One tactic used by Republican Governor Walker of Wisconsin and his corporate sponsors is a campaign to turn non-public and non-union workers against the unionized public workerss. It has had some success, at least at first, not only with Wisoncsin workers but with the general public across the country. It is an obvious “divide and conquer” tactic, which plays on jealousy under the comforting banner of fairness, i.e., “since I had to suffer a paycut in this recession, why should I pay taxes to support the public workers? Let them suffer, too;” or “We all have to suffer to bring down the deficit;” or “Government spending is out of control; we have to protect our grandkids who will have to pay off our debt.”
Listen to this interview of Frank Hammer (former President of the UAW) by Paul Jay of The Real News Network. Ask yourself: Since the recession was caused by Wall Street and the banks, it was not caused by the workers (unionized or not), why aren’t Governor Walker and the Republicans enhancing revenue through taxing the big banks, Wall Street, and the super-rich perpetrators of the crash, instead of only targeting spending, and only spending on workers and the middle class at that?
It seems that, at least in Wisconsin, other workers are beginning to ask those questions, and there is speculation about calling a general strike—- first time in generations such a tactic has been used in the U. S.
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