Support the Initiative for a General Strike in Wisconsin

This is a very good resolution but it would have been important to add some demands to a call for a general strike. The danger is that we will be seen as we are already by the vast majority of workers not in Unions that we are only fighting for our "narrow interests" as they will be inconvenienced by it. That said, it is a very good resolution nevertheless.


Support the Initiative for a General Strike in Wisconsin – and Prepare for Nationally-Coordinated Solidarity Job Actions
Resolution of Letter Carriers Union Branch 214
Adopted unanimously March 2, 2011 in San Francisco, California

Whereas, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s Koch brothers-funded and Wall Street-inspired attempt to destroy Wisconsin’s public workers’ unions is the highly strategic opening battle in a war to destroy both the public and private sector of the U.S. labor movement; and

Whereas, resistance that the workers and students have mounted to the union-busting attack has in a short time breathed new life into the workers' movement in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and across the  country; and

Whereas, there must be no illusions about the determination of the forces committed to crushing labor that are behind Gov. Walker, and much more must be done if Wisconsin workers and all workers are to prevail in this most critical battle facing working people in generations; and

Whereas, Gov. Scott Walker and the billionaires behind him must know in no uncertain terms that if they persist in their outrageous  efforts to destroy the labor movement, that they will bring upon themselves the kind of  massive, popular uprising of workers' power that this country hasn’t seen since the 1930s; and

Whereas, if the people of Egypt were ready to put their very lives on the line in their fight for freedom, then certainly the labor movement in the U.S. must be ready to demonstrate that it is prepared to put it all on the line in defense of the very elementary right of workers to have a union, and in defense of the right of the labor movement to survive; and

Whereas, the South Central Federation of Labor of Wisconsin (AFL-CIO) voted on Feb. 21, 2011 to “endorse a general strike” if the union busting bill is passed by the Wisconsin legislature and signed into law. The motion ordered that strike preparations begin immediately, asking the Education Committee to “immediately begin educating affiliates and members on the organization and function of a general strike.”

Therefore be it Resolved, that Golden Gate Branch 214 of the Letter Carriers Union calls upon organized labor everywhere and at every level to officially support the initiative of Wisconsin's South Central Federation of Labor to endorse a general strike if the union busting bill is passed; and

Be it further Resolved, that we call on organized labor to commit all concrete solidarity support necessary to ensure the success of a general strike; and

Be it further Resolved, that we call on organized labor to approve, and prepare to initiate nationally-coordinated job actions in solidarity with a general strike in Wisconsin; and

Be it finally Resolved, that this resolution be submitted to Bay Area labor councils, California State Association of Letter Carriers, the NALC, and California Labor Federation, with which we are affiliated, for concurrence and action.


Resolution adopted unanimously 03/02/2011 in  San Francisco ,  California , by the membership meeting of Golden Gate Branch 214 of the National Association of Letter Carriers, representing some 2,300 Postal Service letter carriers in the  San Francisco   Bay  Area.