Madison Protesters Find Religion, Solidarity, and Free Pizza
The spirit of the activists occupying the Capitol in Madison hasn’t changed. The movement hasn’t retreated in the slightest. As every day brings new busloads of unionists and supporters, the activists are re-energized. Governor Scott Walker, Republican leaders in Wisconsin and nationwide, and their mouthpieces on right-wing talk radio and Fox television are trying to spin their union-busting as a rational response to greedy public sector workers. They seek to isolate and ostracize the government workers. A vital part of the multifaceted response has to be to ensure that community voices, like clergy, play a central role in the fight. It’s harder to isolate labor, or to isolate public sector unions, when the Republicans find themselves also having to attack clergy, high school students, African-American civil rights activists, Latino community activists, immigrant rights leaders, small business people, and other supporters and partners in the struggle. Tuesday morning the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of Southern Wisconsin held a rally attended by more than 60 clergy and supporters in front of the Grace Episcopal Church, with its beautiful towering spire, on the square opposite the capitol building. The event kept getting interrupted as workers from nearby cities joined the Madison protests. Numbers are hard to gauge, but it looked like 1,000 building trades workers from Minneapolis—it seemed every trade was represented—chanting at the top of their lungs. Then came 1,500 AFSCME workers, mostly corrections officers, marching by and chanting. The clergy stopped their rally to come to the street and cheer on the workers. They had to stop a second time as the marchers circled the Capitol building. The clergy finished their rally and processed to the rotunda in the Capitol, where the crowd parted as they entered. They blessed the protesters as following God’s will and blessed the occupied rotunda as a sacred space. A young woman on a bullhorn then led more than 1,000 people in a chant—a new variant on the standard but oh-so-beautiful “TELL me what democracy looks like” and the shouted response “THIS is what democracy looks like!” Only this time the organizer shouted “TELL me what religion should look like.” And the crowd chanted back “THIS is what religion should look like!” It was electric. Kim Bobo, the national director of Interfaith Worker Justice, Reverend CJ Hawking, head of the Arise Chicago worker center, and assistants have moved to Madison to assist in outreach to clergy. The Capitol building had a different atmosphere Tuesday as the governor brought in 600 police from many other cities. I’d say that instead of seeing police every 100 feet, in groups of two, now you see police every 20 feet and in groups of six. The Republicans claimed that they brought in other police to give the Madison police a break from long shifts, but the reality is they wanted to intimidate the protesters with a heavy presence. Over the past week the Madison police as individuals have been often been friendly and supportive. Unions are taking shifts sleeping in the Capitol building, along with grad students from the teaching assistants' union and many other supporters. Unionists from the Steelworkers and Firefighters spent the night last night. An activist walked the building and counted 600 people spending the night. Wednesday is AFSCME’s turn, and so on. Amazing! Monday night 5,000 people, half of them University of Wisconsin students, enthusiastically applauded musicians in a quickly organized rock concert, led by Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello. Every time a speaker or a singer said or sang “union,” thousands of fists rose in the air. The concert was kicked off by a speech from Mahlon Mitchell, president of the local firefighters’ union and an African-American leader. He defied the governor to arrest firefighters spending the night in the occupied Capitol. Despite being exempted by the governor from the union-busting legislation, firefighters have repeatedly turned out in force in solidarity with the protesters. The Madison teachers union, which has played an outstanding leadership role in the struggle, voted on Sunday night to return to work, and they did so Tuesday. Their members had called in sick since last Wednesday, forcing the shutdown of area schools. The teachers felt that they couldn’t create hardship for parents and students and so returned to work. Parents were seen marching around the Capitol yesterday carrying signs that said they were protesting in place of their children's teacher. There’s no doubt, though, that if the teachers feel it necessary, they will walk out again. Meanwhile, the South Central Wisconsin Federation of Labor, led by a great labor leader, Jim Cavanaugh (whom I’ve known since his group did remarkable work in solidarity with the locked-out Staley workers in the early 1990s), voted to call a general strike if the union-busting legislation passed. Ian’s Pizza continues to be flooded with calls donating money to buy pizza for the protesters. Now not only are pizzas being regularly delivered to the occupied Capitol, but activists can come into the pizzeria and get a free meal, thanks to donations from scores of countries. They closed the phone lines for donations Tuesday, so they could take a break and just cook and serve pizza and not answer endlessly ringing phones. There are literally hundreds of signs surrounding the rotunda in the worker- and student-occupied Capitol. More are added every day. Give $10 a month or more and get our "Fight the Boss, Build the Union" T-shirt. Several signs have some variation of this message: “Five states prohibit collective bargaining for teachers. Their rankings in combined ACT/SAT scores are as follows: Virginia 44th, Texas 47th, Georgia 48th, North Carolina 49th, South Carolina 50th. Wisconsin is currently tied for 2nd.” Nearly all the hundreds of other signs surrounding the rotunda are handmade with a personal message for the world. A few: I’m not afraid to take a stand. Everybody come take my hand! Rights are not something we “sacrifice.” Scott Walker is the Koch brothers’ minion. Private sector worker for our unions. We already gave back $100,000,000. This is our house. People have died for labor rights! How dare we give them up? This isn’t about the $. It’s about our rights! Never been so proud to be a Wisconsinite. Ever notice that a 30% tax increase for the wealthiest Americans is “socialism’ but a 14% pay cut on the lower middle class is doing your part? Collective bargaining gave WOMEN educators I’m not in a union, but I support unions. Today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Stay Involved. My favorite sign captures the spirit of the Wisconsin workers’ rebellion. It's a handwritten note on letter-size paper, taped to a wall near the rotunda: We come together for a common cause and a community has formed where people share resources and responsibilities with no sense of reward. Valuables have been left and remained safe while surrounded by thousands. Food is shared and people line up to help distribute it. Feelings of love and solidarity are in the air. Proof is all around of another world possible. Welcome (drawing of a valentine heart)
Steven Ashby is a labor educator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and co-author, with CJ Hawking, of Staley: The Fight for a New American Labor Movement. A NEW FEELING
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