#StateSOS #WIunion #Solidarity Actors Bradley Whitford, Joshua Lewis, Gabrielle Carteris support unions Appleton Post Crescent | postcrescent.com

Actors Bradley Whitford, Joshua Lewis, Gabrielle Carteris show support of unions by joining Madison protests | Appleton Post Crescent | postcrescent.com

Actors Bradley Whitford, Joshua Lewis, Gabrielle Carteris show support of unions by joining Madison protests

12:14 PM, Feb. 26, 2011 |

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MADISON – Actor Bradley Whitford wasn’t in Madison to meet the governor Saturday.

The Madison native, who has starred in numerous films and television roles, including his best-known role as Josh Lyman on The West Wing, has met many politicians before. But today he was in town to speak to the people, the tens of thousands people who protesting for workers rights at the Capitol.

Watch: Live Streaming Now from the Capitol in Madison | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG #StateSOS #WIunion #SolidarityWI

Watch: Live Streaming Now from the Capitol in Madison | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG

Watch: Live Streaming Now from the Capitol in Madison by Tula Connell, Feb 26, 2011

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Check out live webstreaming of the action from the capitol in Madison. Click here to watch. A band is playing “America the Beautiful” right now.

You can also comment on the live feed. Here’s some of what people are saying:

TessTyFy: NON Union workers support the UNIONS, whether teachers, firefighter, police or plummers… We know where our wage value came from !

kandrs: whats next after teachers and police and firefighters this country will falter

octormandible: agreed Tess! I’m not in a union, but that doesn’t mean I don’t support them!you

christophorrick: I donated $65 in pizza and tip, I can donate $64 to fix the budget

FOK News Channel | Friends of Keith Olbermann #StateSOS #WIunion #SolidarityWI

FOK News Channel | Friends of Keith Olbermann

Wisconsin and “The Union”

Posted on February 25, 2011

When I was 21 years old I had a great boss. The problem was, he had a terrible boss.

He’d hired me, cold out of college, the year before. It was a strict union shop – United Press International, Wire Service Guild – and so it paid on seniority and I didn’t have any, so that first half-year all he had to pay me was $8,710. Six radio sportscasts a night on a network serving a thousand stations, and a two-minute commentary and I had to write breaking updates and reports and call up players for interviews, and I had to take in the “feeds” of interviews from our stringers at the ballparks and edit them by hand with a razor blade and splicing tape, and on the weekends I also had to ‘engineer’ a newscast or two, and every once in a long while I’d get back-to-back days off. Read more »

Rallying from the kitchen table « Teacher Write #StateSOS #WIunion #SolidarityWI

Rallying from the kitchen table « Teacher Write

Rallying from the kitchen table

by Laura

Today is the perfect day to take a drive down to San Francisco: the sky is blue, the air is crisp, and a tiny bit of snow (the first in 30 years) dusted the City this morning. But while my friends and colleagues rally today in San Francisco (and across the country) for our fellow workers in Wisconsin, I am at home, working. I would rather be in San Francisco — I am an activist and protestor at heart — but my work, as it so often does, has crept into my weekend. And so this is what I will be doing today as I rally from my kitchen table:

1. Grading papers. No, I don’t mean the “right/wrong,” “true/false,” “noun/verb” kind of correcting. Instead of “grading papers,” I really should say “responding to papers,” but most people wouldn’t know what that means. I

No unions: Government by the rich, for the rich - CNN.com #StateSOS #WIunion #SolidarityWI

No unions: Government by the rich, for the rich - CNN.com

No unions: Government by the rich, for the rich

By Ken Bernstein, Special to CNN

February 24, 2011 5:50 a.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Ken Bernstein: Public workers under attack; collective bargaining rights targeted
• Breaking unions gives corporations, GOP allies even more power, Bernstein says
• Bernstein: Wealthy should pay fair share in taxes; public workers did not cause gap
• Unions gave us 40-hour week, benefits, higher wages, paid vacations, sick leave, he writes

Editor's note: Kenneth Bernstein is a National Board certified social studies teacher at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he serves as the lead union representative for the teachers. He blogs as "teacherken" at Daily Kos and has written for The New York Times, Teacher, and Huffington Post. He is a 2010 Washington Post Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher.

Recent weeks have seen attacks on public employees in several states. In New Jersey, Ohio, and Wisconsin, newly elected Republican governors are seeking to remove the right to collective bargaining, except perhaps on wages, and to eliminate or shift a major portion of the costs for pensions upon the workers.

Longstanding procedures that guarantee due process for experienced teachers, commonly called tenure, are being targeted for elimination.

Let's be clear what is going on. Only three of the top 10 spenders in the most recent elections were unions. Among the others were

Modern School: Jersey Workers Take Fight to Capital #NJEA #StateSOS #WIunion #SolidarityWI

Modern School: Jersey Workers Take Fight to Capital

Jersey Workers Take Fight to Capital

by Michael Dunn

The class war continues to spread, as thousands protested outside the New Jersey Capitol in freezing rain on Friday. Gov. Chris Christie has called for drastic cuts to education, health, transportation and other services. He wants public workers to pay for 30% of their benefits, while refusing to renew a tax on millionaires. The benefits cuts would amount to a $5,000 pay cut for teachers. Christie also wants to gut tenure protections and increase privatization of public schools.

