Little Rock When Karl Rove, the George W. Bush hardcore Republican consigliere and now Fox News favorite and Wall Street Journal op-ed pundit approvingly quotes Michael Gecan, veteran community organizer and co-director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, the Saul Alinsky legacy community organizing training and support outfit, it is hard to prevent a momentary shutter …
Tag: Governor Scott Walker
Worrying and Wisconsin and Walker
New Orleans Local 100 has an election today for about 50 school custodial workers with a private contractor from out of state. After many elections you can almost smell victory or defeat. Looking at the vital statistics of this organizing drive, this one smells like a winner. Wisconsin and today’s vote on the recall of …
Republican Anti-worker Perversions in Wake of Wisconsin Anti-Union Laws
New Orleans A year ago new Governor Scott Walker led the Wisconsin legislature in a bitter, highly contentious and contested, battle to attack public employee unionization. The headlines a year later focus on labor’s efforts to recall the government. What happened to the workers in Wisconsin in the face of these new laws? Short answer: nothing …
Labor versus Business: From Economic Wars to Culture Wars?
New Orleans I wonder with the diminishing strength of unions whether we are about to finally move from front page economic wars to the back page culture wars so much enjoyed by the right. Not able to fully move women back to the kitchen or African-Americans back to the plantation, perhaps they feel they will …
The Canadian Lessons in Turning Back Collective Bargaining Assaults
New Orleans In the early years of this century in Canada public employees and their unions faced almost exactly the same kind of hard conservative, neoliberal provincial attack on collective bargaining that we are seeing in the Republican assault in the Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana. Conservative governments had gained the whip hand in provincial parliaments …