Wisconsin

Two Sixties’ Radicals Recall Fighting Times In US Labor

October 9, 2022 Steve Early, New Politics. Strategize! 1960s, Democracy, Unions, Wisconsin

The University of Wisconsin at Madison was a hotbed of student radicalism in the 1960s. Unlike some other centers of campus opposition to the Vietnam War, left-wing activists there were among the first of their generation to organize around issues related to their own mistreatment as workers. In 1963, undergraduates employed in campus jobs formed a Wisconsin Student Employees Union to force the administration to raise their wages to the federal minimum (a 50 cent per hour increase). Seven years later, the UW Teaching Assistants Association organized the first TA strike in U.S. history, a 24-day walk-out that won union recognition. UW graduates shaped by that experience went on to play key roles in the labor movement, locally, state-wide, and in others states.

Case New Holland Workers’ Strike Enters Fifth Month, Negotiations Stall

September 22, 2022 Mel Buer, The Real News Network. Resist! Auto Workers, Protests, Unions, Wisconsin, Worker Rights and Jobs

Racine, Wisconsin - Back in July, I took a weekend trip to Burlington, Iowa, to visit manufacturing workers at Case New Holland (CNH Industrial), who, along with their coworkers at another plant in Racine, Wisconsin, have been on strike since May 2. When I arrived, the early shift of picketers stood jovially together under the hot morning sun. Even at 10AM, the temperature was already a blistering 86 degrees, with humidity high enough that it made your clothes damp to the touch. The picketers didn’t seem to mind as they made their way slowly past the entrance to the Case New Holland plant, holding up a line of empty vans that had dropped off a shift of scab workers earlier. Workers wore “UAW 807 Solidarity” t-shirts and cracked jokes to one another as the hired security looked on from the other side of the fence, cameras at the ready.

University Of Wisconsin Health Backs Down As Nurses Threaten To Strike

September 14, 2022 Fight Back News. Resist! Nurses, Strike, Wisconsin, Worker Rights and Jobs

Madison, Wisconsin - On September 12, a tentative agreement was reached between nurses at University of Wisconsin Health (UW Health) and administration over management recognition of their union, represented by SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin. Nurses at UW Health had lost their union after their contract expired in 2014 and the administration refused to bargain, citing Wisconsin's "Act 10" law. The effort for renewed recognition was restarted as of 2019. Demands to recognize their union, which represents approximately 2400 Nurses in Madison, had been rejected up to now. Nurses there submitted a ten-day notice to strike over recognition as provided by law, and had been preparing through the weekend to begin on September 13.

How This Rural Wisconsin County Put National Health Care On The Ballot

September 8, 2022 Kay Tillow, Common Dreams. Create! Ballot Initiative, Health Care, Single payer health care, Wisconsin

Dunn County, Wisconsin - Citizens of Dunn County, Wisconsin, have a plan to place national, publicly-funded health care for everyone on their November 8th county ballot. In June and July at meetings of the County Board of Supervisors, many spoke of a broken health care system and their proposal to fix it. After the third meeting, the Board voted unanimously to put the following question on the ballot: “Shall Congress and the President of the United States enact into law the creation of a publicly financed, non-profit, national health insurance program that would fully cover medical care costs for all Americans?” Located in central west Wisconsin and blessed with lakes and farmland, Dunn County is far from bustling cities.

Social Impact Worker Cooperatives Gain Adherents In Madison

June 7, 2022 Emilie Heidemann, Madison.com. Create! Wisconsin, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Rights and Jobs

A business model that allows workers to have a stake in how their employer pays and supports them while also tackling social justice issues is expanding in Madison and statewide. The worker cooperative model, which already has a history in Wisconsin and the city spanning decades, is one in which the business is equally owned and governed by its employees — they each get a say in their pay, benefits and how to divvy up company profits. In Madison, an accelerator for worker cooperatives that want to make that social impact was recently put together by Downtown startup promoter gener8tor and the Nehemiah Center for Leadership and Development. Also, a local worker cooperative called Roots4Change, which partners with health organizations to support Hispanic mothers through their pregnancies, is expanding.

