Wisconsin Workers Deserve Respect for Their International Labor Rights

By Megan Caska, Intern, SweatFree Communities

This week workers in Wisconsin have erupted in protests that have captured national media attention. Last week Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin introduced a plan to solve the budget crisis currently being faced by the state of Wisconsin. The plan called for increasing the costs of health care and pensions for state workers. However, unassociated with budget matters, the plan also called for the banning of all collective bargaining around any workplace issue except wages.

There was immediate outrage from working families. Tens of thousands of workers from across Wisconsin traveled to the capital building to protest this attack on their rights. With a 19-14 Republican majority in the state senate there was no hope of voting down the bill. The Wisconsin legislature requires a quorum of 20 senators for votes on fiscal matters. So, to give time for the protesters to make their voices heard, Democratic state senators fled across the border to Illinois. 

This amazing act of resistance is a sign of the current need for labor activism across America. Wisconsin is not the first state to propose a ban on collective bargaining. In 2007 the International Labor Organization (ILO) ruled in favor of a United Electrical Workers (UE) complaint filed to their Committee on Freedom of Association. The complaint argued that North Carolina’s ban on public worker organizing violated Conventions 87 and 98. According to Convention 98, only high level public employees can be denied the right to bargain collectively – not rank and file public employees.

These attacks on unions and workers’ rights are not being done in the name of the American people. According to a USA Today poll released this afternoon, 61% of the American public opposes limiting collective bargaining rights for unions even as a way to save money for the state budget. In addition, 53% oppose reducing pay or benefits for government workers. All of the anti-labor rhetoric, claiming that destroying worker rights is complying with the demands of the American population, is blatantly false.

The crackdown on labor rights that Wisconsin’s public employees are facing is all too familiar to the International Labor Rights Forum, and mirrors the repression of workers’ rights that we stand up against on a daily basis in solidarity with workers around the world. It is the same struggle for a voice on the job that workers everywhere are fighting for. Workers and labor rights defenders need to join together in face of this global trend of subverting labor rights and human rights in the name of “fiscal effectiveness”. This is why we are urging action.

SweatFree Communities and the ILRF have signed onto Jobs with Justice’s statement of support for Wisconsin workers. We encourage you to show to show up at a Rally in Solidarity with Wisconsin Workers near you. Bring your friends! These protests are a great opportunity to stand in solidarity against the tide of growing anti-labor reactionary extremism. To find an action near you, visit the calendar on Jobs with Justice's blog.

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[Geoff Curl]

Your struggle is our struggle.
Our struggle is your struggle.
For our nation is the World, and our countrymen are the working people, wherever they are to be found.

With love and rage, from Nottingham, England.