Wisconsin Protests: Labor Protests Draw Thousands Across The Country

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thousands of people rallied in cities across the United States on Saturday to express solidarity with Wisconsin public sector unions fighting a proposal to curb their power.

"We all support the people in Wisconsin and all over the country where labor is being threatened, and we know that the real agenda of the (Wisconsin) governor and many others is just to destroy unions," said New Yorker Judith Barbanel.

Barbanel, an English language teacher at the City University of New York, joined several thousand people at a "Save the American Dream" rally at City Hall to show solidarity with protesters in Wisconsin.

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."

Wisconsin's state Assembly on Friday approved Republican Governor Scott 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.

About 1,000 people turned out in Chicago at the Illinois state building to show support for the Wisconsin protesters, chanting "Save the American Dream." Up to 1,000 rallied in Columbus, Ohio, while a rally in Miami attracted only about 100 people.

Even in conservative Texas, several hundred people turned out for a rally at the State Capitol in Austin that coincided with a separate rally in support of abortion rights.

As Bill Oliver's band warmed up the crowd with folksy music, protester Doug Frank, 51, said he drove from his home in Crosby , three and a half hours away, to attend his first-ever rally.
"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 California, protesters held a rally in front of Los Angeles City Hall, and they organized another demonstration at the San Diego County Administration Building.

Organizers said more than 3,000 people attended the Los Angeles rally, but police declined to confirm that figure.

Denver saw another gathering in support of the Wisconsin workers with police estimating that crowd at more than 1,200 people.

In New York, 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, Christine Stebbins in Chicago, Jim Leckrone in Columbus, Thomas Brown in Miami, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Corrie MacLaggan in Austin; editing by John Whitesides and Greg McCune)

Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[dbrett480]

08:52 PM on 03/02/2011

I'm glad people have finally realized that unions are being threatened and that is a bad thing. Hopefully it isn't too late.

[GustavoRejivik]

03:55 AM on 02/28/2011

These people look dumb with Cheese on their heads ... Wisconsin Cheese doesn't even have holes in it.

More 'Civility' from Union Bosses .. time to get bloody??
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/145627-dem-lawmaker-on-labor-protests-get-a-little-bloody-when-necessary

[JohnBryansFontaine]

01:38 AM on 02/28/2011

Casablanca La Marseillaise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=werf88C7lkA

Scott Walker is the one ordering Capt. Renault to close down the cafe.

[42skidoo]

01:17 AM on 02/28/2011

Thanks to Gov Walker, The rate of new union memberships may rise to an all time level. The younger generations are seeing who really will stand up for each other and make sacrifices. It is very apparent it is NOT the gop that acts on behalf of "we the people". The unions will come out o this stronger than ever.

[JohnBryansFontaine]

12:56 AM on 02/28/2011

How about this? The Oscars just happened, and the Protests in Wisconsin are drawing just as much attention!

UNIONS ARE COMING BACK!!

Under the NLRA, you have the right to:
• Organize a union to negotiate with your employer concerning your wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of
employment.
• Form, join or assist a union.
• Bargain collectively through representatives of employees’ own choosing for a contract with your employer setting your wages, benefits, hours, and other working conditions.
• Discuss your terms and conditions of employment or union organizing with your co-workers or a union.
• Take action with one or more co-workers to improve your working conditions by, among other means, raising work-related complaints directly with your employer or with a government agency, and seeking help from a union.
• Strike and picket, depending on the purpose or means of the strike or the picketing.
• Choose not to do any of these activities, including joining or remaining a member of a union.

http://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/compliance/EmployeeRightsPoster11x17_Final.pdf

[rainkitty]

11:29 PM on 02/27/2011

"...instead of screaming about the advances public employee and other unions have made to preserve health care, job security and economic justice, angry voters should be asking what or who have been keeping them from obtaining the same. Nor does Wall Street's pillaging of private 401 (k) retirement plans justify tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye acts of covetous revenge against union pensions."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-winship/attacks-on-unions-barking_b_828379.html

[NoboyukiMasaki]

11:20 PM on 02/27/2011

The Republican Party:

"Boldly leading America into the 19th Century..."

[BMcCue7]

09:16 AM on 02/28/2011

I'm not going!

[Frog in a pot]

02:00 AM on 03/01/2011

Worse....at least the 19th century had jobs.

[JohnBryansFontaine]

11:11 PM on 02/27/2011

Note to every Liberal/Progressive/Democrat : At long last, despite the efforts of a corporate-owned Media and ( ironically ) a fiercely anti-Union Governor, Unions are beginning to regain their importance.

