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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=4>" The trade union movement and its allies cannot go
along with the "hard cop - soft cop" ploy of the Democrats and Republicans.
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
money is there -- more than enough of it -- to fully meet all the needs of all
working people, particularly of Black and Latinos, who have been the hardest hit
by the crisis.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>But to
obtain these funds and redirect them to meet human needs, the labor movement has
to mobilize in the streets and the workplaces independently of the Democratic
and Republican parties.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"> </DIV></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=lduncan@igc.org href="mailto:lduncan@igc.org">Larry Duncan</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=lduncan@igc.org href="mailto:lduncan@igc.org">Larry
Duncan</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, February 22, 2011 7:27 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> EDITORIAL: Resistance Erupts in Wisconsin: Stop the Cuts
& Union-Busting!</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 24px Arial" face=Arial size=6><B>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial><FONT
class=Apple-style-span size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span
style="FONT-SIZE: 14px">[</SPAN></FONT><B><I><FONT class=Apple-style-span
size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span
style="FONT-SIZE: 14px">Note</SPAN></FONT></I></B><I><FONT
class=Apple-style-span size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span
style="FONT-SIZE: 14px">: The following article is reprinted from the
January-February 2011 issue of</SPAN></FONT></I><B><I><FONT
class=Apple-style-span size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span
style="FONT-SIZE: 14px"> The Organizer</SPAN></FONT></I></B><I><FONT
class=Apple-style-span size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span
style="FONT-SIZE: 14px"> newspaper</SPAN></FONT></I><FONT class=Apple-style-span
size=4><SPAN class=Apple-style-span style="FONT-SIZE: 14px">. - <A
href="mailto:theorganizer@earthlink.net">theorganizer@earthlink.net</A>]</SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV></B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 24px Arial" face=Arial
size=6><B><BR></B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 24px Arial" face=Arial
size=6><B>Resistance Erupts in Wisconsin:</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 24px Arial" face=Arial
size=6><B>Stop the Cuts & Union-Busting!</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial
size=5><B>EDITORIAL</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>As we
go to press, recently elected Republican Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin is
scrambling to pass his Budget Repair Bill. This bill would effectively destroy
public sector unions in Wisconsin and gut the benefits of 200,000
Wisconsin public sector employees (such as healthcare and state pension
contributions).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>Walker
tried to rush the vote on the bill in less than a week from when it was first
introduced without public hearings. At this writing, the 14 Democrats in the
State Senate have all left Wisconsin to prevent a vote on the bill. Walker is
one vote shy of carrying the bill in the Wisconsin Senate. He is hoping to
arm-twist one Democrat into supporting the bill, with no defections in his own
Republican ranks.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial
size=5>Working people across the country, particularly union members and
students are watching Wisconsin and pledging their full solidarity with the
struggle. If this bill is passed in Wisconsin, everyone understands that similar
legislation will be introduced in other states.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>At
this point, given the mass upsurge that has developed across the state and
nationwide in opposition to this offensive, it is far from certain that Governor
Walker will get his way, as a couple of the state's Republicans are wavering.
The politicians cannot ignore the huge and growing mobilizations, as students
and workers take to the streets, many walking out of their classrooms and jobs,
as was the case with the K-12 teachers in 10 public school districts in Southern
Wisconsin.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial
size=5>Thousands have also waged a mass sit-in/occupation of the State Capitol,
with hundreds staying there round the clock.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial
size=5><B>Stop the Budget Cuts!</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
organized labor movement has underscored the huge stakes in the fight in
Wisconsin and in 10 other "battleground" states, where Republican governors are
seeking to smash the trade unions through the introduction of "right-to-work"
laws and/or the destruction of collective-bargaining agreements. They point out
that if these attacks are not defeated, the labor movement could lose between 2
million and 3 million members in the next three years.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>As
part of their 2012 Re-Elect Obama campaign, the top union officials in the
AFL-CIO and Change to Win are focusing their energies and funds to defeat the
Republican assault in these "battleground" states.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>These
union leaders argue that it is impossible to halt the budget cuts in Wisconsin
today because the Republicans control both houses of the state legislature and
because the people have bought Governor Walker's rhetoric that the public sector
unions represent the "haves" while the private sector workers represent the
"have-nots." Clearly, public sector unions in Wisconsin have a gun at their
heads.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>But
here's the problem: On Sunday, Feb. 20, AFT President Randi Weingarten told
MSNBC that the unions -- AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions alike -- are prepared
to make up to $100 million in concessions in terms of reduced wages and pensions
in exchange for taking out the union-busting provision in the bill.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>Is
this the kind of proposal that should be coming from national union officials?
