Thursday, March 24, 2011

Guest Op-Ed: the fight over collective bargaining is not just a labor dispute in a Midwestern state

Protesters, some in cow costumes, flood the streets around the Wisconsin State Capitol to protest Governor Scott Walker's elimination of union bargaining rights for state and public employees. . (Michael Sears/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/MCT/March 12, 2011)

By Garret Keizer

For anyone who believes that the hard-won rights of organized labor constitute an American birthright, who would as soon see the flag burned as a picket line crossed (both acts disrespectful of blood shed in our "country's cause"), the decision of the Wisconsin Legislature to end most collective bargaining rights for public employees amounts to sacrilege. In effect, Wisconsin has become a pariah state. It ought to be treated as such.

The battle in Wisconsin, symbolically and in fact, is not a fight against a political party or a governor, much less against good people who made a horrendous electoral goof. It is a fight against what increasingly has come to feel like an American death wish, a mad potlatch of relinquishing every progressive gain of the last 100 years. We talk about "making cuts" in the tone of teenagers who cut themselves. A few billionaires and their proxies yell "jump," and we call it a sacrifice whose time has come. We need to start talking ourselves in from the ledge.”

The rest of the article is here

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