by Tula Connell, Feb 21, 2011
John August, executive director of Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions and native Wisconsinite, sends us this on events there. The coalition is an alliance of 29 local unions representing 90,000 health care workers.
I am a proud Wisconsinite—not just because of the recent victory of the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl 45, but also because of the state’s great progressive traditions. Those traditions include a strong labor movement and the birth of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the major public sector union, in 1936.
Yet all of those great, progressive traditions are fragile.
In many states today, including Wisconsin, public sector employees’ jobs, wages and benefits are on the line. The very right to have effective collective bargaining for public employees is at great risk all across the country.
