Federal public employees won the right to organize with the Lloyd-LaFollette Act of 1912. President T. Roosevelt placed a gag order on postal workers which prohibited any communication with Congress. The latter, then brimming with progressive spirits, most notably Robert "Fighting Bob" la Follette, Sr. (of Wisconsin), passed the pro-union legislation in response.
Private-sector employees won the right of collective bargaining in 1935 when FDR signed the National Labor Relations Act (aka Wagner Act). However this legislation made it clear that such rights did not extend to employees of the federal government. That right was won in 1962 when JFK issued Executive Order 10,988 thereby extending to federal employees the same rights as private-sector employees.
While it is impossible to predict how the standoff between the public-sector employees and the government will end, so far it appears that the Republican Governor has his work cut out for him. Some of Wisconsin's Democratic legislators have left the state thereby denying a quorum and effectively blocking passage of the union-busting bill. Protesters, including representatives of the same police and fire unions which supported Walker's gubernatorial candidacy, have occupied the statehouse attracting a good deal of national and international media attention. Worse still for the embattled governor, the revolt is spreading to other states. Indiana Democrats, taking a page from the Wisconsin playbook, have fled their state thus making the passage of similar legislation impossible in that state. In Ohio, demonstrators marched on the statehouse in Columbus and tried to occupy it but were prevented by the authorities. Smaller protests are happening in other capitals around the country.
What we see unfolding before our eyes is aggressive class war waged by an agent of the plutocracy, and a groundswell of burgeoning popular opposition. Walker has the usual allies at his side. The media, which is owned by the ruling class in the same way that you own the socks you are wearing, has been bending over backwards to be "fair" in its reporting of the conflict. The major cable news programs have given equal time to anti- and pro-Walker factions. Commendable except when one considers that the opposition outnumbers supporters of this bill at a ratio of about twenty to one. One would get a very different impression watching CNN or MSNBC. As one protester was complaining about exactly how much money she would lose per month if the bill were enacted, across the crawler at the bottom of the screen came "protesters compare Governor Walker to Adolf Hitler." Indulging the absurd for a moment, even if somebody did make such a comparison, and further that said person wasn't a plant of some kind sent to discredit the protesters, one can only wonder as to relevance. Does the public-employee worker's case have less validity because some unidentified person made an attenuated analogy?
Walker has let the genie out of the bottle. It remains to be seen whether the ruling class can contain the rebellion they have precipitated with their remorseless war on working-class families. As I write the revolt that began in Wisconsin is spreading across the Midwest and beyond. Expressions of solidarity are rolling in from all over the globe. Some of the protesters in Madison have cited the revolt in Egypt as inspiration, and from Liberation Square the favor is returned:
"We Stand With You as You Stood With Us": Statement to Workers of Wisconsin by Kamal Abbas of Egypt's Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services.
