On Friday 11 February governor Scott Walker declared war on public sector workers in the US state of Wisconsin by trying to ban trade unions.
Scott Walker’s attacks on Wisconsin teachers and other public sector workers are part of a national agenda to privatise public institutions and destroy public sector unions.
International Women’s Day, which marks its 100th anniversary this year, is now celebrated across the world on 8 March.
The battle in Wisconsin has seen hundreds of thousands of US workers rediscover their power. In the most powerful protests for many years, public sector workers—with the support of students, war veterans, pensioners, local campaigners and even some police—have brought the city of Madison to a standstill.
Wisconsin was the site of crucial battles in the 1930s and 1950s. It was the first state to win collective bargaining rights for workers in 1959. In 1934 strikes at the Kohler Company—a huge plumbing supply firm—shook the state.
President Barack Obama is the architect of the economic policies that ultimately lead to attacks on workers’ rights and living conditions across the US.
The police have played a contradictory role during the Wisconsin struggle. Much has been made of the police attending the occupation to support the protests.
The battle between Wisconsin’s unions and the state’s Republican governor Scott Walker moved to a new level on Saturday when over 100,000 people marched and rallied in support of union rights at the State Capitol building in Madison.
Between 1918 and 1923 revolution erupted in Germany. Open class warfare gripped the country with uprisings, mass strikes and army mutinies. Armed workers clashed with counter-revolutionary paramilitaries.
The US is reeling after revolution threw out one of its major allies, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. For the American ruling class, the revolt invokes terrible memories of Iran in 1979—where a revolution brought down Iran’s ruler, the Shah.
The light of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the only successful workers’ insurrection in history so far, still burns bright almost 100 years on. Its story contains lessons for all those fighting for change today.
