The confrontation between labor and politics at the Wisconsin Capitol was just starting as workers in Egypt who left their jobs and took to the streets toppled a government, and it wasn?t long before activists in Madison began invoking the spirit of that uprising. “Fight like an Egyptian” emerged one cry as picket signs cheering the people?s revolt half a world away were raised in protests on the Capitol Square.
Thousands have thronged the Capitol daily since large scale demonstrations began Feb. 14. Madison school teachers called in sick for several days to protest and on Feb. 21, the Madison-based South Central Federation of Labor took the unprecedented step of endorsing a general strike among its 45,000 members if Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial budget repair bill is made law.