Rock the Vote Rally Energizes Wisconsin Recall Effort

by Clyde Weiss  |  June 02, 2012

Tom Morello invited the crowd to join him onstage at Friday night’s get-out-the-vote concert. (Photo by Greg Dixon)

MADISON, Wis. – The Labor Temple – where members from AFSCME and other unions and coalition partners have come to volunteer in a statewide effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker and four right-wing senators – turned into the site of a rock concert Friday that energized thousands for the final five days of the campaign.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, running to replace Walker as governor, made a surprise appearance at the concert, walking among his supporters and shaking hands. AFSCME supports Barrett because he wants to restore collective bargaining rights to public service workers.

Barrett supporters, including many AFSCME members, sat on the lawn or swayed to the beat of musicians Jackson Browne, Tim McIlrath of Rise Against, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Brother Ali and others who lent their talents to the cause of restoring workers’ rights in Wisconsin.

“It’s absolutely imperative that we, as workers, take back the right to have collective bargaining – the right to have our voices heard together,” said Mike French, a nursing home activities assistant in Dane County and a member of Local 705 (AFSCME Council 40). French took a break from the music to say he has been talking to people “nonstop” through phone banking and by meeting people at their homes, encouraging them to vote for Barrett.

“I think it’s going to be a very successful campaign for Tom Barrett, and I will be part of history – a small part of history, but I will have helped make this happen,” French added.

“The reality is that we all need to be able to put food on the table and feed our kids. Governor Walker could not care less about me. He could not care less about working families. He says he wants jobs, but he wants jobs for people making $4 an hour, or less. You can’t feed a family on that much money.”

Kate Burkholder, vice president of Local 705 (AFSCME Council 40). (Photo by Greg Dixon)

“To me, it’s about restoring what was taken away from working families when Walker stripped unions of their bargaining rights,” said Kate Burkholder, a certified nursing assistant (CNA) and vice president of Local 705 (Council 40). She has been door-knocking for Barrett and planned to work a phone bank this weekend.

People outside of Wisconsin need to know that if Walker wins, “it’s going to be a domino effect across the country,” Burkholder said. “Unions will be endangered in every state. We’ve got to stop it here.”

Recent polling shows that anti-worker Governor Walker is in a dead heat with his opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, in the recall election set for next Tuesday. Other polls show Barrett within the margin of error – a strong sign of support, given that Walker so far has raised $30 million to hang onto his office, mostly from out of state. Barrett has raised just $3.9 million since he entered the race on March 30 – mostly from within Wisconsin.

Most of Walker’s financial support is from wealthy business people determined to turn Wisconsin into a right-to-work (for less) state. Among his top out-of-state backers is billionaire right-wing extremist David Koch, and Wal-Mart heiress Christy Walton (whom Forbes lists as the richest woman in the world, with a net worth of $25.3 billion).

Walker also has received much of his in-state money from Wisconsin billionaire Diane Hendricks, the state’s richest woman. The Wisconsin Journal Sentinel recently reported Hendricks paid no state income tax for 2010. Hendricks made controversial headlines recently when a videotape emerged showing her talking with Walker about making Wisconsin a right-to-work (for less) state. In it, the governor speaks of using a “divide and conquer” strategy to pass a bill revoking the collective bargaining rights of more than 200,000 public service employees. See that video here.

Darold Lowe, president of Subchapter 52 of AFSCME Retirees in Madison, was among the throng enjoying the rock-the-vote concert Friday. He said he is door-knocking at union households and making phone calls on behalf of the Alliance for Retired Americans (for whom he is treasurer) to protect the basic right of workers to negotiate with their employers through collective bargaining. “They came after us, they came after workers in Ohio, they came after workers in Indiana, and people should start to think about what could happen to their own collective bargaining rights” if Walker beats the recall, Lowe said.

“The collective bargaining we got from Gov. Gaylord Nelson in 1959 is what built AFSCME in the state of Wisconsin,” he added.

“Whatever we do in this election is going to affect us for a long time,” said Arlyn Halvorson, a Dane County highway department worker and president of Local 65 (AFSCME Council 40).