public sector unions provide the Democratic Party with organizational capabilities, boots on the ground and on the phone for campaigns, and campaign expenditures that allow the Democratic Party to remain competitive in this new era of Citizens United.

Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, no friend to American workers, explained the conservative talking points in Public-Employees Union Is Now Campaign's Big Spender – WSJ.com:

Newly elected conservatives will also likely push to clip the political power of public-sector unions. For years, conservatives have argued such unions have an outsize influence in picking the elected officials who are, in effect, their bosses, putting them in a strong position to push for more jobs, and thus more political clout.

Some critics say public-sector unions are funded by what is essentially taxpayer cash, since member salaries, and therefore union dues, come directly from state budgets.

"Public-sector unions have a guaranteed source of revenue—you and me as taxpayers," said Glenn Spencer, executive director of the [bogus-named] Workforce Freedom Initiative at the Chamber of Chicoms Commerce.

If the public sector unions can be broken, the Democratic Party will lose its capability to be financially competitive with the hundreds of millions of dollars in secret corporate expenditures flowing to conservative corporate-backed candidates. The corporate media will gladly take this dirty money and fail to report the truth about what is really going on. The corporatocracy will have succeeded in removing any political opposition and can then begin imposing the new serfdom by repealing all laws giving workers rights and protection. In a word, it is about "submission" to the corporatocracy.

To succeed, this plan requires an electorate that is docile, apathetic, submissive and resigned to its fate. State-sponsored media (corporate media) will use fear to keep the public in this submissive state. But as we saw in Egypt and elsewhere, once the "wall of fear" breaks down, the people are emboldened to rise up and demand their individual rights and democratic freedoms.

Which brings us back to the great state of Wisconsin, the home of the original progressive movement and the birthplace of unions. Hopefully Wisconsin will be our Tunisia that sparks a people's revolution against submission to serfdom under the corporatocracy.

As John Nichols explained at The Nation, A 'Dictator' Governor Sets Out to Cut Wages, Slash Benefits and Destroy Public Unions:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s proposal to strip public employees of most collective bargaining rights, cut pay and gut benefits without any negotiation represents the most radical assault yet by the current crop of Republican governors on the rights of workers has inspired outrage in a historically progressive and pro-labor state.

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With unions calling on members an allies to “fight back” against a “blatant power grab,” tensions are running so high that the governor, who took office in January, is threatening to call out the National Guard in case of industrial action by state, county and municipal employees.

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Even Republicans are unsettled, with a senior GOP legistator, state Senator Luther Olsen, describing the governor’s announcement a “radical” move that threatens “a lot of good working people.”

Walker never discussed ending collective bargaining during a campaign in which he promised to work across lines of partisanship and ideology to create jobs.

Instead, he has chosen to play political games.

The governor’s [so-called] "budget repair bill," which includes the plan to gut collective bargaining protections for public employees, does not seek to get the state’s fiscal house in order.

Rather, it is seeks a political goal: destroying public employee unions, which demand fair treatment of workers and hold governors of both parties to account when they seek to undermine public services and public education.

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Despite expressions of concern even from some conservatives, Walker wants to ram a change that Democrats and Republicans agree is radical through the legislature this week, as part of the budget repair bill with no serious hearings and little in the way of honest debate.

That’s drawn bitter criticism from defenders of the state’s progressive and small-“d” democratic traditions.

State Senator Fred Risser, the dean of state legislators, does not go in for fiery rhetoric or rash statements… But Risser did not mince words with regard to Walker’s assault on state employees.

“State employees have the right to negotiate in good faith with the state. Without a willingness to even discuss what concessions need to be made with state employees, the governor comes across more like a dictator and less like a leader,” Risser said. “The governor’s budget adjustment bill attempts to wipe away over 50 years of collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin. This decree will affect every hardworking public employee in the state every librarian, teacher, street department worker and public safety worker. These are our friends and neighbors; they are the people who make our communities function.”

(Craig Schreiner / Wisconsin State Journal)

Workers and students from across Wisconsin, not just union members, have descended on the state capitol in Madison en masse. (The photo above is inside the capitol rotunda on Wednesday). Thousands protest Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union bill in Wisconsin:

Thousands of teachers, students and prison guards descended on the Wisconsin Capitol on Wednesday to fight a move to strip government workers of union rights in the first state to grant them more than a half-century ago, but Republican leaders said the changes they sought would not be made.

The Statehouse filled with as many as 10,000 demonstrators who chanted, sang the national anthem and beat drums for hours in demonstrations unlike any seen in Madison in decades. The noise in the rotunda rose to the level of a chainsaw, and many Madison teachers joined the protest by calling in sick in such numbers that the district – the state's second-largest – had to cancel classes.

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The new [Tea}-Republican governor, Scott Walker, is seeking passage of the nation's most aggressive anti-union proposal, which was moving swiftly through the GOP-led Legislature. Legislative leaders said Wednesday night they would make minor changes to the bill, but would keep the provision to remove collective bargaining rights that generated the protests.

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If adopted, the move would mark a dramatic shift for Wisconsin, which passed a comprehensive collective bargaining law in 1959 and was the birthplace of the national union representing all non-federal public employees.

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More than 13,000 protesters gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday for a 17-hour public hearing on the measure. Thousands more came Wednesday.

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The protests have been larger and more sustained than any in Madison in decades. Dozens of protesters spent the night in sleeping bags on the floor of the Rotunda. A noise monitor in the Rotunda registered 105 decibels at midday Wednesday – about as loud as a power mower or chainsaw.

Beyond the Statehouse, more than 40 percent of the 2,600 union-covered teachers and school staff in Madison called in sick. [The sick-out continued on Thursday.]

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While other states [including Arizona] have proposed bills curtailing labor rights, Wisconsin's measure is the most aggressive anti-union move yet to solve state budget problems. It would end collective bargaining for state, county and local workers, except for police, firefighters and the state patrol.

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Under Walker's plan, state employees' share of pension and health care costs would go up by an average of 8 percent. The changes would save the state $30 million by June 30 and $300 million over the next two years to address a $3.6 billion budget shortfall.

Unions still could represent workers, but could not seek pay increases above those pegged to the Consumer Price Index unless approved by a public referendum. Unions also could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized.

In exchange for bearing more costs and losing bargaining leverage, public employees were promised no furloughs or layoffs. Walker has threatened to order layoffs of up to 6,000 state workers if the measure does not pass.

Wisconsin is one of about 30 states with collective bargaining laws covering state and local workers.

Arizonans have been stupefyingly docile, apathetic, submissive and resigned to the tyranny of our radical Tea-Publican government in Arizona. Wake up Arizona! Rise up like your fellow American citizens in Wisconsin and take to the streets en masse. Tear down the wall of fear and stop being afraid. Demand your individual rights and democratic freedoms.

It's time for a mass march on the state capitol, bigger than the massive immigration marches from several years ago. I'll even suggest a theme for this "go Egypt on their ass" march: "Show 'em your shoes and give em' the boot!" End the Tea-Publican tyrrany of repression and regression in Arizona.

UPDATE: Speaking on Morning Joe Thursday morning, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) compared the current situation in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker (R) has inspired days of protests by proposing a budget that would remove key bargaining powers for public employee unions, to the recent unrest in Egypt that toppled the 30-year authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak, saying it's "like Cairo has moved to Madison these days."