This article by Jane Anne Morris was published on her website, DemocracyThemePark.org, on October 15, 2012.
What one can say with confidence is that…AFL-CIO business unionism does not meet the needs of working people at the end of the twentieth century. A qualitatively different unionism is needed. — Staughton Lynd, 1996
Madison, Wisconsin, September 2011. The world-famous Wisconsin Spring, sparked by a Republican attack on collective bargaining rights, took place two blocks from my apartment. Demonstrators were as taken aback as were Republicans at the unprecedented outpouring. For weeks it teetered on the edge of no one knew what, then collapsed into a “painfully moderate” denouement. But despite the fact that we were still “yelling at buildings” most of the time, for weeks it had an edgy do-it-yourself quality all too often missing at demos. For quite a while, no one was in charge, or, rather, everyone was in charge—an echo of the “We are all leaders” refrain of 1930s solidarity unionism and the Wobblies.
Perhaps the biggest lesson is how quickly the movement—what I call the Outpouring—was de-fanged. If such a spontaneous, unpredictable, roiling foment as we had here in Wisconsin does not lead to big changes for working people, and beyond—what would it take?
Repercussions and adjustments continue. The ball of yarn has not yet completely unraveled, but the paths not taken loom large. Labor will do better “next time” if it is as prepared as the Republicans were (bold program and strategy in hand) for this time. …
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