Madison GMB

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact:
Sam Green
773-857-1090

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INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD STATEMENT ON WISCONSIN SB 11 AND THE DEMONSTRATION IN MADISON

The Industrial Workers of the World stands in solidarity with all public and private sector workers in the state of Wisconsin during this trying time. The Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker, is attempting to close a 137 million dollar budget gap at the expense of the rights of state employees; effectively eliminating collective bargaining and destroying public sector unions. This bill is nothing less than a slap in the face to people who have dedicated their lives to serving the state and its people.

Madison, Wisconsin - Industrial Workers of the World
Emergency Mid-West Meeting
Madison Labor Temple
1602 South Park Street
Madison, WI 53715
2:30pm - 2nd Floor

At present, people are on the streets and in the Capital 24/7. The Tea Party will be at the capital on Saturday February 19 from noon-3pm. The Democrats have fled the state and a stalemate is ensuring.

Please consider coming this weekend and giving public workers the support they need. We will be making best use of the time that the Democrats have given us by holding an emergency meeting. We are expecting this situation to continue, allowing time for a deeper analysis. We are asking members to understand that we are working with the militant tendencies with-in the existing unions and asserting our perspectives when appropriate. This may be the half way point but it may also be the beginning. The situation is developing steady by itself but we need to direct it towards empowering the rank-n-filers. We will be developing short term strategies to push this forward and long term plans for support.

This will be a chaired meeting that is open to the public but you must have your red card to vote or pass motions. Delegates will be on hand to sign people up and pay dues up. There is a parking lot at the Labor Temple and the room can fit 70 people. We'll have a couple of guest speakers to brief the membership and bring them up to speed on the current events.

For those who can not come please consider supporting the Madison IWW financially.
Check:
Madison GMB Mail - PO Box 2442, Madison, WI 53703
Right now we are working on housing and logistical issues. Please contact Marty for housing at: mjk-333@att.net


Thank You,
Madison IWW secretary
Anthony
I.U. #330
Madison@iww.org

By the Madison, WI General Membership Branch of the IWW 

Bosses wage war to make money and workers are the ones who die in the process.

This fact should be obvious to most people. Yet many workers – along with their supposed unions – end up stoking the engines of an infernal war machine.

While many may secretly question the sanity of a capitalist system that sacrifices them and their children as cannon fodder on the altar of corporate profit, few are willing to challenge the power system behind such relentless warmongering.

It is indeed hard to tell when one war ends and another begins, when the current military industrial complex feeds itself, churning out fresh excuses and victims on a regular basis. The earlier “War to End All Wars” ends up leading to the latest “War on Terror.”

Of course, one’s notion of “terrorism” depends upon who is dropping bombs on whom. Guernica, Hiroshima, My Lai, Fallujah – all now serve as painful reminders of the bloodletting capacity of ruling elites to kill innocent people for their own short term self interest.

Why would working class folks want to go along with any of this?

Granted, there are those directly caught up in the military industrial complex who have few choices left. Soldiers, whether conscripted or recruited, find themselves in a “dog eat dog” world. Factory workers or university researchers may think the only way to butter their bread is to work for the Pentagon. Like selling slaves or harpooning whales, it can be hard to give up a “good” paying job, making anthrax or throwing grenades.

That elites could care less about workers is even more apparent when the latest warfare binge is used to curtail existing labor rights and bust more unions. Soldiers that survive the horror of war to return home still end up treated just like any other throwaway temp worker – dumped on society’s curb and left to fend for themselves. Are exploited Iraqi workers or crippled Afghani veterans really any different from those in the U.S.?

Thankfully, there have always been those who could not sleep with the complicity their work entailed and chose to take direct action instead. Roman gladiators joined slave revolts. Catholic missionaries supported indigenous rebels. French trade unionists sabotaged ordinance in solidarity with Algerian revolutionaries. U.S. sailors sank their own ships to make sure they didn’t reach the shores of Vietnam.

History is replete with examples of regular working class people who have successfully resisted the forces of militarism. Once you realize that the root cause of violence is often exploitation, it is much easier to identify the enemy that is at hand.

Better yet, there are those who go beyond challenging the status quo and are now actively building a new world from the ashes of the old. Destructive activities – like making bombs and dropping them – do not create a hopeful and prosperous future for anyone. Solidarity, mutual aid, common good, cooperation – those are the values around which one builds a better peaceful world. Economic conversion, though, requires cultural transformation. Can we learn nonviolent conflict resolution and ignore the orders to fight each other instead?

One labor union that has always opposed war, and still does, is the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Founded in 1905 in Chicago, many early IWW leaders were tossed in prison or deported for daring to ask why bosses were sending workers to kill each other in the trenches of WW1. Today, members of the IWW are still speaking truth to power - refusing to pay war taxes, joining counter recruiting efforts, supporting liberation struggles against imperialism, and otherwise seeking to halt the military industrial juggernaut in its tracks.