Farm And Construction Equipment Workers Strike In Iowa And Wisconsin

June 2, 2022 Jonah Furman, Labor Notes. Resist! Farming, Iowa, Unions, Wisconsin, Worker Rights and Jobs

Eleven hundred workers who manufacture agricultural and construction equipment for CNH Industrial in Burlington, Iowa, and Racine, Wisconsin, have been on strike since May 2. At the core of the strike is the company’s three-tier pay system. Workers hired before 1996 make $6 to $8 more per hour than those hired after 2004; those hired between 1996 and 2004 earn somewhere in between. Workers want to see at least the bottom tier abolished. Workers are also fired up that their counterparts at CNH’s non-union plants make an estimated $5.50 more per hour than the average union worker, according to UAW Local 807 President Nick Guernsey. “We're wanting parity between us and non-union plants,” Guernsey told the Hawk Eye.

Enbridge Takes The Gloves Off In Line 5 Battle

May 10, 2022 Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today. Educate! Enbridge, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Pipelines, Wisconsin

In recent lawsuits, Enbridge has targeted individual tribal members and staff, seeking the court’s permission to question them under oath about their “thought process” in opposing renewal of the company’s easement through the reservation. For Bad River citizens and leaders, however, the issue has always been personal. Bad River or Mashkiziibii (Medicine River) has an abiding, irremovable quality for Ojibwe people. Central to their world view and spirituality, and an example of their sustainable connection with traditional foods and ways, Bad River is more than geography. The river and land represent Ojibwe blood memory, according to Aurora Conley, a citizen of the Bad River tribe and a member of the Anishinaabe Environmental Protection Alliance.

Case Factory Workers Strike For Higher Wages, COVID-19 Protections

May 7, 2022 Christine Hatfield, Wisconsin Public Radio. Resist! Auto Workers, COVID-19, Labor Movement, Strike, Unions, Wisconsin, Worker Rights and Jobs

Racine, Wisconsin - CNH Industrial employees in Racine represented by the United Auto Workers labor union have been on strike for almost a full work week. A local union representative said they're fighting for higher wages and better COVID-19 protections. Members of UAW Local 180 bundled up as they picketed Thursday outside the CNH plant where Case tractors are made. A collective bargaining agreement between the union and the company lapsed at noon on Monday. According to the UAW, more than 1,000 members are on strike at CNH locations in Racine and Burlington, Iowa. Richard Glowacki, chairman of the union's bargaining committee and president of the UAW CNH Council, said spirits are high.

‘You’ve Got To Shut It Down’: Lessons From Wisconsin’s 2011 Worker Uprising

May 2, 2022 Maximilian Alvarez, The Real News. Strategize! Labor Movement, Occupy, Wisconsin, Worker Rights and Jobs

Wisconsin - With the passage of Act 10 in 2011, also known as the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, Republican Gov. Scott Walker declared war on the labor movement in general and on public sector workers specifically. Act 10 was a hammer blow that essentially stripped collective bargaining rights from public sector workers, made it much more difficult for workers to organize, and forced unions to take massive concessions on healthcare, retirement benefits, and much more. Soon after, in 2015, Walker signed legislation that turned Wisconsin into a “right to work” state, issuing another blow to unions in a state once heralded as a bellwether of progressive politics and the labor movement.

Indigenous-Led Activists Protest Oil Pipeline In Green Bay

March 7, 2022 Frank Vaisvilas, Green Bay Press. Resist! Indigenous Activism, Line 5 Pipeline, Pipelines, Wisconsin

Green Bay, Wisconsin – About a dozen environmental activists took to the streets of downtown Green Bay Friday evening to protest a proposed oil pipeline reroute in northern Wisconsin. “We’re trying to raise awareness about Line 5,” said organizer Justice Peche. Canada-based Enbridge Energy is rerouting the Line 5 pipeline around the Bad River Ojibwe Reservation at the request of the tribe. About 12 miles of active pipeline pass through the reservation, but as easements have started to expire the tribe filed a lawsuit in 2019 to have the pipeline removed. The company is planning a new 41.2-mile section around the reservation, but tribal officials and activists are calling for greater scrutiny of the project arguing that construction and operation threatens rare plants and animals in the area.

