New labor movement emerges in Scott Walker’s Wisconsin

New labor movement emerges in Scott Walker’s Wisconsin

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New rules, old tricks
On Jan. 5, 2012, a supervisor at the Lincoln Hills School in Merrill, Wis., ordered Ron McAllister, a youth counselor, to take off his AFSCME T-shirt — which didn’t violate standard dress code. After stripping to his bare chest, McAllister told the supervisor that he could go down to his union underwear if ordered to do so. Though administrators relented, 75 workers marched outside the school over the incident.

Before Act 10, says Marty Beil, the director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24, issues with work rules like these were handled through grievance procedures. Now, “we talk a lot with our local unions and our leadership to do direct action, because that’s really the only effective tool that we have left,” he says. “We have locals who don’t do that that clearly suffer from that.”

Under Act 10, he says, “Work sites have become hell holes. Every day there’s a new set of rules that people have to understand.” Act 10 prohibits union members from bargaining or filing grievances over day-to-day working conditions: shop-floor rules, scheduling, performance evaluations or even discrimination. Workers have responded with petitions of no confidence against their supervisors, confrontational appearances at administrative offices, and more creative tactics like McAllister’s. In kind, the eight staff that remain at Council 24 have seen their role drastically change. “Advocacy was pre–Act 10,” Beil says, referring to grievance procedures. “Organizing is our pathway to continue to be viable.”