2/22/11 Updates on Wisconsin Labor Struggle; Missing SF Demo

As workers and students continue demonstrating in the 14-20 degree bitter cold in Wisconsin for labor, the attack on labor continues both from the Republican Governor and from the Democratic Party union officials who only care about collective bargaining so they can collect the dues, while they immediately offer to give up everything that is the subject of bargaining, such as employer funded pensions and healthcare. While only a general strike will stop the attack on labor, the labor union officials are ordering their workers back to work, supporting worthless recall drives.

Information on the issues may be found at:
“Class Warfare in Wisconsin: 10 Things You Should Know” By Josh Healey at
http://joshhealey.org/2011/02/17/class-warfare-in-wisconsin/
and
“Two Words on Wisconsin” By Tina Wright
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/two-words-on-wisconsin-by-tina-bell-wright/

The Industrial Workers of the World have provided a statement of support:
http://www.iww.org/en/node/5348

ANSWER coalition provides an update at:
http://www.answercoalition.org/national/news/wisconsin-workers-struggle-carries-on.html
and their Twitter has constant updates at the same site.

There are lots of labor videos of and on the Wisconsin labor struggle at
http://vimeo.com/20180762
http://vimeo.com/20225489
http://vimeo.com/20178211

The World Socialist Website provides lots of food for thought.
1. The Wisconsin struggle and “collective bargaining”
by Jerry White, 22 February 2011
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/pers-f22.shtml
In the course of the struggle, fundamental differences between the interests of the workers and those of the official leaders of the protests have quickly emerged. In all of the statements by WEAC and the Wisconsin State Employees Union, union leaders say they accept the governor’s demands to impose the cost of pensions and health care on public employees, but they will not accept the abolition of collective bargaining.

A great deal is revealed here. The union officials’ references to “collective bargaining” are entirely cynical. By declaring their willingness to accept every concession beforehand, they have given up collective bargaining, if this term is to have any substantive meaning at all—that is, the right of the workers to fight against the demands of the corporations and state. The unions have already bargained away everything, leaving the working class to collectively suffer.

The unions’ objection to the governor’s attack on collective bargaining refers only to their own quite independent interests, particularly with regards to the dues checkoff system.

This issue has a history. In the initial formation of the unions in the 1930s and 1940s the unions faced the problem of achieving stability in the face of the relentless hostility of the corporations to the struggle of workers. The closed shop and automatic dues check off system emerged as a means of preserving a certain organizational protection under capitalism and combating the union busting of big business.

There was an implicit danger to the dues checkoff system, however. Gone were the days that a shop steward would have to resolve a worker’s grievance before he would part with his dues money. The stabilization of the union structure and the steady flow of dues guaranteed by the employer tended to liberate the unions from accountability to their own membership and the control of the rank and file.

At the same time, the establishment of dues check off was tied to an acceptance of the capitalist system itself. With the recognition of unions and the agreement of the employer to deduct a portion of workers’ wages for dues came the expectation that the union would enforce the terms of contract. The AFL-CIO unions rejected the path of political struggle through the formation of an independent labor party, let alone the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. They relied instead on the government to sanction and institutionalize their relationship with the employers.

During the post-war boom, workers were able to win through the trade unions significant concessions, despite the pro-capitalist orientation of the bureaucracy. With the decline of American capitalism, beginning in the 1960s and accelerating through the 1970s and 1980s, the unions’ defense of capitalism took on a new form. Increasingly, their primary function became the suppression of working class struggles and the enforcement of concessions on their own members. The interests of the bureaucracy became entirely divorced from the interests of the membership.

This process has reached a certain culmination in the present situation in Wisconsin. That the public employees union can announce that collective bargaining is the most essential issue at stake, while openly abandoning the defense of the economic needs of workers, only underscores the direct antagonism between the interests of the rank-and-file workers and the union.

For the Democratic Party, the trade unions are important assets not only because of the millions in dues money that flows into their campaign coffers. Most importantly it is because the role the unions play in suppressing working class opposition and imposing the dictates of the corporations and the government.

That is why Obama abhorred the “assault on unions” in Wisconsin in comments to the media last week, while insisting workers had to “make adjustments” due to state’s budget crisis.

