Time Names “The Protester” Person of the Year; Main Street America’s Protesters Deserve A Bow

by Kate Childs Graham  |  December 14, 2011

Over 100,000 union members, working families, community members, faith leaders, activist groups and concerned citizens gathered in Madison, Wis. on Saturday, February 26. (Photo by Karen Hickey)

Before there was Occupy Wall Street there were hundreds of thousands of middle and working class protesters occupying Madison. This year a spark has been reignited. From the squares of Cairo to the streets of Columbus, people are pulling together and with one voice crying, “Enough is enough.” It makes sense, then, that Time magazine today named “The Protester” its Person of the Year.

Wherever people stood arm-in-arm to speak out for the working middle class this year, AFSCME members and their brothers and sisters from across the labor movement stood, too. Where people protested corporate greed and called out politicians determined to stifle the voices of workers, the men and women of Main Street America joined and, many times, led the call.

In Madison, Wis., the very place where AFSCME took root in 1936, workers protested unjust legislation that strips workers of collective bargaining rights and health and retirement benefits. What started as a gathering of just a few at the frigid and freezing Capitol quickly grew to more than 100,000. A coalition of unions and union supporters banded together to say, “We Are Wisconsin.”

One protester, by day an electronics technician for the city of Oshkosh, put it plainly:

“This bill would basically destroy the middle class. We’re not looking for money, we’re looking to maintain our benefit package.”

As the effort to destroy the middle class spread from Wisconsin to Michigan to Ohio, the protests too spread. Taking his cue from Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio launched his onslaught against the working middle class with Senate Bill 5, legislation that would have squelched collective bargaining in the state. Ohioans took to the streets, gathering at the Capitol in Columbus, just as frigid as Madison’s, to stand toe-to-toe with the governor. And the protesters did not stop until SB 5 was overturned in November.

In Washington, DC, New York and in dozens of other places across the country, American workers and their supporters could be seen continuing a rich tradition of protesting. Echoing the voices of the striking 1968 Memphis sanitation workers, AFSCME members have proclaimed that we are a people who deserve a fair shake.

Time’s protester may be faceless, but we know their faces and their names. They are workers. They are the people who make this country happen. They are the people determined to make this country, this world better.