Labor & Employment Law

Solidarity With Wisconsin Public Employees Growing

By James Parks

Working people rally in the Capitol rotunda in St. Paul, Minn.

Some 2,000 working people rallied at the Minnesota state capitol in St. Paul Tuesday to make it clear that Wisconsin-like attempts to destroy collective bargaining will not succeed in their state.

 Gov. Mark Dayton joined the rally and the crowd roared when Dayton declared:

“Drastic, extreme measures will not become law here. They won?t become law ? because I?m here.”

In Hartford, Conn., working people, union members and their allies gathered near the north entrance of the Capitol building yesterday in a show of solidarity with state workers in Wisconsin. Gov. Dannel Malloy briefly addressed the crowd, saying he views the unions as partners in his quest to close a budget gap estimated as high as $3.7 billion.

In other solidarity actions around the country:

• In Minnesota, more than 300 people rallied in Duluth in support of the Wisconsin public servants.   
• More than 500 union activists rallied Tuesday on the steps of the Iowa Statehouse in Des Moines demanding that lawmakers halt what they see as an assault on middle-class workers.
• More than 300 people stood on the steps of the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier Tuesday. They held banners and homemade signs in gloved hands and with loud voices sent out their message: Working families aren?t going to let politicians undo decades of progress.
• At separate press conferences in Charleston, W. Va. and Nashville, leaders of the West Virginia AFL-CIO and Tennessee AFL-CIO called on lawmakers to stop attacks on working people and urged workers to support demonstrators in Wisconsin.  
• Working people, along with  civil rights and religious leaders, rallied in front of the General Assembly offices in Raleigh, N.C., Monday to call for an end to the Tarheel State?s ban on public employees’ collective bargaining and to resist state budget cuts at the expense of public service jobs and programs.
• Hundreds of people rallied in Rhode Island Tuesday to support Wisconsin?s embattled public employees.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 24, 2011 (boomark / email).