By PSL statement
FEBRUARY 18, 2011
Kill Walker’s anti-union bill!
Click here to download a PDF version of this statement.
The workers and students of Wisconsin are making history. Facing one of the most anti-union bills in decades, tens of thousands of people have taken the political process into their own hands, turning the State Capitol into a “People’s Assembly.”
Your tenacity and uncompromising fightback spirit has propelled the workers’ struggle in Wisconsin into media headlines and the consciousness of millions. Workers and students in Wisconsin know the truth— the public-sector unions now under attack by Gov. Scott Walker did not create the economic crisis. The unions did not create the state’s budget shortfall. The workers and their unions are not to blame.
The crisis was created by the biggest Wall Street banks and corporations—the same ones bailed out by the government, using trillions of our taxpayer dollars.
Now, Walker and his ilk are telling workers that their wages, pensions and health care benefi ts are too high. They say the state cannot pay. It’s a lie. Walker is a mouthpiece for billionaire banks and corporations. They want to shift the burden of the crisis they created onto the backs of working people. Before this week, public-sector unions were the only things standing in their way. That’s why Walker wants to smash the unions.
Now, students, workers—organized and unorganized— unemployed people, community groups beyond, shoulder-toshoulder with the public-sector unions, are in the way. Everyone here today has helped push the struggle to another level.
It is no coincidence that so many protest signs and slogans inside the Capitol invoke the Egyptian revolution. The heroic Egyptian struggle showed that the masses of workers and young people have the power to overthrow the most entrenched and corrupt politicians and interests. If our Egyptian sisters and brothers can do it, we can too!
Together, we can kill this bill before it kills the workers and unions. If we keep up the fight, we can win.
- Kill the union-busting bill!
- Stop the attacks on workers and poor people!
- Tax the rich!
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