2. As Wisconsin protests continue, teachers union ends walkouts
By Tom Eley, 22 February 2011
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/wisc-f22.shtml
But the largest single public employee union in the state, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, confirmed that it was calling off all teachers’ strikes and telling its 98,000 members to return to work. The WEAC web site posted prominently the statement by union chief Mary Bell Sunday: “To educators whose contracts do not recognize Presidents’ Day [Monday], we call on them to return to duty by day, and find ways to be vocal and visible after their workday is done.”
[WHAT KIND OF UNION SIGNS A CONTRACT THAT DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE LEGAL HOLIDAY, PRESIDENT'S DAY? ANSWER: A COMPANY UNION]

Other unions seem to be pulling back on the campaign as well, despite the overwhelming public support among working people around the state. There were press reports that the state AFL-CIO and AFSCME are effectively conceding passage of the bill this week, and seeking to divert the movement into a series of isolated recall campaigns against selected Republican state senators. (Governor Walker himself cannot be recalled until next year.)

More than 300 faculty members at UW-Madison, who are not unionized, signed a letter expressing concern of the loss of collective bargaining rights for state workers, including the graduate student assistants now organized in the TAA. Many faculty members are expected to cancel classes Tuesday in sympathy with the “teach-out.”
[CAN YOU IMAGINE 300 PROFESSORS WHO ARE NOT UNIONIZED AT A SUPPOSEDLY UNIONIZED CAMPUS? THIS IS ANOTHER OUTRAGEOUS SELL-OUT.]

There would be overwhelming support for an open-ended general strike of state and local workers, including teachers. But the trade union bureaucracy is completely opposed to such a step, not only because it would require breaking state law, but because it would bring to the fore the fundamental social grievances of public sector workers and indeed the entire working class, which would inevitably come into conflict with the aims of the union hierarchy.

While workers and youth are demanding an end to wage-cutting and state budget cutbacks in social spending, the unions have repeatedly insisted that they will accept all concessions except those the Republicans have aimed at the very existence of the unions, especially the dues check-off.

Walker’s plan is a far-ranging assault on public sector workers. By increasing employee contributions to health care and retirement plans, it would force wage cuts of between 8 and 20 percent, workers say. It also gives the governor new powers to unilaterally intervene against striking workers whenever he declares a state of emergency. Walker has provoked rage by threatening to call out the National Guard to enforce the bill.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported Monday that at least six National Guard officers in plainclothes had toured a state prison facility last week. Walker has said that the troops would be sent into the prisons to replace prison guards if they joined any larger walkout by state employees.

Of greater concern to the union officials, as they repeatedly stress, is the bill’s measures aimed at “collective bargaining.” It would force yearly elections to maintain union certifications, and would reportedly end the right of certain categories of labor, including teaching assistants and professors, to organize legal unions. The bill’s abolition of the mandatory dues check-off system would force the bureaucracies to survive on voluntary contributions and erode their ability to provide resources to the Democratic Party.

The union officialdom is an important constituent of the Democratic Party. But animating the actions and pronouncements of Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin, as well as President Obama, is their view that the unions are indispensable tools for enforcing wage and budget cuts, which are taking place across the country under Democratic and Republican governors alike.

Democratic senators walked out of the capitol on Thursday to temporarily block the bill’s passage by denying the Republican-controlled Senate a quorum. They evaded a police manhunt and remain in hiding in neighboring Illinois. The maneuver aimed to head off a social explosion had the bill been passed, with tens of thousands of angry workers and youth at the capitol’s doorstep. They also aim to open the bill up to negotiation so that certain concessions can be granted to the unions while the legislation’s attacks on wages and the right to strike are kept intact.

Republicans have insisted they will not alter the bill. On Monday, state Republicans announced they might capitalize on the Democrats’ absence by passing other bills, including a measure that would require voters to produce photo identification before they can cast ballots in elections. Another Republican senator has proposed a compromise that would see a sunset clause added to the bill allowing the restoration of the dues check-off while maintaining the cuts to workers’ pay.

It is likely that the Democratic senators will soon drop their opposition. Yet workers and youth in Wisconsin are expressing determined opposition. Their struggle is beginning to attract support and similar actions across the US.

Dozens of demonstrations were held on Monday across the US in support of Wisconsin’s workers, including in locations as far away as Maryland, Nevada, West Virginia and New Hampshire. In the capital of Washington state, Olympia, an estimated 2,000 protesters crowded into the capitol building to voice solidarity with workers in Wisconsin and oppose budget cuts in their own state.
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WHERE WAS SAN FRANCISCO'S DEMONSTRATION? The weather was clear and 55 degrees. We have demonstrations about every cause and country in the world but when it comes to addressing the fundamental issue, the class struggle in the US, we have silence. THERE IS NO PROBLEM ANYWERE THAT CAN BE SOLVED UNTIL CAPITALISM IN THE USA IS ABOLISHED. ONLY LABOR, WITH A GENERAL STRIKE, CAN PUT AN END TO CAPITALISM, the cause of all our grief, all environmental problems, all wars, all racism.