Huff Post: Wisconsin Protests: In Madison, Public And Private Unions Stand Side-By-Side

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/madison-public-private-unions-magnets_n_827707.html

Wisconsin Protests: In Madison, Public And Private Unions Stand Side-By-Side With 'Magnets In Our Shoulders'

Arthur Delaney HuffPost Reporting [e-mail]




MADISON, WIS -- For the past ten days, tens of thousands of union protesters have swarmed the state capitol building in Madison, Wis. to protest Republican Governor Scott Walker's proposal to yank collective bargaining rights from some public-sector unions.

But it isn't just students from the University of Wisconsin protesting alongside the nurses, teachers, and trash collectors Walker has directly targeted. Police officers and firefighters have joined the demonstrations even though Walker exempted them from his bill, and private sector workers from near and far have entered the fray as well. They see Walker's proposal not as an attempt to save the state money but as an attack on unions.

"Union workers support union workers," said Tom O'Grady, a 60-year-old sheet metal worker from Local 565 in Sun Prairie, a Madison suburb. O'Grady told HuffPost the same thing that many other union workers did: If they don't stick up for public union workers today, they'll lose their own bargaining rights as private union workers tomorrow. "Walker screwed up," O'Grady said. "He put magnets in our shoulders."

Walker's comments during a recorded prank call suggest the Republican governor is skeptical of such union solidarity.

FULL story at link.