John Nichols: Never prouder of my state, its workers and unionsJohn Nichols: Never prouder of my state, its workers and unions
JOHN NICHOLS | Cap Times associate editor |
jnichols@madison.com madison.com | (7) Comments | Posted: Thursday, February 17, 2011 6:30 am
“I have never been prouder of our movement than I am at this moment,” shouted Wisconsin AFL-CIO President Phil Neuenfeldt as he surveyed the crowds of union members and their supporters that surged around the state Capitol and into the streets of Madison Wednesday, literally closing the downtown as tens of thousands of Wisconsinites protested their Republican governor’s attempt to strip public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights.
Neuenfeldt is not alone.
As a seventh-generation Wisconsinite, I have never been prouder of my state.
While Tuesday’s midday protests drew crowds estimated at 12,000 to 15,000, Wednesday’s midday rally drew 30,000, according to estimates by organizers. Madison Police Chief Noble Wray, a veteran of 27 years on the city’s force, said he had never see a protest of this size at the Capitol — and he noted that, while crowd estimates usually just measure those outside, this time the inside of the sprawling Capitol was “packed.”
On Wednesday night, an estimated 20,000 teachers and their supporters rallied outside the Capitol and then marched into the building, filling the rotunda, stairways and hallways. Chants of “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” shook the building as legislators met in committee rooms late into the night.
In some senses, Wednesday’s remarkable rally began Tuesday evening, when Madison Teachers Inc., the local education union, announced that teachers would leave their classrooms to spend the day lobbying legislators to “Kill the bill” proposed by newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
The teachers showed up en masse in downtown Madison Wednesday morning.
And then something remarkable happened.
Instead of taking the day off, their students gathered at schools on the west and east sides of Madison and marched miles along the city’s main thoroughfares to join the largest mass demonstration the city has seen in decades — perhaps since the great protests of the Vietnam War era.
Thousands of high school students arrived at the Capitol Square, coming from opposite directions, chanting: “We support our teachers! We support public education!”
Thousands of University of Wisconsin students joined them, decked out in the school’s red-and-white colors.
Buses rolled in from every corner of the state, from Racine and Kenosha in the southeast to Green Bay in the northeast, from La Crosse on the Mississippi River to Milwaukee on Lake Michigan.
Buses and cars arrived from Illinois and Minnesota and as far away as Kansas, as teachers and public employees from those states showed up at what American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union President Gerald McEntee says is “ground zero “in the struggle for labor rights in America.
The moms and dads of the elementary school kids came, and the kids, carrying hand-lettered signs:
“I love my teacher!”
“Scott Walker needs to go back to school!”
“Scott Walker needs a time-out!”
And, “We are Wisconsin!
“I’ve been here since the 1960s, I’ve seen great demonstrations,” said former Mayor Paul Soglin, a proud former student radical who was nominated for a new term in Tuesday’s local primary election. “This is different. This is everyone — everyone turning out.”
Everyone except the governor, who high-tailed it out of town, launching a tour of outlying communities in hopes of drumming up support for his bill. Most of the support Walker was getting was coming from national conservative political groups, such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity, which have long hoped to break public employee unions. But the governor held firm, saying after a day of unprecedented protests — in Madison and small towns and cities across the state — that he still wanted to pass his bill. He’s got strong support in the overwhelmingly Republican Assembly. And he might hold Republicans in the Senate together long enough to do his bidding.
But there will be no victory for Walker.
Wisconsin has rejected his plan. If he gets a few legislators on his side, it will be a temporary “success.”
The people of Wisconsin — teachers and students, scientists and snowplow drivers, small business owners and citizens — are rising to defend their own.
And it is wonderful.
John Nichols is the associate editor of The Capital Times.
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