Madison firefighters president supports general strike call

The events that are taking place in Madison Wisconsin are inspiring.  It just shows how movements change consciousness.  I have received calls and questions form people who have made friendly (and not so friendly) fun of me in the past for talking too much about politics and the Union.  My wife gets asked by co-workers what her old man is doing. "Is he in Madison?" "What does he think will happen?"  Now I seem to have become the "go to" guy on this for some people. Workers around the country are watching Madison, seeing what will happen.  Will they bring in the guard?  Will the workers win or will the movement be crushed?

I just got off the phone with Ann Habel, a shop steward from in AFSCME local 171. We have known each other a long time and she was very instrumental in the production of an opposition rank and file AFSCME newsletter I was also involved in producing in the 1990's.

Talking with her or her partner Mark has been a way I have been able to get a sense of the excitement and mood on the ground.  She described this morning how everyone there is talking about a general strike in one way or another. "Every body's all over the place" she says.  Apparently, the leadership of the Madison and Milwaukee teachers' Unions have told their members to stay at work today but there is a mass rally planned for Saturday.  She didn't know whether the teachers were going to comply or not.

"This thing is so spontaneous, so seat of the pants"  Ann tells me

"What about the leadership of AFSCME" I ask?

"One thing that's incredible about this" she says, "Is that there seems to be no leadership, they're sort of missing in action" She added, "They seem to hunkering down in denial."

I told her, and we agreed, that I thought that the bosses might have pushed too far here, rousing the ranks to the point where the normally cooperative Labor bureaucracy will have to do something.  The problem is that the idea of a general strike is so frightening to them; the idea of a victory is so frightening to them.

We have explained before that it is the view of this blog that a victory undermines the Union leadership's arguments that they have made for years that we can't win, that concessions have to be made. They have suppressed every movement from below, cooperated with the employers in one way or another to crush any strike or rebellion that threatened this world view of theirs.

But movements can get out of the control of those whose aim it is to direct them in to more passive and less challenging channels.  One thing is certain, things cannot remain at a stalemate forever but regardless of the immediate outcome, the struggle taking place in Wisconsin and in state Capital's around the country will educate and radicalize a new layer of workers in preparation for the next round.