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We don’t recall seeing nor reading any news coverage of this rather newsworthy story in any of Milwaukee’s news outlets—do you? Why do you suppose that is? This isn’t merely a local Sheboygan story—not when the story takes place in the State Capitol’s Rotunda.
On Thursday, March 20, 2012, during a visit to the Capitol, some Wisconsin high school students from Sheboygan Lutheran High School, in town for the state high school basketball playoffs decided to check out the Capitol rotunda. While there, they witnessed protesters singing about unions and solidarity, so they decided to drown them out with pro-Walker chants.
Originally published May 31, 2012 at FOX BUSINESS Network (FBN), Stuart Varney says there is a pushback coming against public labor unions and not just in Wisconsin.
How many of you know what happened in Philadelphia in the summer of 1944?
We would like to share with our readers how members of what is today’s AFL-CIO Union “distinguished” themselves as unpatriotic, racists during WWII. It may help shape your view of public sector unions which is at the heart of Wisconsin's recall primary on Tuesday and the recall election in June.
During World War II Philadelphia was the number two war production city in the United States, that is until it was crippled by the worst U.S. transportation strike during the war.
In the first week of August 1944, employees of the Philadelphia Transit Company (PTC) effectively shut down the city's transit system, defying both the federal government and their own union. A wildcat strike, which lasted for six days, halted much of the city's war production, was in response to aPTC decision to promote eight African Americans to the position of motormen (trolley car driver). In the decade leading to what would become known as the “hate strike,” African Americans had demanded that the PTC hire them as bus and trolley drivers, motormen and conductors, and station cashiers. However, in August 1944, the Company refused to hire any new African American employees and all of the company's 537 current black employees were restricted to menial and backbreaking jobs in its maintenance divisions and primarily worked as porters and messengers and were not permitted to interact with the public. Many transit companies around the country employed similar discriminatory hiring practices. The PTC system was owned in-part by the city and was one of the largest transit systems in the country, carrying 2,500,000 passengers daily.
Due to this war-time strike, 900,000 war production workers who poduced everything from hub caps to vital radar equipment were forced to hitch hike to work, others trudged miles in Philadelphia's sweltering August heat—or just stayed home. Army & Navy officials estimated that at least 500,000 man-hours of war production were lost due to this illegal strike. In addition, Philadelphia's taverns and liquor stores were shut down by police and department stores lost thousands of dollars in trade.
The genesis of this historic unerasible black mark on the AFL-CIO began in March, 1944, when Philadelphia’s transportation workers elected the Transport Workers Union (TWU), Local 234, an affiliate of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), as its official bargaining agent. The TWU promised to make racial equality the highest priority in contract negotiations.
The former bargaining agent, Philadelphia Rapid Transit Employees Union (PRTEU) had close ties to the company and supported its racist hiring practices. The PRTEU contract expired in April of 1944, and as contract talks with the TWU dragged on for months, the PTC received pressure to integrate its workforce from both the federal Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) and the TWU. The PTC ignored this pressure, providing the excuse that it wanted to await a new TWU contract.
Maybe worst of all, just two months earlier (June 6, 1944—D-Day) allied forces had landed on the beaches of Normandy, France on their way to liberating Europe—leading to the end of WWII and the Third Reich’s fascist reign of terror.
In this video, community elders and passionate participants in Germantown, Pennsylvania’s “Speaks Project, “ answer students questions on the history of Germantown, and describe life in Philadelphia during the public transportation strike of 1944, when US Marines had to be brought to Philadelphia to ensure the safety of African American drivers and motormen. This video was uploaded to YouTube in 2010.
“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history... the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”
—Opening page Dedication, Rules for Radicals By Saul Alinsky
"The MacIver Institute of Wisconsin reported today that the State’s teachers’ union (WEAC) is "being guided by the philosophy of radical leftist Saul Alinsky."In fact, the National Education Association (NEA) the largest teachers union in the United States included Alinsky’sRules for Radicals on its members’ recommended reading list page. A check of the NEA website today revealed that this page has been scrubbed from NEA’s website. Fortunately, we were able to locate this pdf copy that the bumblers at NEA evidently overlooked.
Saul David Alinsky is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing. The late Conservative author, William F. Buckley said he was "very close to being an organizational genius.”
The MacIver Institute of Wisconsin has been closely following the pro-union protests that started in Madison last year has done a great job of bringing to light interesting stories (fake doctor notes). And it hasn’t disappointed with one of its latest videos, which takes you inside the courtroom as protesters try and mount a defense for why they disobeyed police in August and refused to vacate the capitol.
The following video does a good job of laying out the story, so we won’t bore you by repeating details. But what we will say is this: the protesters were eventually found guilty ($200 fine plus court costs), and just wait until you hear their defense.We're sure their English and history teachers would be proud of them.
Here's the bottom line, the protesters claim that when police told the group to vacate the building because it was closing, the cops never told each one individually. They also believe that police would have been able to do their job (close the capitol) even if the protesters were left to sit in the rotunda. Our favorite line comes when defendant Damon Terrell claims he would have eventually gotten bored and left. How's that for conviction for "THE CAUSE."
Listen to college student and defendant Damon Terrell and his co-defendants, "colleges," as Terrell refers to them, defend themselves. in court. This is what our schools and universities are turning out.
Wisconsin's chief executive reports progress in convincing Illinois companies to move north.
In this interview with THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Governor Scott Walker says that Wisconsin’s agricultural exports (corn, soy beans, dairy and cranberries) have increased 35 percent.
Meanwhile Mayor Tom Taylor and the Franklin Common Council, specifically Alderman Steve F. Taylor and Alderman Skowronski’s usual corporate cronyism with regard to the Ryan Creek interceptor Project, along with the mayor's plans for a business park in that area will likely reduce farm land in the City.
Will Walker’s optimism translate into economic growth for the City of Franklin? In this interview Walker specifically mentions the potential in Pleasant Prairie, Kenosha, and Racine. Apparently Walker hasn’t heard of Mayor Taylor’sForward Franklin EDC brain-child.
Gov. Scott Walker: Why I took on the Unions
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on ObamaCare, the impact of his collective bargaining reforms, and the possibility of a recall election.
Monday, June 4, 2012 at 7:01 AM 