As typical, the union bosses were there, too, shedding crocodile tears for their members, while bending over backwards to accommodate the demands of the ruling elite. AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka, for example, suggested that union leaders were willing to "find reasonable

Live Blog from California State Capitol Rally for Wisconsin | Reflections on Teaching #StateSOS #WIunion #SolidarityWI

Live Blog from California State Capitol Rally for Wisconsin | Reflections on Teaching

Live Blog from California State Capitol Rally for Wisconsin

February 26th, 2011 by alicemercer · No Comments · politics/policy

Tags: weareone·wearewisconsin·wiunion

Rally in Support of Wisconsin Public Workers

February 24th, 2011 by alicemercer · No Comments · politics/policy

You can read about my experience at Tuesday’s rally at the California State Capitol here. It includes a slideshow with pictures including some from Larry Ferlazzo (sans the weird slideshow he used).

Women's History, Wisconsin, and Vietnam #StateSOS #WIunion #SolidarityWI

Women's History, Wisconsin, and Vietnam

Support

Wisconsin's

Teachers

Photos by Barbara J. Miner

______________

See Labor Resources

"If teacher unions want to be strong and well-supported, it's essential that they not only be teacher unionists but teachers of unionism. We need to create a generation of students who support teachers and the movement of teachers for their rights." -- Howard Zinn in an interview with Bob Peterson forTransforming Teacher Unions

Workers Of America Unite: Pro-Union Rallies Cropping Up Nationwide | TPM Photo Galleries #StateSOS #WIunion #SolidarityWI

Workers Of America Unite: Pro-Union Rallies Cropping Up Nationwide | TPM Photo Galleries

Workers Of America Unite: Pro-Union Rallies Cropping Up Nationwide

February 23, 2011: As people continue to flood the Wisconsin State Capitol to protest Gov. Scott Walker's (R) proposal to ban collective bargaining for most of the state's public employees, rallies in support of Wisconsin unions are now being organized across the country. Pro-union demonstrations have been held over the past few days in Boston, Indianapolis, Denver, Columbus, and Washington D.C.

On Tuesday, people in Ohio protested a similar measure proposed by Gov. John Kasich (R) that would roll back public employee union rights.

Mike Elicson/via SEIU

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Busting unions will 'wake sleeping giant,' local boss says #StateSOS #WIunion #SolidarityWI #awakefl #pfla #sayfie

Busting unions will 'wake sleeping giant,' local boss says

Busting unions will 'wake sleeping giant,' local boss says

Local unions are closely watching Wisconsin's public union showdown with an eye toward protecting their members from what some see as a movement sweeping the nation to limit bargaining rights.

"We're preparing them that they may come under attack for their bargaining rights and (they need to) be able to do something about it," said Barbara Watson of the Service Employees International Union, which represents Palm Beach County School District custodians, bus drivers and secretaries.

Florida is already a right-to-work state, which means unions can't require employees to be members. This year, the legislature will consider a bill that would remove the unions' ability to deduct dues automatically from members' paychecks.

"Those kinds of laws that are intending to break the unions and take away teacher voices are sweeping the country," said Robert Dow, president of the Palm Beach County teachers union. "It's not just teacher unions; it's all unions."

Long before Wisconsin's teachers, police officers and firefighters walked off the job to protest at the capital, Florida claimed a

New York Labor History: Norma Rae: Ron Liebman's Speech #StateSOS #WIunion #SolidarityWI

New York Labor History: Norma Rae: Ron Liebman's Speech

Norma Rae: Ron Liebman's Speech

from american rhetoric

Warshovsky: On October 8th, 1970, my grandfather, Isaac Abraham Warshovsky, age 87, died in his sleep in New York city. On the following Friday morning, his funeral was held. My mother and father attended. My two uncles from Brooklyn attended. And my aunt Minnie came up from Florida. Also present were 862 members of The Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the Cloth, Hat and Cap Makers Union of America -- also members of his family.
In death, as in life, they stood at his side. They had fought battles with him, had bound the wounds of battle with him, had earned bread together and had broken it together. And when they spoke, they spoke in one voice and they were heard. And they were black and they were white and they were Irish and they were Polish and they were Catholic and they were Jews -- and they were one. That's what a union is -- one.
Ladies and gentlemen, the textile industry in which you are spending your lives and your substance, and in which your children and their children will spend their lives and their substance, is the only industry in the whole length and breadth of these United States of America that is not unionized. Therefore, they are free to exploit you, to lie to you, to cheat you and to take away from you what is rightfully yours -- your health, a decent wage, a fit place to work.
I would urge you to stop them by coming over to Room 31 at the Golden Cherry Motel and pick up a union card and sign it.
Yes, it comes from the Bible, according to the tribes of your fathers: "Ye shall inherit." But it comes from Reuben Warshovsky: Not unless you make it happen.
Thank you.

Saturday coffee with the cheeseheads. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Saturday coffee with the cheeseheads. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Saturday coffee with the cheeseheads.

by Fred Klonsky

We’ll stop at Mike and Susan’s and then we do a family caravan up to Madison.

We won’t be alone. Not by a long shot.

In every capital city in every one of the 50 states.

Damn, it feels good!

So when some guy sitting next to me at Peet’s this morning started talking about how public service unions had to give up their pensions I was in no mood.

“I’m a taxpayer!” the schmuck told me.

“So am I,” I say. “I get probably get taxed a larger percentage of my income than you.”