Back to Wisconsin

“On Wisconsin” is the fight song of the University of Wisconsin.

“Back to Wisconsin” is the fight song of the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund and other organizations determined to continue a successful “red zone” defense against anti-union political zealots.

Organized labor – with considerable assistance from the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund – helped engineer the recall of two Wisconsin state senators who plotted to eliminate collective bargaining rights for state workers in that state, and then defeated, at the ballot box, an Ohio legislative attempt to do the same.

Elected lawmakers nationwide, as well as political analysts, fully digested that those successes by organized labor and its friends and now recognize organized labor is not to be abused or ignored. 

Now the focus turns to a recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the architect of the Wisconsin assault on collective bargaining rights and organized labor. A successful recall could stop dead in its tracks further efforts by anti-labor zealots — nationwide and in Congress — to attack the fundamental rights of working Americans to organize and bargain collectively.

Indeed, in union there is strength, and now that strength is being focused on obtaining 540,000 signatures of Wisconsin voters to force a recall of Gov. Walker – the anti-union politician who started this unnecessary fight.

As the Associated Press reported, the drive to collect the 540,000 signatures is “fueled by anger over Walker’s successful push to take away nearly all public worker collective bargaining rights.”

It is fueled also by recognition among working families — union and non-union — that this was only the opening salvo in an effort to destroy labor unions and return America to the days when workers were entirely beholden to the daily whims of management.

In Wisconsin, the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund is helping to organize rallies, buy television and radio air time to explain the recall effort, engage in door-to-door canvassing of voters, operate phone banks, send letters to the editor, meet with media editorial boards, and establish “sign the petition” booths throughout the state.

Less than two weeks into the recall campaign, volunteers have collected more than 300,000 signatures. With 540,000 signatures, a recall election could be held as early as April 2012.

In an incredible statement, Gov. Walker told a Wisconsin radio station, in response to the rallies, “You see a total disregard for people’s families and others here.” One would have thought he was responding to his own anti-labor efforts.

For more information on the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund, click on the following link:

https://www.smart-union.org/collective-bargaining-defense-fund/