Published 08 Apr, 2011
TWU members were key players in the nationwide mobilization of over a million workers, students and community members that produced at least 1,200 activities around the country on April 4th. It was a message to the rich and a sign of things to come. It was the beginning, not the end. A real movement has begun.
President Little has challenged TWU to stand in the front lines of the fight back movement sweeping the country. As Nick Unger of the AFL-CIO told TWU leaders assembled for the COPE conference Tuesday, we are facing the Gettysburg of our generation.
And the TWU is rising to the fight destiny has placed before us. This successful mobilization would not have been possible without the enthusiasm and spirit being demonstrated by TWU activists and members around the country. TWU members see the ugly concerted offensive being waged against working people by rich and greedy conservatives for what it is: a deadly serious attempt to strip working people of their voice and any ability to organize. We will continue to act in solidarity with workers under attack in Wisconsin, Ohio and every other state where billionaire-funded politicians are conspiring to strip workers, students and immigrants of the same rights Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought and died for 43 years ago.
Local TWU leaders took responsibility and represented the organization well. For some TWU members this was their first participation in mass protest and they took to it like fish to water. The attacks have aroused and awakened the labor movement.
With only a few days to work with, new WR=HR banners, t-shirts, buttons and stickers along with TWU bandannas were acquired and distributed across the country. A TWU-wide operation was assembled with a Working Group running a “War Room” out of TWU headquarters. Division coordinators and organizers were specially assigned around the country to manage the enormous logistics involved. This challenge put our capacity to the test—to mobilize nationwide, to coordinate, share information and work together for the same outcome. It helped us improve our capacity to take on battles to come.
April 4 may be over, but the action is only beginning. We cannot go back to sleep now. We have to build the fight back and move on the organizing challenges facing us, from Wisconsin to Ohio to Florida and around the country. We have referendums to get on the ballot, politicians to get unelected, streets that need to be filled with protesters, contract battles that need to be fought and won.
You will be hearing from us shortly about the next events in this unprecedented national fight: Workers’ Memorial Day on April 28, and “Imagine No Workers” on May 1st.
Critical Update! The federal government may be about to shut down because of deficit hypocrites in Washington. These are many of the same legislators who held up renewing emergency unemployment benefits until they got tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires extended.
In the days and weeks to come, working families across America will need to pull out all the stops to stand up to these extremist legislators who are emboldened by recent attacks on working people and will stop at nothing to pass a radical budget that raids benefits ordinary Americans rely on every day. The Republican budget plan includes privatizing Medicare and rigging our tax system to transfer yet more wealth from working people to corporations and rich CEOs.
We’ll be in touch soon—be ready to take quick action to save the middle class, because these scorched-earth proposals must not stand.