Tim Birkley interviews Egyptian revolutionary Sarah Kamal
Today Tim Birkley, the Vice President of AFSCME Local 60, from Madison, Wisconsin will head to the big city. AFSCME Madison sent him on a mission; a quest to explain how declining unionization rates has helped to swell the wealth and power of the corporate elite. Once in New York he will seek out the fabled Zuccotti Park AKA Liberty Square.
Tim said that he is going to Occupy Wall Street to interview and talk to as many people as possible while there as an act of solidarity and to explain that he sees the Occupy movement as an extension of the what the labor movement did in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana earlier this year. He will be discussing how we do not live in a trickle down economy like the right wing says but a trickle up economy, “Where we bail out banks and corporations and then give tax breaks to the same.”
His focus is on how all of this correlates to rising healthcare costs and smaller paychecks, how the working people and the poor are burdened with regressive taxes like the sales and property tax while the one progressive tax, the federal income tax, has been slashed for the rich and corporations get the benefits of a safe marketplace while not paying a dime for that safety.
Asked what role he saw unions playing in leveling the playing field between the 1% and the 99% going forward, Tim said:
These protests are an organizing tool…this allows us to show the how the income of the 99% has declined at the same time as union membership declined. We need to start occupying workplaces, we need to organize and take back or we become a corporate society. We should not be afraid to organize. This is an educational opportunity for unions.
Tim is also going to be promoting the AFSCME Resolution to support a National Week of Action to Tell Congress WE NEED JOBS NOT CUTS! November 16–23:
WHEREAS, working people and the poor face an historic unemployment crisis and the danger of the deepest cuts in decades in federal funding of essential social services; and
WHEREAS, there is a desperate need for major resources to be directed toward a large federal program of public works to create jobs; and
WHEREAS, polls such as the September 15th New York Times/CBS News poll show that 80% of Americans would support a program of federal spending on infrastructure like bridges, airports, and schools as a means to create jobs; and
WHEREAS, Congress set up a bipartisan Super Committee to propose at least $1.2 trillion of cuts to the federal budget, possibly much more, by November 23; and
WHEREAS, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—the three most essential and popular social programs working people depend on—could face unprecedented historic cuts; and
WHEREAS, by organizing major protests in Madison in solidarity with other cities doing the same, we have a rare opportunity to attract media attention and have an impact on this national debate,
BE IT RESOLVED that AFSCME Local 60 endorses the National Week of Action for Jobs Not Cuts and supports building the largest possible protest on Saturday, November 19 in Madison to let Congress know our opposition to these unprecedented attacks; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the protest adopts the following basic demands:
- Hands off Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid! No cuts to education and social services!
- We need jobs, not cuts! Fund a federal public works program to create millions of jobs!
- Make Big Business Pay! For Major Tax hikes on the super-rich and corporations!
- End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan! Slash Pentagon spending!
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that AFSCME Local 60 mobilizes its members and supporters to the protest; and
AND BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that copies of this resolution are sent to the South Central Federation of Labor with a request that SCFL endorse this protest and mobilize all its affiliated organizations, members, and supporters to the protest.
Initial endorsers include:
Organizations - Massachusetts Nurses Association, Teaching Assistants Association(UW-Madison), WashTech/CWA Local 37083, AFSCME Local 2858(Chicago), Stephen Edwards (President, AFSCME Local 2858, Chicago, IL), Wisconsin Resists, US-Uncut Madison, Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party, Veterans for Peace – Chapter 111(Bellingham,WA), Socialist Alternative, Olympia Coalition for a Fair Budget, Parents Organizing for Welfare and Economic Rights.
Individuals – Steve Early (labor journalist), Tim Birkley(Vice President of AFSCME local 60 – Madison, WI – personal capacity), Noam Chomsky(Political author, activist; Professor Emeritus in Linguistics & Philosophy, MIT), Chris Hedges (Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, former New York Times correspondent), Cindy Sheehan (leading antiwar activist & Host of Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox), Matt Gonzalez (Former President, San Francisco Board of Supervisors) Farheen Hakeem (National Co-chair of the Green Party of the United States), Jill Stein (Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party), Howie Hawkins (2010 Green candidate for NY Governor), Gloria Mattera (Chair, Green Party of Brooklyn, NY), Dan La Botz (teacher, writer, activist)
If you are at Occupy Wall Street and you run into Tim, talk to him. It will be well worth your time.
11:25 AM PT: Just want to make a quick update, AFSCME Local 60 is the endorser of the resolution, not AFSCME as a whole.