Protests continue in Madison, put focus on corporate agenda

A crowd estimated at 20,000 rallied in the Capitol square and heard from filmmaker Michael Moore, singer Michelle Shocked and others. While they demonstrated, organizers also collected signatures to recall several Republican senators who back Walker’s plan to strip many public workers of their workplace rights.

Unions with large contingents included the Amalgamated Transit Union, whose members converged on Madison from several Midwest states, including Minnesota; Teamsters, Laborers and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005 participated in Saturday\’s demonstrations in Madison, Wis. Workday Minnesota photos

“We’re here because, if we don’t support our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin, we’re going to be next,” said Marlin Jensen, a member of ATU Local 1005 in Minneapolis. “The power’s in numbers right now. The sleeping giant, I believe, is slowing being awakened and everyone is going to start to take notice.”

Transit Union members who operate the bus systems in several Wisconsin communities are among those who would lose their collective bargaining rights under Walkers’ “budget reform” bill, which also contains huge cuts to education and health care.

A group of physicians and other health care workers marched Saturday because under Walker’s budget, thousands of low-income Wisconsin residents would lose their access to health care. In the name of “budget reform,” Walker’s proposal also would reverse a state regulation requiring insurance companies operating in the state to provide coverage for birth control.

‘Financial coup de’etat’
Cuts to public schools, health care and other public services are not an unintended consequence of the current recession; they are the direct result of a corporate agenda – a “financial coup d’etat” – that has funneled more and more of the country’s wealth to a few people, filmmaker Michael Moore told the crowd.

“America is not broke,” Moore said. “That is what those in power would want you to believe, so you give up your pensions, cut your wages and settle for the life your great-grandparents had.”

He challenged the media to publicize the fact that the 400 richest Americans own more wealth than one-half of all Americans – combined.

“It is a shame,” he said.

He thanked the people of Wisconsin for taking the lead in protesting this corporate-driven agenda.

“Your message has inspired people in all 50 states,” Moore said. “And that message is ‘We have had it!’”

The crowd responded with cheers and chants of “We have had it!”

Singer Michelle Shocked sang a protest song from the Vietnam War, standing on steps where young people in the 1960s and ‘70s risked attack and arrest for speaking out. Madison commentators note the crowds that have descended on the city in the past month to oppose the Republican governor’s plans far exceed those of the Vietnam-era, even though Madison was a center of the anti-war movement.

“This is a manufactured crisis,” Shocked told the crowd. “This is not about money. This is about power.”

Related articles
View photos of the many signs at Saturday’s rally

See the Workday special section, Taking A Stand in Wisconsin

For more information

View video of Michael Moore and other speakers at Saturday’s protest on The Uptake website

More photos

"You have given hope and spirit not only to the labor movement, but working people all over the country," Amalgamated Transit Union President Larry Hanley told ATU members.

Doctors and other health care workers demonstrate in support of BadgerCare, the Wisconsin program providing health care coverage to thousands of state residents.

Several people carried inflatable palm trees at Saturday\’s protest to mock Fox News, which ran footage of a supposed altercation during the Madison demonstrations, but palm trees were clearly visible in the background. Fox News has yet to correct this error.