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!
