It’s Not Time to Protest, It’s Time to Strike

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. In the years since, thanks in part to this effort, the Badger State has been called the “GOP’s laboratory for dismantling democracy.” Wisconsin was a good place to go after state workers—it’s the birthplace of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the first state to grant public workers the right to bargain as a group. He said public sector employees were “haves” while taxpayers were “have nots.” Walker even said he’d call out the National Guard if that’s what it took to get his bill through. Russ Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, has spoken openly of wanting to put federal workers “in trauma.” I can tell you from personal experience: He’s gotten his wish. Jim Cavenaugh, the retired president of SCFL, wonders whether things would have gone differently if protestors had officially called off work instead of trying to oust the governor: “It seems to me that some kind of withholding of services, by the affected employees at least—a jungle strike, a public sector strike—would have created more pain for the politicians.” No one knows what a general strike alternative timeline would have looked like.