E.J. Dionne Jr.: Why Wisconsin Matters
[E.J. Dionne Jr. is a columnist for the WaPo.]
This is not the first time that Wisconsin has been at the center of national agitation over the role of unions.
The earlier battle was staged in Sheboygan at Kohler, the legendary manufacturer of kitchen, bath and furniture products. The Kohler employees had voted to join the United Auto Workers union, and a strike that began in April 1954 was not settled until the early 1960s.
In taking on the unions - as historian Kim Phillips-Fein recounts in "Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal" - Herbert Kohler, the president of the family company, became a hero to small manufacturers around the country....
That is the background for the confrontation between Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the state's public-employee unions. Private-sector workers are taking it on the chin, and conservatives now see a chance to cripple organized labor altogether by killing off public-sector unions, the most vibrant part of the movement. The underlying argument is actually insidious: If workers in the private sector have it bad, shouldn't workers in the public sector have it bad, too?...
Read entire article at WaPo
This is not the first time that Wisconsin has been at the center of national agitation over the role of unions.
The earlier battle was staged in Sheboygan at Kohler, the legendary manufacturer of kitchen, bath and furniture products. The Kohler employees had voted to join the United Auto Workers union, and a strike that began in April 1954 was not settled until the early 1960s.
In taking on the unions - as historian Kim Phillips-Fein recounts in "Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal" - Herbert Kohler, the president of the family company, became a hero to small manufacturers around the country....
That is the background for the confrontation between Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the state's public-employee unions. Private-sector workers are taking it on the chin, and conservatives now see a chance to cripple organized labor altogether by killing off public-sector unions, the most vibrant part of the movement. The underlying argument is actually insidious: If workers in the private sector have it bad, shouldn't workers in the public sector have it bad, too?...