Wisconsin a Waterloo for the working class

[steve2470]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/24/fantasia.union.wisconsin/?hpt=C2

By Rick Fantasia, Special to CNN
February 24, 2011 2:15 p.m. EST

Editor's note: Rick Fantasia is the Barbara Richmond 1940 Professor in the Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. He writes frequently for Le Monde Diplomatique and is the author, with Kim Voss, of "Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement." and "Cultures of Solidarity."

(CNN) -- There should be no illusions. What is unfolding in Wisconsin and a half-dozen other states may be the beginning of the end for American labor.

Both the corporate leaders who are funding these initiatives and their Republican Party valets feverishly trying to push them through state legislatures understand this. The billionaire Koch brothers, for example, have pumped money into the Wisconsin effort; their energy and consumer products conglomerate was a top contributor to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's election campaign.

They must be giddy with anticipation, knowing how close they are to their long-standing goal of removing any significant opposition to their rule in American society. Too dramatic? If anything, it is an understatement.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I hat to point this out

but this labor movement will be replaced by a far more radical one.

No, not me saying it, this is history... they will not like what they get instead.

[rucky]

2. Looks like we'll have a few more years of clampdown...

before the people finally come around. If ever. I really don't understand how fiercely people are fighting against their own best interests.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. People are awake now

look around, and not just on DU.

the 100K last week were not something to sneeze at. But if they succeed, we are going to see a return to Radical Unionism. Trust me, the Repugs are gonna wish for the good ol' days of this week.

[xmas74]

8. I've heard more talk in the past week

about how wonderful a union would be than I'd ever heard at work.

It's at the point now, in one short week, where nearly 75 % of my department is ready to fight. They want a union and what they are saying isn't pretty.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Grab it

and yes even at hubby's work place (they have a union, better than none but it is highly ineffective)... that the locals are starting to go huh? We are next.

[xmas74]

11. There's a post on the labor forum

showing that I'm trying to get it done.

[enough]

3. A waterloo for everyone who isn't some form of bankster. (nt)

[htuttle]

4. Waterloo? More like Bannockburn

Walker was not prepared for this.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Thumbs up

I am sure they did not expect this at all

[Selatius]

7. The problem is the US is inundated by middle-of-the-road media and effective ....

information deprivation.

The labor movement is being eroded through a program of information denial. Most workers nowadays have no sense of labor history, at all. On top of that, constant propaganda on the radio about unions being over-privileged or over-paid is flooding on the radio if not on television itself. The fear is that this worker-led rebellion will simply be ignored by the major news outlets like CNN or FOX News or, worse yet, be cast as a movement of over-privileged workers who need to be put in their place.

The situation inside the US was already bad when the corporate elements managed to ram through the Taft-Hartley Act. Until today, that act appeared to be the high-water mark for the American Labor Movement because not since then has the Movement been able to get as many workers unionized as they could before passage of that act.

This isn't Libya or Egypt or Tunisia. Here, people believe information is still flowing freely, that there is no propaganda flooding them, that they have a choice without having to fight for it. Over there, they know they are being lied to or deprived of necessary information. Sure, you can find out all you want about the situation in Wisconsin inside the US, but they know that most people can't be bothered to do the research on their own when compared to simply clicking the television over to FOX News.

The main problem for all oligarchies and dictatorships has been and will continue to be to create a news media that appears both heterogeneous in the form that it appears there are multiple viewpoints presented and also homogeneous in that it advances one agenda over all others, typically at the expense of an informed citizenry. The corporate leadership in the US has come closest to achieving this goal.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I will revse my general history of labor

for a series of short articles to be sold as a reader on the major points of the history of labor.

Part of the reason is... the last major history was done in the 1960s, but right now we need things that need to cover the basics. Things that may be a good thing to give away at rallies

[socialist_n_TN]

12. We're late to the party, but realistically we're at the ........

education/agitation stage of the struggle. The education is working, slowly, but surely, but it IS working.

However, what this will do echoes nadin's reading of history. When people realize they've been hoodwinked, they become MORE radical and militant. Since the elite's hubris won't allow them to change their tactics, that will lead to more and more violence AGAINST workers and worker's rights. Violence will beget violence. And what unions that are left will come full circle back to their roots, organizing workers in SELF DEFENSE against their oppressors. Unions will become, once again, the central core of the opposition to the capitalists.