America's Winter of Discontent: A Review of the New Anthology 'We Are Wisconsin'

When more than 100,000 students, nurses, teachers, firefighters, social workers, farmers, police, and sanitation workers occupied the Wisconsin state capital last winter, I listened to reports on public radio with equal parts interest and confusion. I grew up in a small town in Georgia where labor unions are practically nonexistent. The majority of my working-class community viewed unions as breeding grounds for “lazy” employees who wanted to get more for doing less. Becoming a union member was an action that could lose you the respect of your friends.

Like many Americans, I struggled with a knowledge gap about the important contributions of unions while still recognizing the need for strong institutions that push back against corporate power and greed. My education on the history of the labor movement began when I moved to Atlanta for college. I learned about the impact unions had made in the United States and I started to draw connections between worker’s rights and issues like racial equality and gender justice. As the news of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s now notorious budget-repair bill to slash benefits and remove collective bargaining rights for public workers moved beyond the borders of the Midwestern state, I saw an opportunity for self-education. I watched with rapt attention as the Wisconsinites who made up the largest labor battle in my lifetime braved freezing temperatures and falling snow to take a stand for working people.

As I saw the Madison protest unfold from New York City, Erica Sagrans did the same from London, England. During her temporary stay abroad, she found dwindling passions for the Democratic Party reignited by the citizens and senators who joined forces on behalf of worker’s rights. In 2008, President Barack Obama’s hope-and-change rhetoric had brought an enthusiastic Sagrans into national Democratic politics, but her optimistic mood soured when the actions of our commander in chief reflected a toothless centrism. Her frustration with electoral process continued to grow as the Republicans regained control of Congress during the 2010 midterm elections and effectively blocked any chance of progressive legislation while the economy continued to decline.

In February, however, Wisconsin turned Sagrans’ pessimism around. With a desire to inspire others who had been similarly disillusioned, Sagrans compiled the articles, blog posts, speeches, and tweets that came out of those three weeks in Madison into a nearly 300-page archive of collective action titled We Are Wisconsin: The Wisconsin Uprising in the Words of the Activists, Writers, and Everyday Wisconsinites Who Made It Happen (Tasora Books).

Told from the point of view of the people who were there, We Are Wisconsin captures an epic American story that includes large- and small-scale acts of citizen resistance and solidarity, national political intrigue, worldwide altruism in the form of continuous pizza delivery, a courageous decision to flee the state by 14 Democratic senators, a humiliating and damning prank phone call to Governor Walker, and a 16-day occupation of the state capitol building. The book brings together the disparate yet self-referential voices of first-time activists, experienced organizers, independent journalists, progressive academics, and many others whose voices weren’t well represented in mainstream media. It is an attempt to present an explicitly leftist version of the events in Wisconsin, the way things unfolded and concluded on the ground, and what impact the protest may have for the future of our country. While you can probably locate most of the content of the book on the Internet, Sagrans has mined the web for you and arranged the gems semi-chronologically in order to help the reader make sense of this episode of American history.