Unions and their allies are planning rallies, vigils and press conferences in at least 27 states this week against what they see as a national attack on government employees that is a seminal moment for organized labor.
Demonstrations are spreading from Wisconsin and Ohio, where bills from Republican governors to curtail collective-bargaining rights have attracted thousands of protesters. Efforts include lobbying all week against measures in Indiana and a Friday AFL-CIO rally to warn New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie "not to balance the budget on the backs of middle-class families."
In West Virginia, numerous representatives from local labor organizations met with lawmakers and packed the House Judiciary Committee room for a noon press conference to show support of Wisconsin workers.
"I think it's a sad time in our country," state AFL-CIO president Kenny Perdue said Tuesday afternoon. Perdue said he felt the unions were being unfairly targeted for that state's fiscal problems.
"I don't see the unions as a problem," he said. "We believe in working people and making life better for working people...some people apparently don't like that and so here we are fighting this battle."
He warned that this was not just about breaking up a union, but breaking down the middle class of the economy.
Perdue said he hoped lawmakers in Wisconsin's leaders would end the stalemate and come back to the table and work out a compromise with the state's union workers.
States face deficits that may total $125 billion nationwide in the next fiscal year. Labor leaders say legislative battles over curbs on government employees' power and pay are an assault on unions and their support of the Democratic Party. The state collective-bargaining bills and the Washington showdown over federal spending, may answer fundamental questions about government's role and the future of the U.S. worker, they say.
"The Republican Party's strategy is to turn working Americans against one another-unionized versus non-unionized, public versus private, older workers close to retirement age against younger ones who don't believe Social Security will be there for them," Robert B. Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an e-mail. Reich was labor secretary under President Bill Clinton.
In 17 states, government employees are the subjects of efforts to restrict their union rights and curb earnings, said Steven Kreisberg, collective bargaining director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Measures are pending to limit negotiations, impose unpaid time off and cut pay, he said in a telephone interview from Washington. Bills to restrict collective bargaining are under consideration in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and Idaho, he said.
Christie and other Republican governors including Wisconsin's Scott Walker and John Kasich of Ohio say states and the nation are out of money, and governments at all levels need the tools to reduce budgets.
"Our bills are due, it's time for us to move forward," Walker, 43, said Monday at a press conference in the state Capitol in Madison. "We're going to balance the budget the right way, and we're not going to push it off to the next generation of taxpayers."
It's a critical moment for labor because of the share of membership now coming from government ranks, said John Russo, a professor and co-director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University in Ohio.
Nationwide, of the 14.7 million workers in unions last year, 7.6 million of them worked for governments, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Unions and their allies are holding "solidarity events" in Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey and 24 other states this week, Eddie Vale, an AFL-CIO spokesman, said in a telephone interview from Madison, Wis.
President Barack Obama has called the Wisconsin bill "an assault on unions." Organizing for America, the White House's political operation, is helping state Democrats make phone calls and perform other grassroots work in opposition to the legislation in Ohio, said Chris Redfern, chairman of the state party.
"It is, at the end of the day, one of those seminal moments in our political lifetimes: do we go back, or do we go forward?" Redfern said in a telephone interview.
Government unions are major contributors to Democrats as the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision has opened financial floodgates for money in politics. Last year, unions spent more than $200 million to try to maintain the party's control of Congress, following the $400 million they spent to elect Democrats to the White House and Congress in 2008, Bloomberg News reported Nov. 3.
Monday, the Arizona Democratic Party sent members an e- mail urging them to attend a statehouse rally or work on a "virtual phone bank" to let people know what's happening in Wisconsin.
The state became a flashpoint after Walker unveiled a "budget-repair bill" on Feb. 11 to help fill a $137 million deficit in the current fiscal year and an estimated $3.6 billion shortfall in the next biennium, Vale said.
The 50,000-member Indiana State Teachers Association and other labor groups plan events at the statehouse in Indianapolis every day this week, Jeff Harris, a spokesman for the state AFL- CIO, said in a telephone interview. The AFL-CIO is nation's largest union organization and says it represents more than 12 million people.
Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, who issued an executive order on his first day in 2005 that ended collective bargaining for state employees, supports a bill to limit teachers to negotiations for wages and wage-related benefits, spokeswoman Jane Jankowski said in an e-mail.