Labor Had Better Get Its Act Together
Standing on the corner of State Street and the Capitol Square, my Electrical Workers sign in hand (the union of my father and grandfather), waiting for the protest against the right-to-work legislation to begin, I had time to consider some questions that have been chafing my drawers since Act 10 destroyed public sector bargaining.
How did Wisconsin go from a vibrant pro-union state to a hotbed of reactionary politics? How did we get from the Wisconsin of Bob La Follette and Gaylord Nelson to the Wisconsin of Scott Walker and his buddies the Koch brothers? How can workers' organizations fight the political cabal that uses the front of tea party grievances to advance a corporate plan with its false promises of prosperity through gutting of education systems and human services and neglect of critical infrastructure? Are protesters ready to take the necessary steps to fight that agenda?
To be sure, Wisconsin has always had a reactionary undercurrent of McCarthyite demagogues and corporatist flunkies willing to sell out our livelihoods, our communities, and our natural resources. But now we are at an altogether different stage — a stage where we are a laboratory for the worst ideas the reactionaries have to offer: infantile Ayn Rand individualism dressed up as policy, trickle-down mythology justifying tax cuts for the wealthy, ever more punitive policies toward the poor, privatization as a way of enriching donors, and starving the public sector so it cannot function and will thus be discredited.
The right-to-work push aims to lower wages to please the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce crowd and to advance the political ambitions of Walker, a delusional would-be president. Make no mistake, this is class war and it is being waged on us. And we must acknowledge that we have lost some significant opening battles.
“Our side” has to own its errors and omissions. Labor and progressives were often complacent, resting on laurels instead of reimagining the future and reinvigorating our organizations. We let ourselves become ripe for the divide-and-conquer strategy that Walker uses to please his wealthy, union-hating donors. Did labor organizations truly prioritize workers’ solidarity across the board? Or did they let the notion that it’s OK to close a park or lay off a teacher if it means a $5 dollar tax reduction go unchallenged? Did union leaders come to rely on an insurance industry model where they collected premiums and adjusted claims?
Well, enough blame game. There are many things that could have been done differently if we could go back to 2010 (or 1980). I have been asked many times since the dropping of the Act 10 bomb on public employees what might have been done differently. Many thousands of union members and supporters ringed the Capitol and raised their voices. I spent many hours there and it felt hopeful. Then it was over. We didn’t raise the political costs to the level sufficient to give our enemies pause (yes, in a war there are enemies). As I left the last Wisconsin Uprising rally, I wondered, why did electric power continue to state buildings during that time (same with the steam heat) and why did school sessions continue and buses roll? It seemed like a major battle had raged and our side had held back.
It seems to me, when faced with an existential crisis, that the full array of tactics and bold measures must be considered, and, after due consideration, be deployed incrementally or simultaneously as resources and circumstances dictate. That they were not tells me something about the lack of preparedness among labor leaders and their members.
The unwillingness and inability of labor to bring off a general strike is a serious deficit in our toolkit. But the Capitol occupation during the Wisconsin Uprising provided sufficient breathing space to train tens of thousands of supporters in the nonviolent civil disobedience that would had made it difficult if not impossible to do legislative business. There was room to organize all manner of slow-downs, sit-downs, and gumming up of the public sector. Even after the passage of Act 10, there could have been an ongoing campaign of guerrilla labor action behind management’s lines. This is the era of asymmetrical warfare, of hacking, of fragile networks of communication. Business as usual can be disrupted.
I would hope that those within labor would revisit their organizational models and consider whether they are suitable to the task demanded of defending workers in the class war that has been launched against us. In many cases they are not. Here are some items I would like Wisconsin labor to consider:
• Build a non-worksite-specific organization that all working people can join (somewhat on the Working America model, but with an assertive direct action perspective).
• Train working people and supporters in the full range of direct action tactics and techniques.
• Open up to more versatile political action methods less dependent on the two-party model and more reliant on coalitions of mobilized citizens.
• Bring labor organizations up to a state of readiness sufficient to make them credible as direct action organizations.
• Build and deepen support and logistics networks capable of providing assistance to workers under attack or threat (food, medical care, shelter, legal representation, transportation).
• Create (hold onto your hat) a workers’ self-defense force to protect workers and communities that may come under attack (from leaders like Walker who can't seem to tell the difference between teachers and terrorists).
Some would say this is an unrealistic — even dangerous — agenda. I say there are dangers in not even discussing it, in letting our enemies know we won’t even consider it. Were most of the people at the anti-right-to-work protest on the same page with me? Maybe not. But we must at least have the conversation.
Those who know their Civil War history know that things did not go well for the Union forces in the first several years. They sustained thumpings on the battlefield and domestic politics proved contentious and chaotic. Wars have their lost battles, retreats and regroupings. We must struggle, like President Lincoln did, to find the moral clarity in our cause and the leaders willing to pursue that cause. Otherwise we’re just waiting for the Walkers and their ilk to mop up our pockets of resistance.
Dennis Boyer, of rural Dodgeville, is a retired AFSCME staff member and previously was a member of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen. He was a founder of the Wisconsin Labor-Farm Party and later a convener of the Wisconsin Greens.