Local Central Labor Body issues statement of solidarity with Wisconsin public employees

To the editor:

Last Friday, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin signed a bill restricting the rights of collective bargaining for certain Wisconsin public employee bargaining units. This bill was designed to cripple in numerous ways the efforts of regular working people to retain a living wage and a just standard of living.

Walker has also proposed a "budget repair" bill that will also cut the wages and benefits of public employees. Section 44 of this bill also provides for public assets such as power plants to be sold off in secret "no-bid" contracts, potentially rewarding corporate contributors to the political party in power.

Section 49 of the budget bill provides for the removal of people from the medical assistance program and would give the secretary of the Department of Health Services emergency rulemaking authority circumventing existing state laws for Badgercare.

Regardless of union affiliation, tens of thousands of Wisconsinites, their families, and supporters have converged daily for four weeks on the Wisconsin State Capitol to protest the bill. These demonstrations have largely been ignored, trivialized, and even demonized by the corporate "for profit" news media.

In response to all these abuses of the people of Wisconsin, the South Central Federation of Labor (Madison area) has urged for preparations for a public employee general strike!

The Carlton County Central Labor Body, with jurisdiction in two Minnesota counties bordering Wisconsin, comprised of men and women with a proud tradition of solidarity and resisting social injustice does hereby:

Condemn the Wisconsin "budget repair" bill as a fascist tool to increase the severity of wealth disparity between the economic classes, (make the rich richer, and the poor poorer);

Proclaim Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his majority party leadership to be union busting stooges of the financial elite;

Urge Wisconsin voters to recall Governor Walker, recall Wisconsin state senators Sheila Harsdorf, Randy Hopper, Mary Lazich, Alberta Darling, Luther Olsen, Glenn Grothman, Dan Kapanke, and Robert Cowles;

Advise every working family in the Upper Midwest that if this bill passes it will have a negative impact on their standard of living, regardless of union affiliation or the state they reside in. The passage of this bill in Wisconsin will encourage similar philosophy and legislation in neighboring states;

Proclaim the 14 Wisconsin state senators, who allowed the public to become informed by successfully delaying the budget repair bill for three weeks, to be "American working class heroes;"

Urge that every poor and middle class person, and every union local, prepare to come to the aid of striking workers with any or all material and or moral  support  they can muster, should a general  strike in Wisconsin occur.

In solidarity,

Mike Kuitu, President

Carlton County Central Labor Body