The Wisconsin Experience and the Election of 2016

Context and Positionality

We are two labor educators based in Madison, Wisconsin, where we are employed as faculty at the School for Workers, University of Wisconsin–Extension (UW). Beginning in February 2011, we witnessed and participated in extraordinary events of resistance and protest.

Newly elected Republican Governor Scott Walker, with the support of a state legislature with Republican majorities, had just completely taken over, and announced the outlines of his first proposed state budget. The budget was loaded with cuts to education and public services, but that was not the big surprise. The “bomb” that Walker implanted in his draft budget [his word] was the virtual gutting of legal collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin public workers. ¹

Even more surprising was the almost immediate and massive response. An organic movement of people from diverse working communities was set in motion and resulted in direct collective action at the State Capitol. Notable participants included teaching assistants from UW Madison, K-12 teachers, and public workers in the area. Teachers engaged in a de facto job action that converged on the Capitol, resulting in closed schools. Over the days and weeks that followed, those protests grew exponentially and encompassed communities throughout the state.

We are also both union members, but outside of our academic department, union members are scarce among UW educators. Despite that, many university educators, along with diverse others, expressed their opposition and increasingly joined daily protests. On weekends, protests at the Capitol swelled to easily over 100,000—no small feat in a city with a population barely exceeding 200,000. The protests drew wide support both nationally and internationally, and we are convinced that in 2011, a majority of Wisconsin residents disapproved of Walker’s effort to destroy collective bargaining in the public sector. It was a heady time—every day was Protest Day. Protesters passionately discussed how to expand their movement. Questions and discussion on what next steps were necessary to “kill the bill” and how to best defeat attacks on worker rights were common. What would it take? Increased class consciousness, increased electoral activity, or some other mass actions of resistance and/or disruption?

The latter was probably beyond our reach in 2011, because neither organized labor nor anybody else was prepared for mass resistance. The foundation and culture for mass resistance simply did not exist in either sufficient quantity or quality. The pattern of events that unfolded next eerily foreshadowed what would take place in our national election in 2016. Key leaders of organized labor called for an end to de facto work stoppages, and ultimately the occupation of the Capitol. Eventually, the mass protests dwindled. Recall elections of Scott Walker and other politicians became the focus (a return to a comfortable and safe position for labor—electoral politics), but those efforts for the most part failed.

Democratic Party opponents of Scott Walker and the Republicans put forth no clear agenda, other than that they were not Scott Walker. They did not speak much of collective bargaining rights or other social issues such as widespread declining standards of living, job losses, and the despair that has engulfed so many. And the Democrats lost badly in the recall vote of 2012, and the elections of 2014 and 2016. (Those interested in gaining a detailed almost visceral view of the events that took place in Wisconsin in 2011-2012 can find it in two excellent documentary films: “Divided We Fall,” created by Katherine Acosta, 2016, https://dividedwefall-movie.com/, and “Wisconsin Rising,” created by Sam Mayfield, 2014, http://www.wisconsinrising.com/.) In Wisconsin, and nationally, the Democratic Party has consistently lacked the clear message and progressive program that speak to many American workers’ increasingly desperate lives.

Republicans did well electorally in part because they could greatly outspend Democrats, but also in large part because crucial social issues were ignored or minimized by their opponents. At one Wisconsin central labor council, it was argued after the dismal election of 2014 that labor could be proud “because we turned out our vote.” Even if true, that was clearly insufficient and, some would argue, perhaps even counterproductive. Exit polls from the 2012 and 2016 elections showed that a substantial percentage of Wisconsin union family households voted against their own class interest and helped elect the very politicians that campaigned for and passed antilabor legislation. ²

In the wake of these defeats have come disillusion, depression, and much soul searching for many of us locally. Now, after the national election of 2016, this disillusion is taking place not only in Wisconsin but also on the national level. We hope for something positive to come out of this. Clearly neither organized labor nor progressives generally can afford to leave unaddressed the fundamental issues roiling our society. We must address the needs of communities we have either tacitly written off, or that we have given up on reaching. In short, it seems obvious that labor must return to its organizing roots and address core issues of power and powerlessness that labor and working communities face because of today’s global corporate dominated political economy.

The results of the election of 2016 in Wisconsin were surprising to the Democratic Party, organized labor, and many pundits and pollsters—not least to Hilary Clinton, who also failed to focus on major social issues and never even appeared in the state after she was nominated. But those results fit the same pattern that has prevailed in this state since 2010 and therefore should not be that surprising. We must either think and act anew about how as progressives and labor activists we respond to the social turmoil of today, or resign ourselves to endure more failures like those we have recently experienced. We know that some very hard times lay ahead, and we believe that there is potential to reverse these failures and start to move forward; but only if we change ourselves, and if organized labor and the progressive community change too.

The Future of Social Movement Unionism

We find hope for labor and progressive movements in the many social and economic justice organizations that are working to build collective pushback efforts. One such organization in Wisconsin is Voces De La Frontera. This organization has emerged as a leading statewide and national social movement organization that has bridged immigrant, worker, and labor rights. Voces is a complex, trusted, and effective democratic grassroots organization that has built a statewide membership that it activates and mobilizes as needed. Most recently, Voces called for economic boycotts in Wisconsin due to proposed anti-immigrant and antiworker legislation and mobilized upward to 60,000 protestors to the State Capitol on February 17, 2016, and over 40,000 people to Milwaukee for the 2017 May Day march. ³

Voces is leading multiple campaigns in Wisconsin. One of these campaigns focuses on worker rights and union organizing rooted in social movement unionism. Organized labor has an opportunity to embrace this movement and work alongside working communities, immigrants, and refugees, as well as workers who have been previously written off either consciously or subconsciously.

There are a great many in today’s American working class who do not see the relevance of either collective bargaining or organized labor to their lives. There are many reasons for this, but as long as unions’ main mission continues to be to almost exclusively represent their dwindling memberships, we cannot expect this situation to change. Organized labor, like the Democrats, has lacked a clear message and program that directly speaks to the vast majority of workers. Like Voces, the Fight for 15, and a myriad of labor, political and community organizing projects also point the way. We see a tremendous wave of opposition and resistance that is rising in this country, and we must either catch that wave or lose this historic opportunity. Organized labor and all progressives must organize locally and escalate nationally and, once again, build a social movement that will ultimately lead to humane societal change. The election of 2016 has provided us with fertile ground and a renewed purpose to do so.

Cesar Chavez was once asked, “How did you all build the UFW?” His response was one that was both simple and showed genius, “one person at a time.”