The Wisconsin Uprising Is a Bottom-Up Movement -- Should We Hope DC Leaders Don't Get in the Way?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/150134/the_wisconsin_uprising_is_a_bottom-up_movement_--_should_we_hope_dc_leaders_don%27t_get_in_the_way/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet_workplace

By Mike Elk (Mike Elk is a labor journalist and third-generation union organizer based in Washington, D.C. He writes frequently for In These Times, AlterNet, and the American Prospect. You can follow him on Twitter at @MikeElk.)

Labor struggles can't be won with TV ads, mouse-clicks or press releases.
March 5, 2011 |


Protesters pack the Wisconsin State Capitol building.
Photo Credit: Ken Ilio


Since the financial crisis and President Obama's election in the fall of 2008, there have been two major actions taken by working people that commanded the attention of America's financial elite -- the 2008 occupation of Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago and the current Wisconsin State Capitol occupation. Both events won enormous public support.

However, these types of events not only threatened economic elites that run our economy, but posed a challenge to established progressive leaders in Washington; how to incorporate them. The mass, spontaneous civil disobedience and direct action allowed workers to take matters into their own hands and upset the normal function of the insider relationships the progressive elite tend to rely upon.

As the president came into office in December 2008, United Electrical Workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago shook the world when they occupied their factory after its closure was announced. For eight days and nights, the factory occupation held the attention of state, national and international media as unions around the world issued statements of solidarity. Even President-elect Obama -- then in downtown Chicago, just miles away from the factory -- announced his support for the workers. The workers were ultimately successful in winning their legally owed severance from Bank of America. As a result of the attention drawn to the struggle, the workers were able to find an owner to reopen and run the factory.

Despite the success in Chicago, there was no follow-up in terms of factory occupations by unions, plants employing thousands continued to close under Obama with little resistance. The progressive movement has so far not responded to the economic crisis in the way that the activists during the Great Depression did. They did not engage in the mass campaign of factory occupations and strikes that led to the New Deal nor did they engage in the campaigns of nonviolent civil disobedience that won civil rights for African Americans in the 1960s. And little effort was made to incorporate the success of Republic Windows and Doors.

"There were these big expensive conferences where people talked about how to build a progressive movement, but never was I or anybody from our union invited to talk about how we could replicate the tension with the banks that led to victory at Republic Windows and Doors," said veteran UE political action director Chris Townsend. "Instead, the progressive movement just went back to relying on the same overpaid media consultants, playbook and insider relationships that had resulted in their betrayal during the Clinton administration and the Carter administration before that."

FULL 4 page story at link.

[msongs]

1. do you assume "DC leaders" are on the side of union workers? nt

[pacalo]

2. When properly explained, I'm able to see that it's a wise decision for Obama to

stay away from Wisconsin.

"But the reality is that there is just enough political access, financial assets and institutional interests to hinder and ultimately strangle a campaign, whose strategy must be built around tactics designed to create the level of disruption and uncertainty needed to force fundamental changes in how the economy is organized,"says Lerner. "That's why the campaign needs to be independent, and not controlled by institutions with too much to lose."

The progressive movement is at a turning point. Will we embrace the same passive messaging and point-and-click activism tactics that led to progressive defeat in the last two years? Or will progressives adopt the tactics of civil disobedience and direct action used during the 1930s and 1960s that lead to massive progressive gains?

It has to be a spontaneous, grassroots effort built on the workers' individual sense of being wronged, free of any "organized" meddling, that gives the movement the moral upperhand & the credibility it deserves. As noted by the author, this movement has been strictly born from word of mouth & look how massive it's become. Incredible.