Of course not. Asking public sector unionists to make even one cent worth of
concessions is unacceptable. The economic crisis was not created by working
people, and union officials should not permit the bosses and their hired hands
in the federal and state governments -- whether Democrats or Republicans -- to
balance their budgets on the backs of the working class and the
oppressed.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>Carey
Gleason, a medical researcher in Wisconsin explained the real situation facing
workers in a letter to<I> The Organizer</I> newspaper:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>"The
misinformation about our state budget is at best, inaccurate, and worst,
slanderous. The state of Wisconsin is not in a budget crisis. We are projected
to run a $120 million surplus this year.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>"State
workers gave up yearly cost-of-living wage increases about five years ago. That
means we've had NO raises in the last five years. Plus we took a pay cut in the
last two years with the work furlough program. On average the Wisconsin state
worker is paid around 5% to 9 % less than her/his colleague in the private
sector.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial
size=5>"Walker's Budget Repair Bill is NOT about the budget or balancing state
finances. If it was, I'd like to know why he enacted tax cuts his SECOND DAY in
office! The tax cuts to business (big and small) will cost the state $140
million.</FONT></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial
size=5></FONT> </P>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>"I
know who the state workers are. They are conscientious, hard-working people with
integrity. They care about their jobs and the people they serve."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial
size=5>Defending the unions and the public sector in Wisconsin and the rest of
the country -- particularly in California and New York, where Democratic Party
governors are the ones waging the assault on public sector workers -- requires
an uncompromising struggle against both the union-busting attacks and the budget
cuts. These struggles are inseparable, and they require taking on both Democrats
and Republicans.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
situation in Wisconsin, in fact, would not be what it is today if the Democrats
in the state legislature had not caved in to the blackmail of then
Governor-elect Walker in the first place.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>In the
lame-duck session on Dec. 15, 2010 -- before the Republicans took over the
legislature -- the 17 no-pay-raise contracts running from July 2009 to June 2011
for tens of thousands of workers were stalled in the Democrat-led state Senate,
when outgoing Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Wausau) and Sen. Jeff Plale
(D-South Milwaukee) voted with the Republicans against the
contracts.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
votes were a dramatic victory for Walker and his fellow Republicans, who argued
that the contracts should be left for them to deal with, so that they could
extract concessions from the unions on pensions and healthcare benefits.
Otherwise, Walker and his cronies insisted, they would have to make deeper cuts
in areas such as healthcare and education to address a budget shortfall of about
$150 million through June and a gaping hole of up to $3.3 billion for the
two-year period after that.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial
size=5><B>There Is Money to Solve the Budget Deficits!</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
trade union movement and its allies cannot go along with the "hard cop - soft
cop" ploy of the Democrats and Republicans.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
total states' budget deficits across the country are estimated at $124 billion.
These deficits are being used as a bludgeon to go after the public sector. But
there is plenty of funding available -- if only there were the political will to
go after it -- to address the budget deficits and prevent the onslaught against
the unions and the public sector.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial
size=5>Instead of pleading with state governors and legislatures to accept
Draconian concessions in exchange for dropping their most heinous union-busting
attacks, the trade union movement should be calling on its members and all its
community allies to mobilize in large numbers against President Obama's $1.1
trillion in cuts over the next 10 years -- cuts that are further crippling
cash-strapped states and dismantling countless programs that provide assistance
to low-income people.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
unions should be demanding that the war budget be slashed so that hundreds of
billions of war dollars can be redirected to fund social services and to create
jobs for all.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
unions should be demanding that the federal government recover the close to $2
trillion in stimulus funding that are still sitting in the vaults of the bankers
and financial institutions, all of whom have refused to invest in the real
economy and create jobs. These funds are, in fact, going back into the same
speculative ventures that created the recent financial crisis.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
unions should be demanding at the state level that the legislatures tax the rich
and the corporations. In Wisconsin a full-fledged battle could be waged to
repeal Governor Walker's tax cuts and to demand that the state legislature tax
the rich.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
fight also entails going after the huge sums in federal and state funding for
prisons -- while schools, hospitals, libraries and other public services are
starved for funds.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
money is there -- more than enough of it -- to fully meet all the needs of all
working people, particularly of Black and Latinos, who have been the hardest hit
by the crisis.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>But to
obtain these funds and redirect them to meet human needs, the labor movement has
to mobilize in the streets and the workplaces independently of the Democratic
and Republican parties.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>The
mass protests, walkouts, and sit-ins in Wisconsin point the way forward for
working people throughout the country. As the spreading revolutions in North
Africa and the Middle East demonstrate, working people can change the course of
history through independent struggle.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>Stop
the Union-Busting!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>Stop
the Budget Cuts!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>Tax
the Rich!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" face=Arial size=5>No
Concessions!</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>