Richmond, California City Council Stands in Solidarity with Wisconsin Workers -- Ask Your Local Government to Do the Same

On Friday, March 11, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed into law a bill which severely curbs the collective bargaining rights of Wisconsin's public workers’ unions.  Police and firefighters were made exempt in a clear attempt to divide and conquer. 

In response, the City Council of Richmond, California voted unanimously to stand in solidarity with Wisconsin's public employees.  The solidarity resolution was introduced by Councilmember Jeff Ritterman and co-sponsored by Green Party Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and Councilmember Jovanka Beckles.  Ritterman, McLaughlin and Beckels are all members of the Richmond Progressive Alliance.  The resolution will be sent to leaders of Wisconsin’s unions as well as to the city councils of neighboring cities.  

The Richmond resolution criticizes Governor Walker's union busting law as a continuation of the war on working Americans started by former President Ronald Reagan when he fired the 12,000 striking Air Traffic Controllers.  The resolution claims that Reagan's action ushered in a thirty year war by the wealthy against working class and middle class Americans.  Reagan's union busting efforts, the resolution asserts, were part of the most massive upward shift of wealth and income in United States history.  

Governor Walker cited Reagan's action as part of his inspiration in attacking Wisconsin's Public Employees unions during a recorded phone conversation with an activist pretending to be right wing billionaire David Koch.  The notorious Koch brothers are major financial backers of Walker.  They are major funders of the cynically named astroturf group Americans for Prosperity, the group which has organized the counter-demonstrations in Madison in favor of the right wing agenda.  The Koch brothers have also been major funders of climate change deniers groups.   

The economic claims made in Richmond's resolution come, in part, from the ground breaking research of University of California at Berkeley Economics Professor Emmanuel Saez who received both the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal and a MacArthur Genius Award for his work.  Professor Saez and his Paris based colleague, Thomas Picketty have reviewed U. S. income tax data dating back to World War I.  What they found is amazing and shocking and confirms the claim in the Richmond resolution.  Saez and Picketty found that the U.S. is now more unequal than at any time in the last one hundred years.  This unprecedented shift of wealth to those at the very top of the income pyramid has occurred over the last generation.  

The Richmond resolution goes on to explain that rising income inequality has devastating effects on both personal health and on our social environment.  Here again the resolution relies on hard data, this time from U.K. researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.  Their research shows that the U.S. is now the most unequal rich country on earth.  Wilkinson and Pickett have painstakingly shown that rising income inequality leads to a plethora of health and social problems including: lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, more drug use, less trust, more homicides, more teen pregnancies, lower scholastic achievement, more prisoners per capita, more obesity and even less recycling.

Governor Walker's attacks on Wisconsin workers have led to some of the largest demonstrations in recent U. S. history.  Will this right wing assault wake us all out of our slumber?  Will the demonstrations lead to lasting structural progressive change?  It is clearly a teachable moment.  It is also a moment where it is incumbent upon us all to do what we can to defend workers’ rights.  For an entire generation, wealth and power has been transferred to the very top.  It's time to reverse this trend.