UNIONS ARE VITAL

EMPLOYEE RIGHTS
UNDER THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT

http://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/compliance/EmployeeRightsPoster11x17_Final.pdf

[blohrd3]

09:31 PM on 02/27/2011

I must point out that the quality of the post from paid conservative activist on this site has gone way down. They are resorting to cutting and pasting the same post over and over.

I could be wrong. We might be seeing post from actual poor deluded tea party members.

I demand that the paid activist return and do their jobs. It makes for better reading.

[ForObamaInDallas]

09:44 PM on 02/27/2011

It's not necessarily cut and paste. It's the drone talking point, verbatim. When it's downloaded, they do not have authorization to change the text.

[TMc73]

08:44 PM on 02/27/2011

“1956:
Eisenhower (R) was in office.
Top margianl tax rate over $400,000 was 90%.
Our manufacturing based economy was boomingwith 4% unemployment.
GM was the largest private employer, mostly union manufacturing jobs with benefits.
Union membership was near its peak at 30% in the private sector.
The middle class was strong and healthy.
Eisenhower started the Interstate Highway System.

2011:
National economy is stagnant at best with 9.5% unemployment.
Largest private sector employer: WalMart...low paying service sector jobs with little to no benefits
Top margianal tax rate 39% over $250,000 in income.
Capital gains taxes of 15-30% (for the Buffet's Gate's, and Koch's who derive the majority of their income from capital gains)
Union membership at its lowest in histrory (both public and private sectors) less than 9%
Little to no public infrastruc­ture developmen­t.

And to think that there average citizens who honestly beleive that coporations should pay NO taxes and that the destruction of the Unions country would unleash a period of immeasurable wealth upon us.

Maybe the education system is broken...(no offense to the teachers out there).

[DarkandStormyNight]

07:19 PM on 02/27/2011

RUKidding0 39 minutes ago (6:37 PM) 283 Fans
Become a fan Unfan
I have neither the time nor inclinatio­n to be a Tea Party person. I am merely a grimly resolved serious supporter of their cause.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not a TP member, but a serious supporter. How is that different?

[AeJaa]

07:49 PM on 02/27/2011

"Not a TP member, but a serious supporter. How is that different?" --DarkandStormyNight

It denotes a higher level of confusion and anger.

[TMc73]

08:45 PM on 02/27/2011

Or a total and complete lack of resolve.

[RUKidding0]

08:15 PM on 02/27/2011

If I were a Tea Party member, I would take an active role in the Party's activities and seek to help lead it, but I work 50 - 60 hrs/wk and am not interested in public demonstrations in any event.

Instead, I will vote for the people they support for office, send money, and write a book to explicate a coherent vision of America based on freedom rather than one form of collectivism or another consistent with Tea Party aspirations.

[Joan Smeltzer]

10:50 PM on 02/27/2011

This is a totally incoherent comment, not surprisingly...

[BMcCue7]

09:18 AM on 02/28/2011

Because almost ALL of us depend on common resources, we are ALL "collectivists."

I mean, unless you're Robinson Crusoe or Grizzly Adams or something.

[Publius67]

07:05 PM on 02/27/2011

Words from a true Republican, not these current folks: "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; that, in fact, capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration"

If you giessed that was Lincoln, you'd be right.

and for good measure: ""I know up at the top you are seeing great sites,
But down at the bottom, we too should have rights" Yertle the Turtle, Dr. Seuss

[pthompson13]

08:24 PM on 02/27/2011

When you quote Lincoln and Suess in the same post, you get F&F'ed!

[TMc73]

09:10 PM on 02/27/2011

Agreed.

I love Yurtle the Turtle as much as kids do.

As for Lincoln and the Labor quote, it is just as relevant today as it was 150 years ago.

[Jack Canuckski]

01:14 AM on 03/03/2011

two great quotes. I commend you Publius67.

But I must confess that I feel in a way almost grateful to Scott Walker, because he has awoken a sense of identity in working class people and by threatening the working class institutions that represent their interests and protect their rights in the work place, the realization that if they don't act to protect those rights they would soon be lost.

Wisconsin has been a wake up call not only in Wisconsin, but all across the US and here in Canada.

About 40 years ago, I worked underground in the nickel mines in Sudbury Ontario.

Our union was The United Steelworkers of America. For many of us younger guys back then, the union was not militant enough. Many of us felt then, and I still feel today, that labour should participate in the governance of the corporations for which they work.

In English speaking countries, essentially only shareholders and creditors are represented on boards of directors, while in some European countries, notably Germany, but also many others, require other stakeholders, including labour, to be represented on the boards of director of these corporations.