The drama unfolding in Wisconsin is now in its second week, and as tens of thousands of workers and their supporters ring the state’s capitol expressing outrage over Union-busting Republican Governor Scott Walker’s bill, the impasse doesn’t appear to be headed towards a resolution anytime soon. AlterNet is staying on top of this momentous story, and here are the latest developments.
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Source: TruthDig.com
As many as 80,000 people marched to the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison on Saturday as part of an ongoing protest against newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to not just badger the state’s public employee unions, but to break them. The Madison uprising follows on the heels of those in the Middle East. A sign held by one university student, an Iraq War vet, read, “I went to Iraq and came home to Egypt?” Another read, “Walker: Mubarak of the Midwest.” Likewise, a photo has circulated in Madison of a young man at a rally in Cairo, with a sign reading, “Egypt supports Wisconsin workers: One world, one pain.” Meanwhile, Libyans continue to defy a violent government crackdown against masses seeking to oust longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and more than 10,000 marched Tuesday in Ohio to oppose Republican Gov. John Kasich’s attempted anti-union legislative putsch.
Source: Common Dreams
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker proposed last week to suddenly erase 50 years of collective-bargaining rights for Wisconsin’s public workers within a week, to be backed up by calling up the National Guard (Walker spokesmen later clarified that the Guard’s role would be limited to replacing prison guards).
Walker’s plan drew a crowd of 30,000 to 50,000 public workers and their supporters Wednesday at the State Capitol in Madison, united in their opposition to Republican plans to almost entirely take away their rights to union representation.
Source: Truthout
Chevron Petroleum Corporation is attempting to slither out of an $8 billion judgment rendered yesterday by a trial court in Ecuador for cancer deaths, illnesses and destruction caused by its Texaco unit.
I’ve been there, in Ecuador.
I met the victims. They didn’t lose their shrimp boats; they lost their kids. Emergildo Criollo, chief of the Cofan natives of the Amazon, told me about his three-year-old. “He went swimming, then began vomiting blood.” Then he died.
Source: The Progressive
Fifteen thousand Wisconsin workers and their supporters rallied at the state capitol in Madison on Tuesday to protest the governor’s vicious and unprecedented assault on union rights.
Newly elected Republican Governor Scott Walker, emboldened by a new Republican state senate and a new Republican state assembly, wasted no time in putting forward a bill to make it illegal for public sector workers to bargain on anything other than wages.
Signs of “Hosni Walker” and “Kill the Bill” dotted the crowd.
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