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To Win, Prepare to Strike Wisconsin!

Feb 20, 2011 [excerpt] There were quite a few signs today hailing the “Fab(ulous) 14,” referring to the Democratic state senators who left Wisconsin in order to prevent a vote on the union-busting bill. But what was most striking about the outpouring on Saturday was precisely that it was not a regimented marching of the troops. Instead there were lots and lots of hand-lettered signs, including quite a few that it is unlikely that the Democratic National Committee approved. A selection:

•“Screw us and We Multiply” (a favorite);
•“Is the National Guard going to teach my class?” (referring to the governor’s threat to bring in the National Guard to break any strike);
•“Welcome to Wisconsin – Leave Your Rights At the Border”;
•“You Can Pry My Union Card from My Cold Dead Hand”;
•“Hey Scott, I Wanted to Screw My Fourth Grade Teacher, Too”;
•“This is Wisconsin, We Love Beer, With Our Unions, At Our Union Meetings, Not Tea-Parties.”
•Another variant: “We Have Keg Parties, Not Tea Parties,” and “No Tea Party, No Klan in Wisconsin.”
•“Aaron Rogers Is a Union Rep” (referring to the star quarterback of the Green Bay Packers);
•“Northern Wisconsin Loves Our Teachers”;
•“Midwife for Labor”;
•“Don’t Balance the Budget on the Backs of Our Children”; and
•“The Workers Revolution Has Begun” (this one carried by a Madison teacher).
There were numerous references to the recent protests in Egypt, several noting that while they had forced out a dictator in Cairo while Wisconsin is still saddled with one. Ian’s Pizza announced it had stopped delivering pies except for orders coming in from as far away as Egypt paying to take pizzas to the square to offer to demonstrators.

Meanwhile, a group of AFSCME moms, dads and kids handed out free hot dogs. (We were famished and they were great.) And in the middle of the Tea Party rally a huge column of yellow Union Cabs circled the square honking their horns in solidarity with labor. All scripted from Washington? As if.

Signs referred to Nazi Germany, citing Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous lines (“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out”). Also, “May 1933, Hitler Bans Trade Unions.” Immigrants’ rights groups mobilized as well, including the Madison-area Unión de Trabajadores Inmigrantes (UTI – Immigrant Workers Union) which marched behind a banner proclaiming “An Injury to One Is an Injury to All!” (At the late-afternoon rally when a speaker tried to get the crowd to chant this classic slogan of labor solidarity, most didn’t know the second line. But in struggle people pick up the language of protest quickly.) [end excerpt]

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/02/20/18672599.php