The people power in Wisconsin has become too big for the local and national media to ignore. Just a few weeks ago, Milwaukee Labor Press editor Dominique Paul North told me that workers' rights rallies receive very little media coverage compared to Tea Party rallies. Last month, over 700 people gathered outside the Wisconsin State Capitol to the hold the state's first ever anti-inauguration rally, but it got very little coverage in the local media. Numbers clearly matter.
On February 15, an estimated 15,000 citizens, including union and non-union workers, surrounded the state capitol to express opposition to Republican Governor Scott Walker's plan to strip the state’s 175,000 public employees of almost all of their collective bargaining rights and require them to make larger contributions to their pensions and health insurance plans.
"In Wisconsin we're smart enough to know the truth. We know what this is all about. It's about breaking the back of the middle class," AFSCME International president Gerald McEntee told the crowd.
Mike Imbrogno, a shop steward in AFSCME Local 171, told the Socialist Worker's Aongus O'Murchadha how union members surged inside the capital building, chanting their demands.
"I've never seen anything like it. It wasn't just teachers and union members from the University of Wisconsin (UW), where I work. There were Steelworkers, Teamsters, Pipefitters, building trades unions and more--unions I've never seen at a rally in 10 years," he said. "The most amazing thing is when the firefighters came in a delegation. Along with police, Walker has exempted firefighters from the legislation, but they came with signs that said, 'Firefighters for workers' rights.' People were crying."
http://www.alternet.org/economy/149942/is_wisconsin_our_egypt_15%2C000_protest_off-the-wall_right-wing_governor%27s_policies/
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