Statement by the Communications Workers of America on last night's results in the Wisconsin recall:
We've heard a lot of back and forth about what the Wisconsin vote means.
It's clear to us at the Communications Workers of America that it
means that the 1 percent can reach into just about every aspect of our
political lives. And that must be stopped. Ordinary people will never
have economic and social justice if we continue down this road of
allowing big money in politics and allowing the 1 percent to set our
public policy and national agenda.
At the core of this fight is collective bargaining rights. Corporate
and right wing interests oppose public and private sector bargaining
rights, because organized workers have an independent voice in our
democracy.
Without bargaining rights, it's no surprise that workers' real wages
have been stagnant for 40 years, or that all the productivity gains
workers have produced over the past 30 years have ended up in corporate
profits or management payouts.
Without bargaining rights, we won't have an economic recovery. There
will be no effective consumer demand. That's the model that works in
established democracies like Germany and growing ones like Brazil. In
the U.S., however, we've allowed the 1 percent to work to destroy this
critical economic and public policy standard.
In Wisconsin, we saw right wing billionaires dump $40 million into
paid media and a ground campaign. We saw that just two donors to the
Walker campaign provided him with $3 million, more than Tom Barrett's
entire campaign fund.
CWA members and allies did amazing work in Wisconsin and tremendous
work on the ground. There were tens of thousands of volunteers knocking
on 800,000 doors and making 1.5 million phone calls. There were worksite
contacts and get-out-the-vote efforts that lasted long into election
night.
But in today's world, that doesn't stack up against the millions of
dollars the other side spent to stop workers from having bargaining
rights.
We need a renewed progressive movement — in workplaces, in the
streets and at the ballot box — to start to reverse results like those
of last night. That will happen.
For release June 6, 2012
Contact: Candice Johnson or Chuck Porcari, CWA Communications, 202-434-1168
cjohnson@cwa-union.org and cporcari@cwa-union.org
cjohnson@cwa-union.org and cporcari@cwa-union.org
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