IVAW-Madison welcomes members from Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and New York
This past weekend, IVAW-Madison had the pleasure of welcoming members from the region to our city to join the fight in defending public workers who are under attack by our new Governor and his "Budget Repair Bill." This bill would remove the right of public workers to collectively bargain for better working conditions in a political move unrelated to the current budget shortfall. Since his inaguration in January he has spent over $140 million on special interests, specifically two items which put the current budget into a deficit before the end of the fiscal year: a tax break for businesses is projected to have a one-time cost of $11.8 million, while the tax deduction for Health Savings Accounts (HSA) will cost the state $49 million in tax revenue over two years.
His 'budget repair bill' is just partisan politics in action, the removal of collective bargaining rights is not related to the budget crisis that we now face in Wisconsin and is now faced in many states around the country. The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have cost Wisconsin taxpayers over $18.5 billion dollars in the past 9 and a half years. At the same time the funding from the federal government to states has dwindled and only those on Wall Street whose speculation caused the current financial crisis have received a bailout. Workers in this country have been asked and have time and again given up pay and benefits only to see their bosses get a larger bonus or to see their jobs eliminated. Since 1981 corporations have seen their tax burden decrease by 50 per cent. Janesville lost its GM plant, workers at Mercury Marine were threatened with the loss of over 600 jobs in order to give major concessions, Harley-Davidson employees accepted a 7 year pay freeze when the company threatened to move out of it's home state of Wisconsin. Now the governor of Wisconsin wants public sector workers to give up a right which some of their predecessors gave their lives to earn.
To top it off he boldy remarked that he was prepared to deploy the Wisconsin National Guard in his union busting effort. For Wisconsin residents, veterans and members of the Guard; the threat should not be taken lightly. In 1886 seven striking workers who were striving for an eight-hour workday were killed by members of the Wisconsin National Guard while marching peacefully. It is unethical for the governor to think that he has his own militia to force through his political agenda when many of those same members of the Wisconsin National Guard are those same public employees: teachers, fire fighters, police officers, nurses, and others. As former public employees in the U.S. military we stand with public employees in their fight for better working conditions and call on the Wisconsin National Guard to refuse any call-up orders which ask them to repress their fellow worker.
IVAW members read part or all of the statement released by the organization and reminded the crowd that we were/are public workers numerous times over the weekend. You can see videos here:
For some members it was the first time they had been to Madison and were surprised how close it actually was for them. It was great to have so many old friends come to town and also meet some new faces. The support from around the country and world who have donated food to sustain those in the capitol at all hours of the day was amazing. On Sunday as there were threats from the Governor that the Capitol would be closed for cleaning the crowd and the large police precence seemed on edge. Instead of kicking those there in favor of unions out of the Capitol, for the first time since the occupation of the Capitol began, an announcement was made that the building would close at 4pm. This announcement played twice. There was never a request to leave and those public workers policing the building and ensuring the people's right to freedom of assembly stood around and watched as those in the building continued as before.
While never asked to leave this first closing off of any entry into the building marked the first attempt of the Governor to take away the people's house from the people. All this week there has been severely limited access to the Capitol by residents, sending the issue to the courts. As of writing this is seems that the Capitol will have to be emptied but full access will have to be restored during normal business hours. This will surely add to the numbers who have slept on the cement outside of the doors all week and allow better access to lobby and fight for the stoppage of the 'budget repair bill' to continue. So far it seems that one Republican Senator is going to vote against the bill, only two more are needed to prevent its passage in the Senate.
