WI Governor Attacks Union Workers Rights

Gov. Scott Walker stops at nothing to make his friends "richer"

By Patrick Martin

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled state legislature are moving to slash wages, gut health benefits and undermine pensions.

Walker will impose a legal straitjacket on public employees, stripping them of collective bargaining rights over anything but wages, and requiring any wage rise above the rate of inflation to be approved by a statewide referendum vote.

No such controls are proposed, of course, for the gargantuan salaries of corporate CEOs or the windfall profits of the banks and big business.

Nor will there be any limits imposed on the financial institutions that handle the issuing of state bonds—headed by Citigroup, the lead underwriter.

The “sacrifices” decreed by the governor apply only to working people: Walker has actually increased the state deficit to provide tax cuts for Wisconsin-based corporations.

The events in Wisconsin are a clear indication that the US is entering a new period of social upheaval.

The working class is driven into struggle by the objective crisis of capitalism and by the determination of the ruling class to defend its wealth through a ruthless attack on all the rights of working people—the right to a job, to a living wage, to education, health care and a secure retirement.

The budget deficit in Wisconsin is a tiny fraction of the wealth of the country’s billionaires. Indeed, the total budget deficit of all 50 states is about one-tenth of the net wealth of only the 400 richest Americans.

This wealth, and the trillions expended to bail out the banks, must be reclaimed to meet the basic social needs of vast majority of the population.

What is required is a political struggle, which begins from the understanding that nothing can be defended so long as the working class is subordinated to the Democratic Party and the capitalist two-party system.

The representatives of the capitalist class, in proclaiming that the preservation of capitalism requires the destruction of the jobs and living conditions of the vast majority of the population, are in fact acknowledging the historical bankruptcy of the system they defend.

The reemergence of the class struggle will bring with it a revival of the fight for socialism. As the American working class enters a new era of social upheaval, the critical task now is the building of a revolutionary party to lead these struggles.