Advoken's Blog
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Category: Labor Movement
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Some people believe the clout of the police unions is too powerful and that they should be abolished, or at least weakened. Is that a way to begin reforming policing? No way! There’s a belief that politicians of both parties are scared stiff of retaliation by the police union if they support reforms. Others complain…
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Kenneth A. Germanson, president emeritus, Wisconsin Labor History Society, prepared this paper for the May 22, 2019, public input session at Kenosha concerning the proposed Wisconsin Historical Museum to be built in Madison. The state of Wisconsin was born and grew into a Great State thanks to the working people who toiled on the…
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For the first time since Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale in Wisconsin in the 1984 Presidential election, the state went red. How could that happen? It’s simple arithmetic: lack of voter turnout. Hillary Clinton could have easily won the Badger State if those voters who could be expected to favor her had turned out. She…
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Maybe it was the drag of the long debate, but Republicans supporting the right-to-work law used some weird arguments. “It’s for your own good,” they said over and over again to the union members and the Democratic legislators who opposed the bill as the debate continued in the Wisconsin Assembly overnight into Friday morning. (March…
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Far too many union members and African-Americans today may never have heard of A. Philip Randolph, not realizing the contributions he made both to the civil rights movement and to labor. Norman Hill, longtime labor and civil rights activist and president emeritus of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, outlined the major legacy that Randolph left…
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Myths continue to dominate discussions of the so-called right-to-work laws, as witnessed by letters to the editor and comments from columnists who should seem to know better. The principal myth is in the name, “Right-to-work,” since the law confers no right to a job for anyone! It’s an ancient bit of clever marketing by pro-business…
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Perhaps it’s time for loyal unionists to quit fooling ourselves. In recent years, many of us have wondered about the future of our unions, but any talk of our unions dying has rarely been tolerated. You’re only falling into the rhetoric of the anti-union crowd, was the warning. As we’ve watched the percentage of workers…
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A strong, vibrant labor movement is a must if our nation and its citizens are to thrive. As the percentage of workers in unions has fallen from a high nearly 60 years ago of 34% to the current 11%, so has the typical income of working families. The growing gap between the wealthy and all…
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The year 2011 was remarkable for two incidents that foretell the future as people struggle for economic equality in the United States. The first was the February and March uprising of workers in Wisconsin to preserve their right for public employee collective bargaining as well as to express their general concern with the attacks upon…
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