Thousands Stand Together as The Fight Continues

05/17/2011

Thousands Stand Together as The Fight Continues

On Saturday May 14, an estimated 20,000 gathered in Madison to stand up for their right to collectively bargain and their right to a fair budget. Nurses, Teachers, Social Workers, Fire Fighters, Police, Iron Workers, Steel Workers, college professors, Laborers, Electrical Workers, Teamsters, Machinists, students, clergy members and community members stood together in the streets of Madison to send a resounding message to Gov. Walker: stop the attacks on the middle class.

“This is grassroots stuff,” explained David Zeller a social worker with SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin. “This is the citizens of Wisconsin standing up to be heard.”

“We are here on May 14 to proclaim to the administration, to proclaim to the nation and to proclaim to the entire world that this fight is not over. The people of Wisconsin are as united and as determined as ever," exclaimed Phil Neuenfeldt, President of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. "Our voices will not be silenced. It seems that the only voice we have left, is the voice of recall, and this summer recall we shall.”

Working families have stood together and prevented Scott Walker’s radical plans to strip workers of their rights for three months now. Now, Scott Walker and his legislative allies are proving they will stop at nothing to push their agenda onto Wisconsin. In an attempt to circumvent the judicial process they are trying to incorporate the unpopular collective bargaining measures into the state budget. This past weekend thousands spoke out in Madison to say “No!”

“We are here because no matter what kind of security they put on it, this is still our house,” explained Mary Bell President of WEAC.

Ralliers expressed concern that GOP representatives are ramming through their right-wing priorities like corporate deregulation, school privatization, and voter suppression before recall elections can be held this summer.

“It is not just what they are proposing,” explained Randall Bryce, an Iron Worker from Milwaukee who had brought his son to the rally, “but how they are passing it that has people energized. It is clear the voices and concerns of Wisconsinites are being ignored. Try as they might to the energy is still here and we are not going anywhere until we are heard.”

“We have to reclaim our moral outrage, our sense of indignation,” said Mahlon Mitchell, President of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin. “We have to keep the pressure on and let them hear us.”

“To me standing with Wisconsin is about standing with women, standing with the poor, standing with the workers, standing with the children, standing with the farmers, standing with the disabled. It is about standing together for our rights and for justice,’ said Kabzuag Vag with Freedom Inc.

Speakers included Mary Bell of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, Leon Burzynski of Association for Retired Americans, former Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, Sen. Jon Erpenbach, Sarah Lloyd of Family Farm Defenders, Alex Hanna of the UW-Madison Teaching Assistants’ Association, Ben Manski of the Liberty Tree Foundation, Mahlon Mitchell of the Wisconsin Professional Fire Fighters Association, Phil Neuenfeldt of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, Students with Youth Empowered in the Struggle and Kabzaug Vag from Freedom Inc.

Click here for video footage of the rally.

For pictures of the Fight Continues Rally click here.

Posted at 04:10 PM in Affiliate Updates, Current Affairs, Jobs and Unemployment, State Legislative Updates, Take Action! | Permalink

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