Here’s one quote you won’t find in the blog posts of Checker Finn, Rick Hess and Paul Peterson.

They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.

And the author of such a revolutionary doctrine? More »

In the last week, a significant wellspring of public support has appeared for public sector workers and unions under attack from far right Republican governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Florida, as well as from Mayor Bloomberg here in New York City.

By a nearly 2 to 1 margin Americans oppose the elimination of collective bargaining rights for public sector unions, the CBS-New York Times poll found. By a twenty point margin (56% to 37%) the public was opposed to “cutting the pay or benefits of public employees to reduce deficits.” More »

Ideologues among the axis of reactionary, corporate-funded “think tanks,” foundations and blogs profess to have learned core American values from the lessons and great figures of history. But the errors of their conclusions and the taint of their motivation are resoundingly revealed by the dictation of history and analysis: An unholy alliance between a small group of academics and corporatists who share an anti-union agenda with brazenly anti-democratic overtones is the focus of a fact-rich indictment by Leo Casey in Dissent Magazine.

Here is a great ad on the Wisconsin struggle that is up on the air throughout the state.

I just contributed to the cost of running the ad there: you can do the same here.

The New York Times editorializes against the union-busting in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and elsewhere. Take special note of the final paragraph.

Like a wind-whipped brush fire, the mass union protests that began in Madison, Wis., last week have spread to the capitals of Ohio and Indiana where Republican lawmakers also are trying to cripple the bargaining power of unions — and ultimately realize a cherished partisan dream of eradicating them. In each case, Republican talk of balancing budgets is cover for the real purpose of gutting the political force of middle-class state workers, who are steady supporters of Democrats and pose a threat to a growing conservative agenda.

In Ohio, Republican legislators, backed by Gov. John Kasich, have introduced a bill to end collective bargaining for state employees, in addition to imposing budgetary givebacks. Former Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat who was defeated by Mr. Kasich last year, has called the bill a “coordinated attack on the working middle class.” Thousands of union supporters showed up at the Capitol in Columbus on Tuesday, but the party appears to have the votes to pass the measure. More »

Freeloading Wisconsin state workers with cushy jobs lord their ’93 Nissan Sentras over everybody…

From the New York State AFL-CIO:

When workers in Wisconsin were faced with an unprecedented attack, they responded with an unprecedented show of solidarity. Now, we need your help to extend that energy everywhere.

Please join the “We Are One” solidarity rally tomorrow, Thursday, Feb. 24 at City Hall, 12 – 2 p.m.!

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has no time to talk to Democratic State Senators who left the state to bring his mad rush to pass union-busting legislation to a screeching halt, let alone a minute or two to share with Wisconsin unions, but he found quite a bit of free time to shoot the bull with a blogger who impersonated Tea Party billionaire David Koch. Here’s the entire conversation, in two parts.

What is remarkable is how freely Walker admits that the purpose of the “budget repair” bill is union-busting. The general tenor of the conversation was well-captured in this pithy selection:

“Koch”: Well, I tell you what, Scott: Once you crush these bastards, I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.
Walker: All right, that would be outstanding.

A little background on David Koch: he and his brother Charles Koch, billionaire owners of Koch Industries, were the target of a August 2010 New Yorker expose which revealed their central role in the funding of a far right political agenda, including a number of Tea Party projects. More »

UFT President Michael Mulgrew was among the many union leaders and elected officials who spoke out in support of union workers in Wisconsin at a City Hall news conference on Feb. 23.

WHAT: “We Are One” rally in New York City — for teachers, firefighters, nurses, construction workers and all workers who are under attack by governors and state legislatures.

WHEN: Tuesday, Feb. 22, at 5 p.m.

WHERE: FOX News Headquarters, 1211 6th Ave at 48th St, New York, NY

Paul Krugman in the New York Times:

Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker — demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday — Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”

It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did — after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.

In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew. For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.

Read the rest here.

The speaker in the following video, Kamal Abbas, is General Coordinator of the the Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services (CTUWS), an umbrella advocacy organization for independent unions in Egypt. The CTUWS, which was awarded the 1999 French Republic’s Human Rights Prize, suffered repeated harassment and attack by the Mubarak regime, and played a leading role in its overthrow. Abbas, who witnessed friends killed by the regime during the 1989 Helwan steel strike and was himself arrested and threatened numerous times, has received extensive international recognition for his union and civil society leadership.

KAMAL ABBAS: I am speaking to you from a place very close to Tahrir Square in Cairo, “Liberation Square”, which was the heart of the Revolution in Egypt. This is the place were many of our youth paid with their lives and blood in the struggle for our just rights.

From this place, I want you to know that we stand with you as you stood with us. More »