On the Union Strikes in Wisconsin

Just weeks ago, Wisconsin Governor Paul Walker passed a bill that turned the State's budget surplus into $140 million in tax breaks for big businesses. Now, as events have unfolded, he has declared that the state has a major "budget shortfall"(a code word in recent years for businesses and governments wishing to pass any extreme measure that will restrict the rights of citizens under the facade of "trimming expenditures") and that public sector unions will have to pay to fill the gaps. Walker's actions are only one example among many of state and local governments giving handouts to business while pilfering from average citizens to keep treasuries balanced. As we have seen in Wisconsin, even the Democrats(who claim to be in support of the unions and claim to be working for average people) have done nothing to alleviate this obvious breach of citizens' right to collectively organize to demand better working conditions and pay rates. As governors in Ohio and Indiana announce similar plans to hamper the livelihoods of average working people in exchange of maintaining the status quo of the privileged few, eruptions of protests have served as an awakening of what the financial crisis has really meant for average citizens. This attack on the rights of working people is not acceptable, and the 70,000 citizens who came to Wisconsin's capitol last Saturday have proved that it will not be accepted as another casualty of the so-called 'fiscal crisis.' We will not pay the balance of their profiteering, cronyism, and demands for increased profits as the unprivileged give up their rights. We will not pay their unending need for wealth as our nation continues to suffer an unemployment rate of 9%, even after economists have declared our recession "over." This is only proof that giving tax breaks to big business does not encourage 'job creation,' it merely lines their pockets ever further. We will not be the slaves of their profit motive.