4/13/2011

by Stewart Acuff

A Determination to Fight

Holding signs of unity and solidarity and determination to fight, thousands of Michigan unionists are rallying right now on the grounds of the Michigan State Capitol.

We are fighting Gov Snyder's and the radical rights assaults on collective bargaining, budget cuts, and their stealth attempt to enact right to work for less.

As in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Hampshire, Maine, and other states we know these are not budget fights, but very dangerous political fights designed to destroy the political effectiveness of the American labor movement.

If we don't win these fights and the political effectiveness of labor, the radical right will have a free road to destroy Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and the 40 hour week and weekends off and pensions and the minimum wage and public education--and the Middle Class.

So today in Lansing we are utility workers, cops and firefighters, teachers, auto workers, hotel workers, construction workers, public employees,  transportation workers, and the rest of the Michigan labor movement.

Though our density isn't what we would like, it doesn't take any imagination to look at this crowd and remember the lyrics of "Solidarity Forever"--"without our brains and muscle not single wheel would turn. "

We are in a class war in America, a war America cannot afford for us to lose.