Just three weeks ago, this author greeted the eruption of the working class in Northern Africa and the Middle East with the opinion similar demonstrations could be held in “almost any corner of the globe given the universality of the social grievances involved.”
Specifically, it was advanced that the same objective social conditions which were allowing the Middle Eastern working class to explode the myth it was too religious, sectarian and oppressed to mount a secular and democratic challenge to the state would also result “more significantly… [in] the impression of a servile American working class [being] dispelled sooner rather than later.”
Last week’s demonstrations numbering in the tens of thousands in Madison, Wis., have provided an initial confirmation of this assessment. The connection between the revolutionary events in Egypt and the demonstrations here at home haven’t been lost on the Wisconsin protestors. Having occupied the state capitol in emulation of their Egyptian counterparts in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, many carried signs comparing newly elected Republican Governor Scott Walker with ousted Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.
At immediate issue is the attempt by Walker and the Republican state assembly to pass legislation that would more than double out-of-pocket contributions of state workers to their health care and pensions.
However, perhaps more ominous are provisions in the bill which would strip public workers of collective bargaining rights for all terms of work outside of pay. Even then, all pay increases above the rate of inflation would require a statewide referendum for approval.
The showdown in Wisconsin with state workers is part of a broader campaign of draconian budget cuts being carried out in states throughout the country, including Michigan.
Attempts are being made to pit private sector workers against “privileged” public employees. These have largely failed with the demonstrations, attracting not only many private sector workers, but also a large representation of students at all levels.
As the concurrent debate on federal and state budgets makes clear, the demonstrators will inevitably come into conflict with the entire political establishment, all of whom start from the premise spending must be cut and concessions wrestled from workers. Differences exist only on how austerity is to be implemented.
The Republicans merely seek to carry out a more bare-faced and provocative assault on the working class, destroying the unions in the process, while the Democrats wish to work with the union bureaucracy in carrying out the attack.
Meanwhile, the position of the union bureaucracy was made clear in comments made by the head of the Wisconsin Employees Union, Marty Beil.
“We are prepared to implement the financial concessions proposed to help bring our state’s budget into balance,” Beil said. “But… we will not – I repeat we will not – be denied our rights to collectively bargain.”
In other words, as long as its own role is not rendered superfluous and as long as its income and privileges derived from the dues check of its membership is not threatened, the union bureaucracy is willing to prostitute itself as the police man of the working class and impose the dictates of the ruling elite.
Workers should not take as exaggeration Walker’s threats to mobilize the National Guard to suppress resistance to his austerity agenda. As social inequality in the U.S. returns to levels not seen in nearly a century, there must necessarily be a corresponding return to the brutality and violence needed to enforce such conditions.
Indeed, calling out the National Guard would mark the first time since 1886 – when the state militia shot down striking steelworkers in Milwaukee following the Haymarket massacre in Chicago – that such action was taken in Wisconsin.
The legislation in Wisconsin would have devastating consequences for the American working class as a whole. To successfully defeat it requires a rejection of all spending cuts aimed at penalizing the working class for the Wall Street collapse and the squandering trillions of dollars on militarism abroad and bank bailouts at home.
This requires a broad mobilization of workers and students independent of the two parties of big business and their treacherous unions.