Wisconsin’s Rural Schools In ‘Crisis Mode’

January 17, 2022 Steven Potter, In These Times. Create! COVID-19, Education, Teachers, Wisconsin

No matter who you ask, whether it’s education association officials, university professors, researchers or the teachers themselves, they’ll all tell you the same thing: The number one problem facing Wisconsin’s rural school districts is finding — and keeping — enough teachers to teach in those districts. “The teacher shortage is an issue all across the country,” says Kim Kaukl, who worked for more than 30 years as a school administrator before becoming the executive director of the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance (WIRSA). “But it’s really exasperated out in the rural areas because of the location of many of our rural districts, especially when you’re trying to attract young people to come out to more remote areas.”

Private-Equity ‘Vampires’ Run Into A Wall Of Worker Resistance

July 17, 2021 Roger Bybee, The Progressive Magazine. Resist! Corporatism, Unions, Wisconsin, Worker Rights and Jobs

At the peak of the Great Recession in 2008, General Motors was bailed out by U.S. taxpayers and survived. Bail-out money in hand, GM sharply increased its production in China and other low-wage nations on its way to recovering its past heights of profitability. But back in Janesville, Wisconsin, GM closed its plant, costing an estimated 9,000 jobs and widespread social misery that has not abated. And now Janesville finds itself again at the mercy of another far-off corporation. OpenGate Capital, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, is planning to close the 120-year-old plant of a company named Hufcor Inc., wipe out about 160 jobs, and ship them off to Monterrey, Mexico. Hufcor has been an established, familiar fixture in the community, and workers are intent on keeping it that way.

Teamsters Spent Seven Years Fighting For Their Pensions

March 16, 2021 Jeff Bollier, Green Bay Gazette. Resist! Labor Union, Retirement, Wisconsin, Worker Rights

Green Bay, WI - For the first time in seven years, thousands of Wisconsin Teamsters don't have to worry about their pensions being cut in half. The American Rescue Plan, which President Joe Biden signed into law on Thursday, included the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021. The act directs the Pension Guaranty Benefit Corp. to allocate billions of dollars to avoid the drastic cuts. The act will shore up the Central States Pension Fund, a multi-employer fund for 1.3 million retired Teamsters, 23,500 of whom live in Wisconsin. About 3,400 members live in the Eighth Congressional District, which includes Green Bay and Appleton. Failure to act would have dealt a huge blow to those retirees who gave up wages to keep their retirement funds, and who have come to depend on payments to survive, said Brad Vaughn, a member of the Wisconsin/Green Bay Committee to Protect Pensions.

Unrest In Kenosha Didn’t Come Out Of Thin Air

September 28, 2020 Eddie Conway, The Real News. Resistance Report Kenosha, Police violence, Rebellion2020, Wisconsin

Eddie: A study in 2013 shows that Wisconsin incarcerated more black men than any other state in the United States in spite of the fact that the black population is only 6.5%. Also, Wisconsin has a very high rate of incarceration for indigenous people. So in light of the recent events in Kenosha, the Department of Corrections building was burned to the ground. And I have with me today, two people that work with the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee to talk about Wisconsin, its prison population, and what’s going on inside the prison in terms of organizing the incarcerated workers.

Our Unjust System Of Mass Supervision

September 14, 2020 Mark Rice, Urban Milwaukee. Educate! Human Rights, Mass Incarceration, Prisons, Wisconsin

Wisconsin’s disastrous system of mass supervision is at odds with our widely shared values of justice, human dignity and compassion. Detaining people struggling with poverty, housing insecurity, mental health issues and addiction issues for alleged rule violations is at odds with common sense approaches to justice. Yet, public officials in Wisconsin have been keeping its prisons and jails overcrowded for many years by doubling down on this unjust practice. A new report by Human Rights Watch and the ACLU demonstrates the deep racial injustice and extent of the harm caused by mass supervision in Wisconsin.

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